Clarifying Priorities

During the months when my mother was dying of a brain tumor, and unable to speak or think coherently, I found myself somewhat distracted. In addition to the emotional issues, there were serious legal and financial and logistical problems to sort out. It was all very...engrossing, I guess you'd say, and I didn't have much attention left over for current events. If a fleet of swastika-covered UFOs had streamed forth from New Swabia to form a one-world government with the Greys and the Bilderbergers, I'm not sure I would've noticed.

Many of the decisions I made turned out to be good...or at least, not as bad as they could've been. But a lot of that was sheer dumb luck. God knows I wasn't thinking ahead, or following any kind of plan; I simply lashed out at immediate problems as they popped up, and put everything else on the back burner, for better or worse.

I wouldn't wish that mindset on anyone else, which is one of the many reasons I'm unlikely to be hired by the Wall Street Journal. A recent editorial gloats over evidence that public concern about global warming has declined, as economic traumas like losing a job or home, or declaring bankruptcy due to medical bills, make more pressing demands on their attention.

Tough economic times have a way of clarifying political priorities and forcing people to distinguish among needs, wishes —- and fantasies....Electorates all over the world are starting to question the climate-change received wisdom.

The WSJ supports this rather ghoulish argument with a survey by Australia's Lowy Institute, which "showed climate-change had fallen to the seventh 'most important' foreign-policy goal for the public."

The Australian public, that is. And while it did rank 7th as a foreign-policy goal, it still rated as "the 4th most critical threat facing Australia." (I believe this is known as "cherrypicking.") Also, the fact that economic issues are foremost on people's minds doesn't mean they're all free-market fanatics; for all I know, some of them may be strongly in favor of sending oil industry CEOs, glibertarian investment bankers, and WSJ editorialists to the guillotine, on the assumption that it'd solve many of our problems at one blow.

All things considered, invoking one disastrous side effect of anti-regulatory, cornucopian dogma as an argument against addressing another is kind of problematic. What's even more problematic, though, is the notion that tough economic times "clarify" our priorities, and cause us to make wiser or better decisions for ourselves and for society.

One of the things we're supposed to do, as proudly self-interested individuals whose private vice leads to public virtue, is eliminate the social safety net and replace it with uncoerced charity. Putting aside the fact that this is nightmarishly illogical, what happens to charitable giving in the times when it's needed most?

As Helmut at Phronesisaical notes, it declines as our priorities are clarified by our imminent ruin. In 2008, charitable contributions fell by two percent in current dollars, which is the largest decrease in four or five decades. The situation is actually far worse when you look at specific types of charity: for instance, donations to the human services sector comprised only nine percent of total giving, but "declined an estimated 12.7 percent in current dollars." And this happened in a year when "54 percent of human services charities saw an increase in need for their services."

The Giving Institute, which compiled these figures, makes the essential point:

Charities in this subsector are among the first to report increasing needs for their services and slower growth in contributions when the national economy slows its rate of growth.

Given that little detail, and these ones, it begins to look as though you can't necessarily rely on individuals to make socially beneficial decisions during tough economic times. That seems like a pretty good argument for strengthening the social safety net, and a pretty good argument against letting public opinion drive climate policy.

But of course, that's not how we roll.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein is joining 6 other Senators to demand that Speaker Nancy Pelosi approve a commission to recommend cuts to Medicare and Social Security - or else they'll refuse to vote to increase the US government's debt ceiling....

Cutting Medicare and Social Security benefits would be a truly insane, reckless, and radical act. At a time when the US economy is entering a period of long-term high unemployment, the very last thing you want to be doing is further undermining the ability of Americans, particularly the aged, to make ends meet.

Cuts in Social Security and Medicare will not only ripple through the economy in the form of reduced spending, they'll also ripple through younger generations, who will fill the gap lost by the cutting of government benefits with money out of their own pockets to help their elderly relatives make ends meet and get the treatment they need.

At which point, their priorities will be so wonderfully clear that they may ignore the climate altogether, and we can declare that Doomsday has been canceled due to lack of interest.

Strong Feelings and Twisted Logic

After the House passed the appalling Stupak-Pitts amendment, President Obama was quick to explain that it's OK for people of good will to disagree about stuff.

Saying the bill cannot change the status quo regarding the ban on federally funded abortions, the president said, "There are strong feelings on both sides" about an amendment passed Saturday and added to the legislation, "and what that tells me is that there needs to be some more work before we get to the point where we're not changing the status quo."

What intolerable fucking claptrap this is. There were strong feelings on both sides about slavery and segregation. There are strong feelings on both sides about global warming. There are strong feelings on both sides about the validity of Obama's goddamn birth certificate and his status as an Islamo-Marxist radical. At best, expressing strong feelings demonstrates only that one has strong feelings; often, it doesn't even demonstrate that. The fact that many politicians find it pleasing or profitable to hail themselves as God-appointed womb sheriffs doesn't make them worthy of respect; it makes them worthy of as many kicks in the balls as it takes to rid them of their creepy delusions.

Granted, this outlook can't easily be reconciled with "the art of the possible." But neither can kicking women in the teeth, yet again, in the name of a status quo that marginalizes and brutalizes them.

The idea that a woman must play second fiddle to a fetus, on the grounds that some enterprising sperm cell planted a man's flag inside her -- as though it were a submarine claiming drilling rights in the Arctic Circle -- is scientifically illiterate, theologically dubious, ethically unworkable, and morally incoherent. And I'm sick unto death of the idea that the ever-so-precious tax dollars of these oh-so-sensitive control addicts mustn't be spent on abortion. Especially since my equally strong feelings don't entitle me to opt out of funding two grotesque wars, or detention centers and border fences for immigrants, or the state oppression of women and gays; or paying the salary of a reactionary fuckhead like Bart Stupak; or providing high-quality healthcare to politicians who refuse it to others.

Anyway, getting back to this business of "strong feelings," you will have heard that Nidal Malik Hasan killed 13 people at Ft. Hood recently. Our President disapproves of this, as well he should. Harken unto him, my brethren and cistern:

One by one, President Barack Obama spoke the names and told the stories Tuesday of the 13 people slain in the Fort Hood shooting rampage, honoring their memories as he denounced the "twisted logic" that led to their deaths.

