Wednesday, January 31, 2007

Larry King on Global Warming

We seldom watch Larry King, but tonight he had guests talking about Global Warming. One of his guests was Richard Lindzen who was essentially saying that Global Warming was hog-wash. My husband looked at me and said, " I wonder who funds him?" So we googled him and sure enough, there was an important fact that was not mentioned by Larry King.

According to Ross Gelbspan's book, "Boiling Point" Lindzen received $2,500 a day to consult with coal and oil interests here and abroad in the 1990s, a fact Lindzen does not refute.

... now don't you think that that is something that that Larry might have let his viewers know, if he wanted them to REALLY know the facts?

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Brazil is going to Privatize the Amazon Rainforst and "officially" allow logging

The Brazilian Ecosystem

The idea is this: Mr. da Silva, Brazil’s President, says that poachers are stealing the wood in the Amazon. Rather than lose the revenues, let it be managed, or leased out to private companies. The locals are being asked to "monitor." Many of the locals are hungry for food and they are supposed to police the logging of the trees?

Director of the Greenpeace campaign, Paulo Adario, explains that the policy is not designed for “sustainable” logging. It takes at least 45 years for some of the species to regenerate and the 30 year lease that has been granted gives not incentives for companies to act responsibly.

They have already found a new sawmill that just opened a few months ago that already has cut down their "fair share" for the year in two months and more is on the way. But the President of Brazil, that campaigned on environmental preservation is annoyed now because he says that the environmentalist get in the way and Brazil's economy needs to grow at 5% every year.

How priorities change once you are in power.

And little by little, those who stand up for the commonwealth, the common good, are killed or grow weary of fighting.

Too Many Lawsuits


Thanks to GW Bush and the neocons we can now thank for putting a stop to such frivilious lawsuits as:

1. Corporations knowingly making paint with led, even though it causes birth defects and mental retardation. The most they can be fined is $5,000.... Chump change for a multinational corporation that makes billions a year.

2. Pharmaceutical companies that make drugs they knowingly can kill people.

3. Gun makers who want immunity for products that kill and maim people.

4. Citizens who have been knowingly poisoned by their employer.

Lawsuits use to be a deterrent to faulty products. Corporation would calculate the costs of the lawsuits into their bottom line. The larger the penalty the more motive they had to avoid a "bad or hurtful" design.

Not any more. Nope, thanks to the Right-wing Think Tanks, the ignorant right-wing fanatics, corrupt politicians and the neocons that have stacked the courts with judiciary idealogs, we don't have to worry about consumer protection, or workers' rights. Nope, not to worry, those things have all been swept under the rug.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

A few new eco-friendly cars

Yellowstone is in trouble

Wind Farms

Great photos of the new Windfarms.

The Long Tail

Great book!

Electronic Voting Machines... new tests show they can be hacked

Here is part of an editoria by Adam Cohen, an Editorial Board member, who writes about legal issues, politics for the New York Times.

Prof. Edward Felton, a computer science professor at Princeton, conducted a study recently that found that it would not be at all difficult to hack into a Diebold machine that is the most commonly used electronic voting machine in the country.

Professor Felton’s two main findings were:

(1) Malicious software on a voting machine can “steal votes with little if any risk of detection.” It can also “modify all of the records, audit logs and counters kept by the voting machine, so that even careful forensic examination of these records will find nothing amiss.”

(2) “Anyone who has physical access to a voting machine, or to a memory card that will later be inserted into a machine, can install” malicious software in as little as one minute.

Prof. Aviel D. Rubin of Johns Hopkins University reached much the same conclusion. In a classroom exercise in 2004, he created a malicious code that was able to change the outcome of an election and then disappear without a trace.

These scenarios of intentional vote theft are the most alarming, but there is a lot that can go wrong simply by accident or with poor handling of the machines.

Voters using electronic machines have often reported that when they tried to cast a ballot, the machine “flipped” their votes from the candidate they selected to an opponent. In last November’s elections, reports of “vote flipping” were widespread, and in some cases they were confirmed by election officials. In Broward County, Fla., a spokeswoman for the Board of Elections told The Miami Herald that it is not uncommon for their electronic machines to get out of sync when they are used heavily, and to register votes incorrectly. When voters call the glitches to poll workers’ attention, she said, the machines can be recalibrated on the spot.

November's election brought reports of other problems with electronic voting last November, ranging from software glitches that caused votes to be counted twice to a faulty memory cartridge that caused votes to be added to races in which they were not cast. VotersUnite.org kept a log of problems reported in the media.

Orangutans from palm oil

They say in 12 years, the Orangutans will be extinct.

