Friday Hope Blogging

An independent review of the BBC has found that it pays too much attention to climate denialists:

The BBC is to revamp its science coverage after an independent review highlighted weaknesses and concluded that journalists boosted the apparent controversy of scientific news stories such as climate change, GM crops and the MMR vaccine by giving too much weight to fringe scientific viewpoints….

Commissioned last year to assess impartiality and accuracy in BBC science coverage across television, radio and the internet, the review said the network was at times so determined to be impartial that it put fringe views on a par with well-established fact: a strategy that made some scientific debates appear more controversial than they were.

Michael Bloomberg is donating $50 million to the Siera Club's anti-coal campaign:

Sierra Club's anti-coal campaign is one of the few national environmental initiatives to have substantial success in the last five years, blocking 153 coal plants and counting. And that was done while most of the establishment money and attention were going to the climate-bill effort. The anti-coal movement was bootstrapped and genuinely grassroots.

Congress has confirmed an openly gay federal judge:

The first federal judge to be an openly gay man was confirmed July 18 by a vote of 80 to 13....The vote and approval of Oetken went over with little fanfare – social conservatives like Tom Coburn, John Cornyn, Jeff Sessions, Jon Kyl voted for him.

What if they held a tea party, and no one came?

A Tea Party convention and straw poll scheduled for late September in Kansas has been called off amid sluggish enrollment and allegations of infighting. On the event's website, Freedom Jamboree chair William Temple accused local groups of a "preoccupation with prospering their own organizations at the expense of the 'grassroots' movement as a whole" and said "the spirit intrinsic in 2009 has diminished nationwide, and some lethargy and weariness persists."

Could be. But I think the larger problem is that THE PEOPLE OF THE WRONG-PARSE-SYNTAX-GRAMMAR-COMMUNICATION-TEACHINGS ARE WITH THE CLAIM OF THE TEACHINGS WITH THE LODIAL-CONTRACT-VOID = BY THE RULING-CLASS, GOV, KING, QUEEN, JUDGE, ATTORNEY, LAWYER, TEACHER, PRIEST, DOCTOR AND [PEOPLE JUST DO NOT KNOW!!!] OF EVERY-NATION ON EARTH WITH THE SLAVERY OF THE PEOPLE WITH THE CONTROL OF THE LICENSING-USURY AND TAXATION OF THE WATER, AIR, EARTH AND FIRE.

Speaking of which, the California Milk Processor Board has pulled an ad campaign that showed hapless men groaning under the yoke of the Premenstrual Woman. At the risk of shocking you, it turns out that the people who were smug and stupid enough to approve this campaign are also too smug and stupid to apologize for it properly:

"Over the past couple of weeks, regrettably, some people found our campaign about milk and PMS to be outrageous and misguided — and we apologize to those we offended," the California Milk Processor Board says on its website. "Others thought it funny and educational. It has opened up a topic that affects women, of course, but also relationships."

Or to put it another way, "it's too bad these humorless bitches couldn't look beyond our little joke about period-driven domestic tyranny, because we were actually making an important point about women being irrational and difficult." (Bonus points to MSNBC for putting "sexist" in quotes on account of Views Differ.)

Anyway. Toyota claims to have created an engine filter that will remove ground-level ozone from the air:

Toyota’s Central Research and Development labs have announced the development of a material that removes 95% of unreacted ozone from the air when used in an ozone filter. The material is called mesoporous two-line ferrihydrite or M2LFh (say that ten times fast) and is porous, which gives it a large inner surface area with numerous iron sites near the surface for absorbing ozone.

The conservative stronghold of Orange County has been crushed under the eco-friendly heel of atheo-Islamic envirosocialism:

Chevron Energy Solutions and the City of Brea today unveiled Orange County's largest municipal solar installation....By using the sun to generate its own power, the city has projected to reduce its electrical utility costs by an average 40 percent and its carbon emissions by 86,000 metric tons; comparable to removing 16,000 cars from the road. During construction, the project also provided more than 25 local jobs and 125 indirect jobs with an estimated $3 million boost to the local economy.