"No faith justifies these murderous and craven acts; no just and loving God looks upon them with favor," Obama told the crowd on a steamy Texas afternoon.

It's obvious that forcing women to procure illicit abortions will kill more than 13 people. It's obvious that refusing to give all Americans the healthcare they need, when they need it, will kill more people than a thousand Hasans could've. And above all, it's obvious that we're occupying two countries whose men, women, and children we routinely blast into bloody fragments, often for no greater crime than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But a faith justifies all of this, it seems, and a just and loving God looks upon it with favor.

Those who feel differently are free to say so, of course, as long as they respect the status quo as defined and maintained by those who don't, and are careful not to confuse a "strong opinion" with "twisted logic," no matter how many people it kills.

(Photo via The Situationist.)

The Test of the Market

Some "professor" has apparently been conducting "research" into sex toys, which just goes to show you how far academe has strayed from the path of Truth and Beauty. Instead of introducing new generations to cultural treasures like Plato's Phaedrus, Diderot's Les Bijoux Indiscrets, Swinburne's Whippingham Papers, and the Earl of Rochester's Signior Dildo, modern academics either bore them with nonsense about panoptic phallogocentrism, or distract them with subjects that are a bit too interesting, like the design and use of vibrating anal beads.

Luckily, George Leef has come up with a foolproof way to keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree.

We should put academic research to the test of the market: Will people voluntarily pay for it?

Will people voluntarily pay for research into sex toys and the sex-crazed sexoholics who love them? After a moment of communion with my soul, my answer is an emphatic yes. Will they pay as cheerfully for research into, say, Calvin's objections to mimetic Christology, or Jean Paul's influence on Herman Melville? Only time will tell.

Leef's pals 'n' gals at Phi Beta Cons tend to complain when academics discuss pop-culture phenomena like The Sopranos, despite the manifold blessings that program received from the Invisible Hand. And yet, we're now expected to believe that once the Free Market holds sway over academic research, American professors will be forced to stop fretting over the rhetoric of desire in lesbian vampire narratives, and apply themselves earnestly to the works of Hugo Grotius.

You don't have to be Karl Marx to understand that this isn't a reliable strategy for preserving the Classics. Which makes me wonder if Leef's goal is not to defend Western culture against the Hun, so much as to increase the power of redundantly wealthy ideologues over what is officially thinkable and knowable.

Incidentally, the stated purpose of the research in question is to assess the effectiveness of sex toys as an alternative to riskier sexual behaviors. Leef refers to this sarcastically as "vital academic research." I suppose that's what comes of living in an ivory tower.

Sunday Music Blogging

On a semi-related note, or series of notes, 12-Tone Classics.

Friday Kitten Blogging

By popular demand.

Friday Nudibranch Blogging

Friday Hope Blogging

Voters in Kalamazoo, MI passed an ordinance banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity:

The ordinance will add gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transgender individuals to an existing Kalamazoo city ordinance banning discrimination in housing, employment and public accommodations.

New York has enacted new protections for reproductive health workers:

Governor David A. Paterson today signed five bills into law including a bill to protect women’s access to reproductive health care facilities and a bill to ensure voters’ access to their correct polling places. Additionally, the Governor vetoed two bills that would have cost taxpayers $18.6 million over the next two years.

The signed bills include A.8924/S.6112, which provides enhanced penalties if a person causes physical injury to someone seeking to provide, obtain or assist in reproductive health care services. The bill was written shortly after the murder of Dr. George Tiller in Kansas, a tragedy that many health workers believe has emboldened those who engage threatening behavior and violent rhetoric at reproductive health care clinics.

California has passed a law against gender rating:

After Jan. 1, Health insurers and HMOs won't be able to charge women higher rates than men for the same type of individual policy.

A new law signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger earlier this week prohibits such discrimination, which resulted in women paying anywhere from 5% to 40% more then men for some coverages.

An Illinois state court has blocked implementation of that state's parental notification bill:

In a legal challenge brought by the ACLU, an Illinois state court yesterday issued an emergency order blocking a law that prevents teens from having an abortion unless they notify a parent or go to court. This victory ensures that teens throughout Illinois will continue to be safe and able to obtain the care that they need.

Although Maine's narrow defeat of same-sex marriage was disappointing, to say the least, progress was achieved elsewhere:

[I]t appears that Mark Kleinschmidt, an openly gay man, has been elected mayor of Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Detroit, St. Petersburg, Akron, Maplewood, Minnesota, and SALT LAKE CITY all elected their first openly gay or lesbian city council members.

Think about that last one for a minute. Salt Lake City, home of the headquarters of the Mormon Church, elected their first openly gay city council member. If that’s not a sign of progress, I’m not sure what is.

The Louisiana justice of the peace who refused to issue marriage licenses to interracial couples has resigned:

[Mary] Landrieu said Bardwell's refusal to marry the couple reflected terribly on the state.

"By resigning ... and ending his embarrassing tenure in office, Justice Bardwell has finally consented to the will of the vast majority of Louisiana citizens and nearly every governmental official in Louisiana ... We are better off without him in public service," she said.

In India, women who belong to an "untouchable" caste have created their own newspaper:

Many of the dozen or so women on the staff were beaten or sexually abused as children, married off young, endured abusive marriages and fought mightily for an education and a divorce. Often, the newspaper provides them with a voice on important issues for the first time in their lives along with a sense of confidence and purpose.

The paper is also a labour of love. Not only do they write the stories, which appear in a local minority language, they also edit, handle layout, proofread and solicit ads for its two editions. Staff members, paid between about €40 and €95 a month, spend several days each week lugging copies to distant villages, some only accessible by hiking trails.

The US is engaging diplomatically with Burma:

Washington's policy shift came after more than a decade of sanctions failed to force Burma to implement democratic reforms or release the country's estimated 2,200 political prisoners.

Campbell's visit comes amid signs that the junta may be willing to soften its stance against Aung San Suu Kyi, who said recently she supported Washington's fresh diplomatic approach.

(h/t: Cheryl Rofer.)

Spain understands that the nation that controls magnetism controls the universe.

Instead of moving goods on resource-intensive trains, Spain-based technology company Novateq Guerrero SNL wants to build out a different kind of transportation network–one that uses super-powerful magnets to propel vehicles. Novateq has already developed a prototype of its system, which uses Neodymium magnets, or rare-earth magnets, as a driving force. The magnets are 9 times more powerful than conventional models.