Rainforest destruction--hard to find pictures



Everwonder why it's so hard to find picture of rainforests being burned? Here is a rare glipse of the destruction...

Digital Media: the Next Frontier for Media Reform

The net neutrality is simply this: who do you want to filter your Internet content? You or big media conglomerates? Big media/big corporations want to control the content. Citizens want a place to have content to be neutral and be given equal time, ie. blogs, podcasts etc. Right now it's up to me what I read, listen to and watch on the Internet. Rupert Murdock and the neocons, want to control all the media and limit your and my freedom to have access to ALL content on the Internet. That is a nutshell is what this NET NUTERALITY is all about. The big corporate money people who are trying to take away our democracy will sugar coat it and try to make it sound like it's something that it's not. (Like the Bush "Clean Skies" campaign which was just a fancy way of twisting the truth and making busy people who don't really have time to pay attention, believe something that was not true.... like the Nazi's did.) If the big money corporations are allowed to destroy the neutrality of the Internet, then they will be able to shape the message and fill the airwaves and the Internet with their propaganda. It's something the average Joe needs to be aware of and something you need to let your representatives hear about!

Wednesday, January 10, 2007

Trees and Global Warming

Why are we cutting down our rain forests?

Global Warming


President Bush has said it.
A lot of government scientists have said it.
But until yesterday, it appeared that no news release on annual climate trends out of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration under the Bush White House had said unequivocally that a buildup of greenhouse gases was helping warm the climate....


See article By ANDREW C. REVKIN


Tuesday, January 09, 2007

Sunday, January 07, 2007

Universities check out Second Life

Here are some articles about Universities and Second Life

Unconsunsumption



Here's a group that is finding a way to recycle things that would normally end up in a landfill.

Social Networking for ecology minded activists

What can happen when people who are about the environment connect online. I'm going to check it out.

Verticle Farms


Here's a picture that was in Pleny Magazine showcasing an idea to grow our food locally and in skyscrapers. They are trying it in Holland. Like the hybrid, it has a luke warm reception here... But hybrids are everywhere now.

How to get rid off junkmail lists

According to Plenty Magazine, two organizations can help get your name off of junk mail lists:
41Pounds.org and Greendimes.com

Green Festivals

The Imperial Presidency 2.0

Great editorial on Bush, Iraq and our rights.

Attack of the Zombie Computers Is Growing Threat

Cause for concern....

Monday, January 01, 2007

New Year Reflections

A friend of mine wrote this piece and I wanted to share it with others... Thanks Mary Elizabeth for your thoughtful words of wisdom.
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My thoughts may be absurd but my belief is this past week’s events we witnessed between Christmas and New Years represent the theatre of the absurd. As United States’ political leaders spoke celebratory words about Gerald Ford, the 38th president who died on Tuesday, December 26, my feelings flowed from gratefulness to rage. Strong comments rang out about his honesty, humility and fairness when he embraced his presidential duties, the only person never voted into this office.

Simultaneously, many of these same people engineered the noose hanging of Saddam Hussein four days later. This act was enabled by United States leaders who deceitfully invaded Iraq three and a half years ago. Hussein’s death was surrounded by actions emanating from President Bush’s administration. I do not question Hussein’s villainous acts but I do question our leaders who have allowed Iraq to be on the verge of collapsing into a devastating hopeless crater.

The media presented gross pictures of a death we did not need stamped on our minds. Deaths of two very different world leaders happening in the same week are astounding and absurd. One was natural and the other was certain when his statute was destroyed in 2003..

Saturday evening I wept as I watched on television the funeral hearse and caravan of mourners slowly move through Washington to the Capitol for a state funeral to be held for President Ford. I wept for what happened to bring him to the Presidency. I wept for what our country has lost. I wept for the people of deceit who speak lies and for the people of honesty who speak truth. I wept for the people who have governed our country for the good of the people not of their political well being.

I wept for the life of Hussein who became a world villain and for the truth that more people died from our invasion of Iraq than were killed by his tyrannical acts. His death was revenge for his disregard of human life. This act will probably escalate the rage with the deaths of more Iraqis and our military. Increased killing does not assure peace.

Now my eyes are dry but my heart aches as I pray the peoples’ voice will be heard. I pray leaders who care more about the foundation of our country than their political future and how history will depict them will garner the strength to emulate the wisdom and prudence Mr. Ford portrayed for our country in crisis in 1974.

May decency, honesty, integrity, truth and fairness again be the hallmarks of our domestic and foreign policies. It is a tall order; however, I believe we the people have the will and power to support United States’ leaders who value these qualities. May every concerned person become active in restoring these essential values of our democracy throughout 2007.

Mary Elizabeth McIlvane
Writer, Poet maryelizmc@atlantic.net