Portland, OR is the latest city to ban plastic bags:

Oregon's largest city has just joined a growing list of municipalities that are fed up with plastic bags -- It has just adopted an ordinance that will ban plastic bags from major grocery stores, as well as some big box retailers. Even better, the ban is slated to go into effect in a mere matter of months

An Ohio Republican who was pushing a restrictive voter ID law will step down:

Ohio state Representative Robert Mecklenborg announced Sunday that he is resigning after news of a drunk driving charge became public. Rep. Mechlenborg, chairman of the House Government and Elections Committee and sponsor of a controversial bill requiring voters to show a valid photo ID to register, was arrested in Indiana last April for allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol and with an expired driver's license. According to media reports, he was accompanied in his car by a young woman and was found with Viagra in his system.

Researchers have found a large population of northern white-cheeked gibbons in Vietnam:

Scientists from Conservation International made the discovery in Pu Mat National Park, near the Vietnam-Laos border, in an area of remote, dense forest that has been largely isolated from human activity. By recording the gibbons’ loud, territorial ‘songs’, the team were able to confirm a population of 130 groups, or 455 gibbons in total.

Previous work by Conservation International in other parts of north-central Vietnam had found no population of the northern white-cheeked gibbon larger than a dozen groups. The newly discovered population at Pu Mat National Park is therefore all the more important, as it represents over two thirds of the total population of this species in Vietnam and may be the only viable population left in the world.

In related news, conservation efforts have brought the blue iguana from the brink of extinction to...whatever brink the rest of us are teetering on:

With help from local and international NGOs, the effort, dubbed the Blue Iguana Recovery Program, has achieved a rarity in conservation. Within nine years it has raised the population of blue iguanas by twenty times: today 500 wild blue iguanas roam Salina Reserve.

Rupert Murdoch continues to have problems:

Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) asked the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigations—currently investigating illegal activity in News Corp.'s American operations—to examine the details of the case, settled in New Jersey courts, between News America Marketing and Floorgraphics, which sold floor advertising in grocery stores (clients included Winn-Dixie and Safeway). Floorgraphics alleged that its rival hacked its computer system as many as 11 times in 2003 and 2004 to gain business.

The Birmingham city council has found a remarkable collection of silent film scores:

All the pieces, British, French and American (roughly a third of each), are uniquely written for cinema use, published by commercially operating music publishers and are nearly all in sets of parts for a band of 7-11 players (a ‘salon orchestra’ as it was known). They all have generic titles (‘Bizarre March’, ‘The Onslaught’, ‘Emotional Waltz’, ‘Desert Monotony’(!)) or numbers, and often suggestions for their use (‘for Eastern pictures’, ‘For Pathetic or Tragic scenes’, ‘Fire or Torture scenes’ etc etc).

Home movies by pigeons. A clockwork city. The return of the repressed. Ditto. Nineteenth-century microscope books. Sixteenth-century pyrotechnics. Images of universal harmony. Photos by Andrew Meredith (via things). Photos by Susan S. Bank. Pure blue animals. And photos by Terence Vincent Powderly.


And now, a word from our sponsor:



(Image at top: "Landscape" by Ralph Blakelock, ca. 1910.)

Friday Hope Blogging

In California, Jerry Brown signed the FAIR Education Act:

California Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has signed into law the FAIR Education Act, which requires California public schools to include the contributions of gays and lesbians in social studies curricula. The law is the first of its kind in the country.

In Wisconsin, Democrats defeated six phony primary challengers:

Democratic Wisconsin Senate candidates overwhelmingly defeated their fake rivals Tuesday night in the Democratic primary election....

The Wisconsin Republican Party entered six fake Democratic candidates into the race to force Democratic primary elections in Wisconsin and delay the general election.

The cost of this corporatist charade to taxpayers: About $400,000.

The cleantech sector is doing well:

Sectors like clean energy, green building, and efficient transport employ 2.7 million workers — more than the biosciences and fossil fuel sectors.

And guess what? They pay better than the average job too. Median salaries for cleantech-related jobs are $46,343, or about $7,727 more than the median wages across the broader economy.

Meanwhile, conservatives are promoting inefficient lightbulbs, and attempting "to prohibit websites that teach children about energy efficiency." (And, of course, praying for rain.)

The Murdoch Empire continues to crumble:

With investigations into News Corp. already underway in the U.S. and the U.K, the prime minister of Australia has expressed interest in launching Australia’s own investigation. PM Julia Gillard told the National Press Club today that she is “shocked and disgusted” at allegations of improper information gathering by Murdoch’s British tabloids and predicted a “long debate about media ethics in this country.”