Novateq’s network leverages the attraction and repulsion of Neodymium-based magnetic fields modified with steel alloys to propel vehicles at will. The system is both simple and straightforward — it only requires occasional maintenance and lubrication, and it is expected to last much longer than other magnetically-powered transportation systems.

Putting boat tails on vehicles could save fuel and reduce emissions:

An articulated lorry was driven for a period of one year with a boat tail (of varying length) and one year without a boat tail. The improved aerodynamics, depending on the length of the boat tail, resulted in reduced fuel consumption (and emissions!) of up to 7.5 percent. The optimum boat tail length proved to be two metres.

The EPA will impose stricter standards on PVC plants:

The Environmental Protection Agency will set new nationwide emission standards for makers of polyvinyl chloride, commonly known as the plastic PVC, under a settlement with environmental groups announced Thursday.

EPA has agreed to set emission standards by July 29, 2011, for PVC manufacturers as part of a settlement with three environmental groups that sued EPA last year for failing to impose emission standards on PVC manufacturers in Louisiana.

Organized citizens have thwarted yet another coal plant:

We salute our tough band of local residents in South Dakota and Minnesota (the plant was proposed for northeastern South Dakota, near the border with Minnesota), who spent the last five years fighting this dirty coal plant. The Sierra Club also partnered with grassroots, state, and regional organizations during this long and difficult campaign. They knew how bad the air pollution and global warming contributions this plant would spew forth would be, they wanted clean energy for their region, and even when the going got tough, they never gave up.

Stopping the Big Stone II project prevented about 4.7 million tons of CO2, or the equivalent of the pollution from roughly 670,000 cars (substantially more than all the cars in South Dakota) from entering the atmosphere every year.

If you've ever wondered how much paper, adhesive, and energy it takes to put tiny labels on millions of pieces of fruit, you'll probably like this idea:

The laser-labeling system is being advertised as a non-intrusive, tamper-proof method of labeling fruit. So far, it is being used on a number of fruits and vegetables in New Zealand, Australia, and Pacific Rim countries. Once the technology is approved in the U.S., researchers from the University of Florida and the USDA Agricultural Research Service hope that it will be used in Florida’s massive grapefruit industry.

In recent tests, the research team found that laser-labeled Ruby Red grapefruits showed no increase in decay or water loss compared to their sticker-labeled counterparts. The grapefruit also remained free of pathogens–meaning the laser-etching doesn’t provide a new entry point for germs.

Two children suffering from a rare, fatal brain disease have apparently been treated successfully with gene therapy:

[T]he results regaring the gene therapy in adrenoleukodystrophy conducted in France have just been published in the prestigious journal Science. Two children have been treated and their diseases have been halted. The children are doing well, which is unexpected for a disease destroying the brain in a few months. This discovery opens up treatment perspectives for numerous widespread diseases.

A new study suggests that nontoxic pest control works better than repeated applications of insecticides:

A single use of such techniques in 13 New York City apartment buildings eliminated substantially more cockroaches and mice than repeated professional applications of pesticides in other buildings, according to a new study by the New York Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, Columbia University and the New York City Housing Authority.

In addition, asthma-triggering allergens related to cockroaches were between 40 and 70 percent lower in the residences using preventive techniques than those using standard insecticides, according to the study.

In Scotland, live oysters have been found decades after they were declared extinct:

Dr Janet Brown is also based at the Institute of Aquaculture. She said: "We thought that they had been overfished and it was pollution that had caused them to die out.

"Obviously some of them had survived and with improving water quality in the Forth there's no reason why we shouldn't be able to re-establish them."

This is fairly astonishing:

When small earthquakes shake the central U.S., citizens often fear the rumbles are signs a big earthquake is coming. Fortunately, new research instead shows that most of these earthquakes are aftershocks of big earthquakes (magnitude 7) in the New Madrid seismic zone that struck the Midwest almost 200 years ago....

"This sounds strange at first," said the study's lead author, Seth Stein, the William Deering Professor of Geological Sciences in the Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences at Northwestern. "On the San Andreas fault in California, aftershocks only continue for about 10 years. But in the middle of a continent, they go on much longer."

All this and cartozoology, too. Also: The Ern Malley Poetry Hoax (via wood s lot). Dutch picture books. Maps by Eduard Imhof. And drawings by Emma Kunz.


In other news: Grammar in Rhyme, Glottal Opera, and Okkulte Stimmen. The long string instrument. The Wood Type Museum. The spatuletailed hummingbird. A collection of dirty pictures (via Coudal). And autochromes by Charles Corbet.


Here's a short educational film, just to round things out.



(Photo at top by Insomnia. Click the link to see lots more.)

Revolutions are Always Verbose

The new issue of The Journal of Bloglandia is now available, and I'm pleased to say that it contains an ill-tempered piece by yours truly, as well as terrific essays by Chris Floyd, Lyn Jensen, and others.

I'm honored to be the runt in this litter, and I strongly endorse the J Bloglandia concept. You may think you've read these pieces before, but you'll find that reading them in analog is a different and much more rewarding experience. They have remarkable range and depth, with warmer midrange, punchier dynamics, more headroom, and none of the harsh digital highs, graininess, and mushy bass you tend to get online.

That being the case, I urge you to buy at least four copies: one for reading at home, one for reading at work, one for leaving in your dentist's office, and (of course) an archival copy to prove to your grandchildren that you were there when the blogosphere merged into a single whole the elemental destructive force of the masses and the conscious destructive force of the organization of revolutionaries.

The At-Risk Population

Yet another cartoon lightbulb has appeared over Bjorn Lomborg's head:

Limiting carbon emissions won't do much to stop disease in Zambia.

See, 'cause malaria is killing people now, whereas climate change may kill or otherwise inconvenience them at some point in the future. Let this be a lesson to all those warmists who insist that we must stop trying to prevent malaria!

Lomborg's not a denialist, so he naturally acknowledges that warming is expected to increase the prevalence of malaria:

Most estimates suggest that global warming will put 3% more of the Earth's population at risk of catching malaria by 2100. If we invest in the most efficient, global carbon cuts — designed to keep temperature rises under two degrees Celsius — we would spend a massive $40 trillion a year by 2100. In the best case scenario, we would reduce the at-risk population by only 3%.

The at-risk population for malaria, that is. Which is a comparatively minor issue, as AGW-related catastrophes go, given that we currently have far more reliable remedies for malaria than for sustained regional drought and famine, or the loss of a keystone species.

Regardless, Lomborg contrasts the eleventy-gazillion dollars it'll cost to reduce emissions with the relatively modest cost of investing in mosquito netting, and comes to the daring conclusion that mosquito netting is cheaper. Which is pretty fucking stupid, since controlling malaria is not the sole aim - nor even a major aim - of reducing emissions.

The sleight of hand on malaria obscures Lomborg's far more bizarre claim that "if we invest in the most efficient, global carbon cuts...we would spend a massive $40 trillion a year by 2100." Climate forecasting, as everyone knows, is dangerously unreliable. But there's apparently no problem with making an economic forecast in which ninety years of investment in efficiency (which presumably includes alternative energy and cleantech) result in steadily climbing costs, and deliver no meaningful benefit beyond maintaining the malaria caseload at its current level.

That, believe it or not, is the sunny outlook that's supposed to serve as an antidote to Algore's hollow-eyed thanatophilia.

Like all of Lomborg's best theories, this one is endorsed by the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which is kind of like saying that L. Ron Hubbard's views are endorsed by the Church of Scientology.

[S]pending $3 billion annually on mosquito nets, environmentally safe indoor DDT sprays, and subsidies for effective new combination therapies could halve the number of those infected with malaria within one decade. For the money it takes to save one life with carbon cuts, smarter policies could save 78,000 lives.

Again, Lomborg's treating malaria prevention as the goal of carbon cuts, which makes this calculation misleading at best. It's also interesting that a decade of investment in new pesticides and therapies will bring good results and a prompt ROI, while nine decades of investment in energy efficiency will bankrupt the entire planet and bring our deaths halfway to meet us.

In the real world, there are lots of benefits to improving efficiency and cutting emissions. Which is why I think Lomborg would be much better off attacking the Near-Earth Object Program and related alarmist busywork. The world spends huge sums of money to identify asteroids that may never come nearer than a million miles to the earth, and to develop equally expensive deflection strategies that -- let's face it -- probably wouldn't work if they ever became necessary. Shouldn't we be using these resources to eradicate one of the world's most devastating diseases, instead of fussing over some fanciful Doomsday scenario that we couldn't prevent even if it actually were a serious threat?

Alternatively, I suppose we could cut our military budget by one percent, and use the extra six billion dollars per year to address both problems, along with a few others.

It's even possible that a similar approach would allow us to reduce emissions and fight malaria at the very same time. But for some reason, fearless, irreverent, paradigm-shattering heretics like Lomborg never seem to argue along these lines; it's almost as though they understand that they'd vanish overnight from the American media's Rolodexes. As Cocteau said, one must always know how far to go too far.

Friday Nudibranch Blogging

Friday Hope Blogging

The Obama administration has extended the Ryan White HIV/AIDS bill, and will lift the HIV Travel and Immigration Ban.

The legislation provides care, treatment and support services to nearly half a million people, most of whom are low-income.

Obama also announced that the Department of Health and Human services has finally crafted a new regulation spelling the end to the HIV Travel and Immigration Ban....For 22 years, United States had one of the most restrictive policies on the immigration and travel of HIV-positive people in the world.

The House has passed an act aimed at reducing sexual assaults on cruise ships:

According to the bill, sexual and physical assaults have been the most prevalent crimes on cruise ships in the past five years. The bill would mandate that cruise vessel owners "maintain on the vessel adequate, in-date supplies of anti-retroviral medications and other medications designed to prevent sexually transmitted diseases after a sexual assault; equipment and materials for performing a medical examination in sexual assault cases to evaluate the patient for trauma, provide medical care, and preserve relevant medical evidence;" and provide free and immediate access to law enforcement, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the nearest US embassy, the Coast Guard, and sexual assault hotlines.

California has restored funding for domestic violence shelters:

Schwarzenegger had cut the funding as a line item veto when he signed the state's budget back in July, but legislation signed into law Wednesday afternoon restores the funding using money from the Renewable Fuel and Technology Fund.

A nationwide crackdown on child prostitution resulted in nearly 700 arrests and rescued more than 50 children:

Almost 1,600 agents and officers took part in the raids, which followed investigations in 36 cities, according to the FBI, local law enforcement agencies and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Included in the arrests were 60 suspected pimps, according to the FBI and local police officials. Authorities say the youngest victim was 10.

(h/t: Cheryl Rofer.)

Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton has come out against police enforcement of immigration law.

Some in Los Angeles have asked why the LAPD doesn’t participate. My officers can’t prevent or solve crimes if victims or witnesses are unwilling to talk to us because of the fear of being deported.

EBay has refused to allow supporters of Dr. George Tiller's murderer to run a benefit auction on his behalf:

Based on the details we know about the anticipated listings, we believe these would violate our policy regarding offensive material," the company said in a statement to The Kansas City Star. "EBay will not permit the items in question to be posted to the eBay site, and they will be removed if they are posted."

Treehugger discusses a new zinc-air battery:

Not quite as impressive on paper as the lithium-air battery we wrote about (which claimed 10x more energy storage than regular lithium-ion), but it might turn out to be easier to take out of the lab and bring to market. ReVolt Technology, a company based in Staefa, Switzerland, claims that its Zinc-air battery can "store three times the energy of lithium ion batteries, by volume, while costing only half as much," and unlike other existing air batteries, this one would be rechargeable. It is planning to start by selling small ones for hearing aids and then progressively scale up to portable electronics and electric cars.

Also at Treehugger, a hybrid car from 1916:

In a way, the Woods coupe was almost a full hybrid, in the sense that the electric motor could move the vehicle on its own (unlike most "assist" hybrids like the Honda Civic hybrid). The difference with a modern full hybrid (like the Prius) is that the this early hybrid couldn't use both sources of power at the same time (not to mention that regenerative braking was probably out of the question at the time).

But one thing that this old school hybrid had that modern ones still don't is a plug! Batteries were no doubt charged from the grid and not by the gasoline engine (that would have required more mechanical complexity).

Obama is allocating $3.4 billion to smart-grid technology:

President Barack Obama today announced the largest single energy grid modernization investment in U.S. history, funding a broad range of technologies that will spur the nation’s transition to a smarter, stronger, more efficient and reliable electric system. The end result will promote energy-saving choices for consumers, increase efficiency, and foster the growth of renewable energy sources like wind and solar.

Apropos of which, consider the microgrid:

The Smart Grid has officially stolen the cleantech spotlight this week, with the Department of Energy announcing the distribution of $3.4 billion in stimulus grants for utilities championing a cleaner, more efficient electrical grid. And this has set the stage for new, innovative grid ideas to gain some traction. One of the most promising: Microgrids, smaller-scale electrical systems spanning college campuses, municipalities and business parks, where energy is generated, stored and very closely managed on an intensely local level. And today, Pike Research released a report predicting microgrids to be a $2.1 billion market by 2015.

Since microgrids operate on their own, without being hooked into one of the larger national grids, there are less likely to be disruptions due to peak demand or excessive power loads. They are easier to repair and easier to automate with demand response or conservation programs. For example, it is much easier to make a difference with smart refrigerators (that only make ice during off-peak hours) on a microgrid, than on a larger scale.

A nonprofit group is turning shipping containers into clinics.

[A] new non-profit initiative called Containers 2 Clinics is creating modular health care clinics for developing countries. To do so, they are rescuing shipping containers and then outfitting them with all the necessary equipment to treat women and children....

C2C will also be a vital part of a data collection system to capture health and epidemiological data to gain a better understanding of disease vector control. Staff for the clinics will be found within the local community and job training will be provided by C2C. The clinic model also includes a low-cost pharmacy for medicine and essential health commodities, which will help provide revenue for the clinics as well as a chance for local entrepreneurship.

It's hard to believe, but apparently the United States used less water in 2005 than it did in 1975:

According to a new U.S. Geological Survey report, the U S is using less water now than during the peak years of 1975 and 1980, despite a 30 percent population increase during the same time period....The declines are attributed to the increased use of more efficient irrigation systems and alternative technologies at power plants.

Cambodia is creating a new wilderness reserve:

Cambodia's Royal Government's Council of Ministers has declared the creation of the Seima Protection Forest, a 1,100 square miles (2,849 square kilometers) park home to tigers, elephants, and endangered primates. The park's creation was developed in part by the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) "Carbon for Conservation" program, which intends to protect high-biodiversity ecosystems while raising funds through carbon sequestration schemes such as Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD).

The off-road racing industry has suffered another blow:

The Eldorado National Forest has withdrawn its approval of a five-year special event permit for dirt bike “enduro” races in the Rock Creek Recreational Trails Area in response to an appeal by the Center for Sierra Nevada Conservation and the Center for Biological Diversity. Advocates for quiet recreation, clean water, and wildlife habitat challenged the permit for failing to provide adequate environmental review of impacts to soil, water and air quality, riparian habitats, and imperiled species, including the California red-legged frog and western pond turtle.

A group called Republicans for Environmental Protection has created an ad that criticizes the oil industry's attack on Lindsey Graham:

Republicans for Environmental Protection began running television ads on October 30 across South Carolina supporting U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham for his strong leadership on energy and climate change....

The ad features State Senator John Courson, a Columbia Republican representing Lexington and Richland Counties, who calls oil companies and other special interests on the carpet for their misleading ads attacking Senator Graham.

And during the congressional investigation into the coal industry's forged anti-climate legislation letters, Rep. Jay Inslee pointed out that Steve Levitt and Stephen Dubner are liars.

They purported to quote a scientist named Ken Caldeira from Stanford who’s one of the predominant researchers in ocean acidification to suggest that Dr. Caldeira didn’t think we should control CO2. Which is an absolute deception. Dr. Caldeira I’ve spoken to personally. He’s told me we have to solve ocean acidification. You can’t solve ocean acidification without controlling CO2 and yet people are still trying to write books to deceive the American public. And we ought to blow the whistle on them, we’re blowing the whistle on one today, we’ll continue to do it, because ultimately science is going to triumph in this discussion.

In addition: Absolutely Nothing. A cosmic jewel box. A gallery of human expressions. Twenty circular snapshots. And via things, architectural fantasies by Iakov Chernikhov.


Synthetica, An Invented Land (and other maps). A new panoramic view of the Milky Way. Illustrations by Max Gschwind. Spirit photographs by William Hope. And bug trails.


Photos by E.B. Thompson. Illustrations from Der Orchideengarten. David Harvey's lectures on Capital. Assorted street posters. Examples of phototelegraphy. Mapping book censorship. And a album by Constance Sackville West (I could've sworn I posted this before, but it doesn't turn up in a search of the site).


Here's a movie for you, as well.



(Photo at top: "Stopwatch (2.5x)" by Dr. Rebekah R. Helton, 2009.)

Data and Logic

Steve Levitt explains economics:

Our question, at noted above, is what is the cheapest, fastest way to quickly cool the Earth. Like every question we tackle in Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics, we approach the question like economists, using data and logic to conclude that the answer to that question is geo-engineering....

And ocean acidification:

"Of course, ocean acidification is an important issue. Now, there are ways to deal with ocean acidification, right, it's actually, that's actually, we know exactly how to un-acidifiy the oceans, is to pour a bunch of base into it, so, so if that turns out to be an incredibly big problem, then we can deal with that."

(Photo by Rakka.)

Newes From America

Spirits are high today at Phi Beta Cons. First, George Leef "sums up the attitude of the hard-Left professoriate and administrators at many American colleges and universities":

Free Speech Is Good; Just Don't Say Anything We Dislike.

Then, David French complains that Prof. Gerald Horne has dared to write the following intolerable words:

Jonathan Brent expresses surprise — if not shock and disgust — at what he sees as the rehabilitation of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in contemporary Russia ("Postmodern Stalinism," The Chronicle Review, September 25).

Pray tell: Is there an analytical difference between the phenomenon he perceives and the glorification and hagiography that bedeck the slaveholding "founding fathers" of his own United States (not to mention those that founded the settler colonies upon which this slaveholding republic was based)? Or is the difference that in this latter case, after all, we are discussing the brutalization of only Africans, and in the former case, non-Africans — and we all know that the lives of one are worth more than the lives of the other? Or is the difference that Stalin's rule lasted 30-odd years while North American enslavement was a process that stretched over centuries?

While I do see some analytical differences between, say, Thomas Jefferson and Stalin, these are not completely outrageous questions. I probably would've mentioned the oppression and massacre of America's native population, but even without invoking that indisputable atrocity tedious leftist cliché, Prof. Horne has a point. Waxing indignant over Stalin's reign of terror, while insisting that everyone must let bygones be bygones when it comes to your own country's staggering crimes, is morally incoherent.

Maybe that's why French's post is titled "Words Fail": rather than trying to devise a logical argument for the brand of smug relativism favored by his ideological goon squad, French prefers to act as though the correctness of his views, like God's love, is too boundless and pure to be communicated in mere words. If you have to ask for an explanation, you've already damned yourself, and can be consigned to the same mental dustbin as the brutes who got in the way of our forefathers' bullets while trying to thwart what James Madison called "the benevolent plans which have been so meritoriously applied to the conversion of our aboriginal neighbors from the degradation and wretchedness of savage life."

The really nice thing is that French ends by saying, in regards to Prof. Horne, "Citizens of Texas, I present . . . your tax dollars at work." It almost sounds as though he's unhappy with free speech, just because someone happened to write a letter he disliked. Perhaps his colleague George Leef will explain that this is not how the Founding Fathers intended things to work (except for the ones who supported the Sedition Act of 1798, of course).

(Illustration: "Newes from America. The figure of the Indians' fort or palizado in New England and the manor of the destroying it by Captayne Underhill and Captayne Mason," 1638. Via Mashantucket Pequot Museum Libraries & Archives.)

Sunday Music Blogging

Friday Nudibranch Blogging

Friday Hope Blogging

At long last, hate crime protections apply to sexual orientation, gender identity, gender, and disability:

To assure its passage after years of frustrated efforts, Democratic supporters attached the measure to a must-pass $680 billion defense policy bill the Senate approved 68-29. The House passed the defense bill earlier this month.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio can no longer block inmates' access to abortion services:

Earlier this year, as part of a partial settlement in an ACLU lawsuit involving the right of women prisoners to obtain timely, safe and legal abortions, Arpaio agreed to follow a 2005 court order prohibiting Maricopa County correctional facilities from requiring inmates to obtain a court order before an abortion. However, in the course of settlement negotiations, Arpaio decided inmates must prepay transportation and security costs associated with obtaining the procedure. In his ruling today, Judge Robert H. Oberbilling of the Superior Court of Arizona indicated that requiring inmates to prepay security and transportation costs could be more onerous than the court order Sheriff Arpaio previously required.

"We are so pleased that Sheriff Arpaio can no longer pull a bait and switch by requiring women prisoners to pay transportation and security costs before obtaining an abortion," said Brigitte Amiri, a senior staff attorney for the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project who argued the case today before the court. "Arpaio's new prepayment requirement was yet another way for him to do an end run around the law and to interfere with a woman's private decision about whether to end a pregnancy."

Married women in Kuwait can now get passports without their husbands' permission:

Kuwait's highest court granted women the right to obtain a passport without their husband's approval, the case's lawyer said Wednesday, in the latest stride for women's rights in this small oil-rich emirate.

The Obama administration has ordered companies that received bailout money to cut executive compensation:

The plan, for the 25 top earners at seven companies that received exceptional help, will on average cut total compensation this year by about 50 percent. The companies are Citigroup, Bank of America, American International Group, General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of the two automakers. Some executives, like the top traders at A.I.G., will face tight limits on their pay. In addition, the top-paid employees at all the affected companies will face new limits on their perks.

A federal judge has refused to dismiss war crimes charges against Blackwater:

Judge Ellis, a Reagan appointee with a mixed record on national security issues, rejected several of the central arguments Blackwater made in its motion to dismiss, namely the company's contention that it cannot be sued by the Iraqis under US law and that the company should not be subjected to potential punitive damages in the cases. The Iraqi victims brought their suits under the Alien Tort Statute, which allows for litigation in US courts for violations of fundamental human rights committed overseas by individuals or corporations with a US presence. Ellis said that Blackwater's argument that it cannot be sued under the ATS is "unavailing," adding that corporations and individuals can both be held responsible for crimes and torts. He said bluntly that "claims alleging direct corporate liability for war crimes" are legitimate under the statute.

H/t: elroon.

Pakistan is building eco-friendly, disaster-proof homes for the rural poor.

For Sat Bai, 43, moving to her new abode "will be like living in a mansion with a kitchen, verandah, bedrooms and even a latrine!" Used to defecating and bathing in the open, Bai said she found the idea of having a personal latrine the height of luxury.

She is equally excited about the fact that "when you go inside the house, the green light coming from the conical roof makes me feel at peace. In the evening even the moonlight comes shining through the room."

Bengali women and children are learning to detect arsenic in groundwater:

The researchers give women and children information about how sediment traits like color and texture may indicate arsenic contamination. They also arm them with arsenic testing kits to use when wells are being drilled in their communities. If these water testing kits indicate high levels of arsenic, they can send a sample to a laboratory in the city for further testing before more contaminated water is distributed to the community. These tests are being done for both shallow and deep aquifers in those districts.

The manufacturer of an inexpensive new solar lamp is hoping to make kerosene lanterns obsolete:

The Kiran - the lantern's proper name - needs 8 hours of sunlight for a full charge (or 4 hours plugged in to AC with a standard Nokia mobile phone adapter). A full charge will provide 8 hours of light on a low setting, which is good for walking outside or socializing, or 4 hours of light on the high setting, which is intended for working, studying and other activities that need bright light. The company also states that the lantern is at least four times brighter than a kerosene lantern, so users aren't giving up lighting quality for off-grid charging capabilities.

Childhood vaccination is at an all-time high:

According to the report, 106 million infants were vaccinated against diseases such as measles and whooping cough in 2008—a record number. For the first time in decades, the number of children dying each year has fallen below 10 million, due in part to immunizations as well as factors such as clean water.

H/t: Cheryl Rofer, who also alerted me to this:

The American Geophysical Union, the American Chemical Society, and 16 other major science groups groups are urging Congress this morning to take action on carbon emissions

San Francisco has enacted the country's first mandatory composting law:

San Francisco already diverts over 72% of its waste from landfills thanks to rigorous recycling efforts, and now the city is set to cut down on trash even more with the country’s first mandatory composting law, which took effect yesterday. Residents and businesses now have six weeks to start composting food waste, plant trimmings, and other items.

Polar bears may possibly receive some sort of habitat protection, unless they don't:

Pursuant to a partial settlement in a lawsuit brought by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Natural Resources Defense Council, and Greenpeace, today the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service proposed to designate more than 128 million acres (200,541 square miles) of coastal lands and waters along the north coast of Alaska as “critical habitat” for the polar bear. The habitat proposal, required under the Endangered Species Act, comes the same week that another Interior Department agency, the Minerals Management Service, approved oil-company plans for exploratory drilling in the polar bear’s habitat in the Beaufort Sea. Interior is considering a similar drilling proposal in the Chukchi Sea.

“If polar bears are to survive in a rapidly melting Arctic, we need to protect their critical habitat, not turn it into a polluted industrial zone,” said Brendan Cummings, senior attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity. “The Interior Department is schizophrenic, declaring its intent to protect polar bear habitat in the Arctic, yet simultaneously sacrificing that habitat to feed our unsustainable addiction to oil.”

The Buena Vista Lake Ornate Shrew may get some protection as well:

Responding to a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service today published a new critical habitat proposal for one of the most endangered mammals on the planet – the Buena Vista Lake ornate shrew. The new proposal includes 4,649 acres of critical habitat – an increase of 55 times over a 2005 designation by the Bush administration, which included a meager, fragmented, and unsustainable 84 acres.

“If the Buena Vista Lake ornate shrew is to avoid extinction, it needs a lot more than 84 acres of critical habitat,” said Ileene Anderson, biologist with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Today’s proposal puts this charming little mammal on the road to recovery."

Researchers have found 850 new species living underground in the Outback.

Until now, most of the continent's arid regions hadn't been explored by invertebrate experts, in part because the underground springs and microcaverns--some smaller than 0.4 inch (1 centimeter) wide--were thought to be devoid of life, said team member Steve Cooper of the South Australian Museum in Adelaide.

"We are only just beginning to discover in Australia that groundwater is not just an inert entity," Cooper said via email, "but is the host of many diverse ecosystems with an extraordinary array of previously unknown species."

You want more links, I suppose? Fine. Lost bridges of the Inca Empire. Vintage travel graphics. An interesting feature of our solar system (see also Man in Space). And Martian dust devil trails.


Also: Shutter Maki. Photos by Tinyevilhog. The awful truth about Hexagonal London. Photos by Zoltán Vancsó. And the Van Gogh letter sketches.


Here's a short film, too.


(Photo at top by Michel Rajkovic.)

Friday Nudibranch Blogging

The fruits are ripe, dipped in fire,
Cooked and sampled on earth. And there's a law,
That things crawl off in the manner of Ceratosoma miamiranum,
Prophetically, dreaming on the hills of heaven.
And there is much that needs to be retained,
Like a load of wood on the shoulders.
But the pathways are dangerous.
The captured elements and ancient laws of earth
Run astray like horses. There is a constant yearning
For all that is unconfined. But much needs
To be retained. And loyalty is required.
Yet we mustn't look forwards or backwards.
We should let ourselves be cradled
As if on a boat rocking on a lake.

(Photo by Nemo's great uncle.)

Friday Hope Blogging

California will recognize gay marriages performed in other states:

Couples legally married in other states before Proposition 8 was approved last November will be considered legally married in California. In addition, couples legally married in other states after the measure was approved will not be considered married in California but will be afforded "the same legal protections available to couples that enter into civil unions or domestic partnerships in other states," Schwarzenegger wrote in his signing message. "In short, this measure honors the will of the People in enacting Proposition 8 while providing important protections to those unions legally entered into in other states," the governor wrote.

Though you wouldn't necessarily know it from watching the news, evangelicals are increasingly supportive of LGBT equality:

In the most recent national survey done by the Pew Research Center, more Americans than ever recorded (57 percent) support civil unions.

Thirty-nine percent of this support comes from white evangelicals, and even though that’s not a majority, it shows there are definite inroads being made into that community....

In a recent survey during the 2008 presidential election cycle, 58 percent of young white evangelicals supported some form of legal recognition of gay partnerships, whether in the form of civil unions or marriage. Twenty-six percent supported full marriage rights.

A new study suggests that sheltering the homeless saves taxpayers money:

The four-year study followed four homeless people while they lived on the streets and later as they found stable housing. Researchers concluded that taxpayers could save $20,000 a year per person in public services.

California is finally easing restrictions on greywater use:

[T]he new standards allow homeowners to use up to 250 gallons of greywater per day on their landscaping without a permit, if they follow a list of 12 do's and don'ts. Arizona set the national precedent for relaxed greywater rules in 2001, and New Mexico and Texas soon followed suit.

In related news, Los Angeles has approved waterless urinals for use in all buildings.

A new power station could link the nation's electrical grids:

Currently, the US is sub-divided into three electrical grids (East, West, and Texas). This means that electricity produced in one of the grids cannot be transmitted to the other grids. For example, solar power from Arizona cannot reach Oklahoma, wind power from Texas cannot be used in the East, and so on. But this could change if the "Tres Amigas" project for a superstation connecting the three grids in Clovis, New Mexico, goes ahead. This could be a good thing for renewable energy, though problems are also on the horizon....

This would be good for renewable energy because it would increase the number of potential buyers. For example, if the wind is blowing hard in Texas and there is a surplus of wind power, it could be sold to the Eastern grid at a better price than the local market where supply is temporarily outpacing demand.

An Italian firm will use weather satellite data to improve the siting of solar power plants, and monitor their performance:

This information assists to determine the best sites for new PV plants, as well as how much electricity they will produce yearly. This helps to decide precisely how large the plants have to be for a given use, optimising investment and improving solar power economy.

The second development uses Meteosat data to monitor if the solar cells are working properly all the time, by comparing in real-time the actual production of electricity to what can be expected from the amount of available sunshine.

The Daily Climate has an interesting article on a pilot who uses small plane flights to promote environmental awareness:

A sense of scale is central to Gordon's mission, what he has dubbed "conservation flying." For more than 20 years, Gordon has piloted Pipers and Cessnas, single engines and turboprops across the western United States to provide people with a pilot's-eye view of changing landscapes – a view that won't come into focus through the windshield of a pickup truck.

That awareness of scale, over both time and vast distances, is what gives Gordon – and his many passengers – the ability to piece together a startling and disturbing picture. Whether it's clear-cut forests in the Pacific Northwest, coal bed methane development in Wyoming, pine beetle blight across the Western Slope of Colorado, giant open-pit gold mines in Nevada, scars from a decades-long natural gas boom in New Mexico or melting Montana glaciers, his vantage point connects the disparate dots that reveal a tattered Western tapestry.

ORVs will no longer be allowed in the Tellico River watershed:

Conservation groups concerned about water quality in the Tellico River watershed in national forests in North Carolina and Tennessee from a degraded off-road vehicle (ORV) area hailed the final decision announced today by the U.S. Forest Service as a win-win approach to resolving the problem. The agency will close most trails in the Tellico area and invest substantial resources to restore those lands, and convert the remaining ORV trails to forest roads for public access for other types of recreation. ORV use will no longer be allowed anywhere in the area.

Congress has scrapped a plan to build more fencing along the Mexican border:

Congress has stripped a provision from a Department of Homeland Security appropriation bill that would have required 300 more miles of tall fencing along the Mexican border, saying the money needed to build the barrier would be better spent on alternative security measures.

(h/t: Southern Beale.)

It was another bad week for the US Chamber of Commerce:

The much beleaguered U.S. Chamber of Commerce is having another bad PR week after Mother Jones revealed yesterday that they have inflated their membership numbers and that the holding company owned by multi-billionaire Ronald Perelman is thinking of leaving the Chamber because of their policy on climate change action.

A bird that was thought to be extinct has been rediscovered:

Known to science only by two specimens described in 1900, a critically endangered crow has re-emerged on a remote, mountainous Indonesian island thanks in part to a Michigan State University scientist.

The Banggai Crow was believed by many to be extinct until Indonesian biologists finally secured two new specimens on Peleng Island in 2007....A photo of the Banggai Crow debuts this week in volume 14 of the influential Handbook of the Birds of the World.

Ireland will ban GM crops:

The agreement specifies that the Government will "Declare the Republic of Ireland a GM-Free Zone, free from the cultivation of all GM plants". The official text also states "To optimise Ireland's competitive advantage as a GM-Free country, we will introduce a voluntary GM-Free logo for use in all relevant product labeling and advertising, similar to a scheme recently introduced in Germany."

Baltimore's public school system has embraced Meatless Mondays:

The Baltimore City Public School system is about to become the first fully Meatless Monday school system in the U.S. They’re joining a growing international movement of individuals, organizations, communities and cities making the commitment to lower meat consumption and enjoy a plant-based diet on Mondays.

The 80,000 young people BCPS serves will begin each week with a Meatless Monday menu. And that’s not all. The school system has introduced a wide variety of projects to ensure its students eat and learn about healthy, environmentally friendly choices. BCPS has teemed up with local farmers and distributors to provide students fresh, locally raised fruits, vegetables and milk. They’ve also introduced Great Kids Farm, a 33-acre teaching farm, home to chickens, goats and a variety of fruits and vegetables. Educators on the farm teach kids and adults how to produce home-grown fresh food, even in an urban setting. BCPS is also in the process of developing gardens for each of the system’s 200 schools.

Inhabitat discusses Vienna's reuse of 19th-century gasometers:

In 1896 the Viennese authorities decided to invest in large-scale gas and electric utilities, so they constructed what became Europe’s largest gas plant. After nearly a century long run the plant was decommissioned, and left behind were four massive gasometers. These incredible structures were cast off, but a recent revitalization project led by Jean Nouvel, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Manfred Wehdorn, and Wilhelm Holzbauer have transformed these four tanks into spectacular and thriving communities.

Today the gasometers form a unique city center all their own, with a strong sense of community given its abundant housing and diversity of destinations.

This is long overdue:

It took a failed nuclear inspection, two missile trucks crashing, and junior officers literally dozing off with launch codes. But finally, the Air Force has canned Col. Christopher Ayres, the leader of the bumbling 91st Missile Wing at Minot Air Force Base, N.D.

So is this:

In 2005, Jamie Leigh Jones was gang-raped by her co-workers while she was working for Halliburton/KBR in Baghdad. Jones was prevented from bringing charges in court against KBR because her employment contract stipulated that sexual assault allegations would only be heard in private arbitration. Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) proposed an amendment to the 2010 Defense Appropriations bill that would withhold defense contracts from companies like KBR "if they restrict their employees from taking workplace sexual assault, battery and discrimination cases to court."

The amendment passed by a 68-30 vote. Jones commented: "It means the world to me. It means that every tear shed to go public and repeat my story over and over again to make a difference for other women was worth it."

And this is pretty amazing:

A breakthrough discovery by scientists from the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville, FL, may lead to a new treatment for Alzheimer's Disease that actually removes amyloid plaques—considered a hallmark of the disease—from patients' brains. This discovery, published online in The FASEB Journal, is based on the unexpected finding that when the brain's immune cells (microglia) are activated by the interleukin-6 protein (IL-6), they actually remove plaques instead of causing them or making them worse.

Also: This Man (via Coudal). The Virtual Dime Museum. More pictures of icebergs. Art by Josef Lada. Photos by Constantine Manos (via wood s lot). The Museum of British Folklore. A close-up view of the chrysanthemum.


Furthermore: Pygmy hippos. A timely Venn diagram. Kite aerial photography by Matthias Grimm. The winners of the 2009 Small World photomicrography contest. Vintage photographic backdrops. And photos by Vivian Maier (via Lilian Nattel).


In summation: Life on White. Symbolism of the Crinoline. Examples of Japanese threadballs (you'll find many more here). Fifty years of space exploration. Art by Amy Bennett. And spiderweb decorations.


And, naturally, a short film.



(Photo at top: "Stars Over Easter Island" by Stéphane Guisard.)