Federal regulators have rejected an application for an idiotic dam in Southern California:

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission today dismissed a proposed dam and hydroelectric project in Southern California’s Cleveland National Forest that would have severely damaged the environment, wildlife habitat and the area’s rural character. The Lake Elsinore Advanced Pumped Storage Project, or LEAPS, has been beset with problems since its inception: Opposition has been continuous, while financial and regulatory difficulties have also plagued the project.

“This dam project was an ecological and economic catastrophe waiting to happen,” said Jonathan Evans of the Center for Biological Diversity. “Hopefully today’s decision dismissing the application will be the final nail in its coffin.”

A frog unseen for 87 years has turned up in Borneo:

Scientists are elated after the surprise rediscovery of a wildly-colored frog not seen for 87 years and never before photographed—until now. The Bornean rainbow toad, also known as the Sambas Stream toad (Ansonia latidisca) was rediscovered on Borneo in the Malaysian state of Sarawak by local scientists inspired by a 2010 search for the world's missing amphibians by Conservation International (CI).

Photo © Dr. Indraneil Das.

A Muslim man who was shot and partially blinded by a Texan death-row prisoner is attempting to prevent his attacker's execution:

Rais Bhuiyan opposes the execution. In fact, he is part of a movement for clemency for Stroman because he believes "in order to live in a better and peaceful world, we need to break the cycle of hate and violence." Instead, Bhuiyan is seeking to engage in a victim-offender reconciliation dialogue with Stroman, a right guaranteed to crime victims in the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.

An appeals court has struck down an absurd "anti-prostitution pledge" that was hampering efforts to fight HIV/AIDS:

The 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the "anti-prostitution pledge," a part of the U.S. Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act. The law required nongovernmental organizations receiving U.S. funding for HIV/AIDS work to declare — or pledge — that they opposed prostitution. Most alarmingly, the pledge extended to all parts of an organization's work, even parts that didn't use U.S. money.

New research suggests that smaller wind turbines are more efficient than big ones:

The first field results from a Caltech research team led by John Dabiri have been published, and they suggest that Dabiri’s new approach to wind generation may be just what rural communities have been hoping for: the ability to proceed with widespread wind energy development without changing the character of local landscapes and soundscapes.

Neptune's first orbit since its discovery. Historypin. Cartographic octopi. Photos by Jonathan Williams. Dummy portraits (via Coudal). And farm animal portraits:


(Photo at top: "Longmont, Colorado, 1979" by Robert Adams.)

Friday Hope Blogging

Saudi women are demanding the right to drive:

More Saudi Arabian women drove their cars in the streets of capital Riyadh Wednesday, continuing a campaign — largely rooted in social media — to push the kingdom into overturning a ban on female drivers. At the same time, one of the European Union’s top diplomats sent a long-requested message of support for their campaign.

The ILO has adopted a treaty that protects the rights of domestic workers:

Labor groups around the world celebrated last Thursday after the United Nations’ International Labour Organization adopted a historic treaty that increases protections for millions of domestic workers.

Household service employees, many of whom are migrant women or girls from underprivileged areas, are now provided fundamental labor rights that were previously not guaranteed due to the nature of their informal work.

In Spain, a solar plant is providing electricity 24 hours a day:

The innovative molten salt heat transfer technology deployed at the Gemasolar greenfield independent power project helps avoid fluctuations in power supply through a system that is capable of 15 hours of energy production without sunlight. This accordingly allows for generation of electricity 24 hours a day for many months of the year, even during the hours of darkness or poor daylight during winter.

A highway will not be built through Serengeti National Park:

In what is a victory for environmentalists, scientists, tourism, and the largest land migration on Earth, the Tanzanian government has cancelled a commercial road that would have cut through the northern portion of the Serengeti National Park. According to scientists the road would have severed the migration route of 1.5 million wildebeest and a half million other antelope and zebra, in turn impacting the entire ecosystem of the Serengeti plains.

The DoI has extended the ban on uranium mining in the Grand Canyon watershed:

The announcement quells fears that a two-year mining prohibition issued by Salazar in July 2009 would expire, opening the door to new mining claims and resulting mine development. Public lands around Grand Canyon National Park have been ground zero for new uranium mining that threatens to industrialize iconic wildlands and permanently pollute aquifers feeding Grand Canyons springs and streams.

Siemens has built a hybrid-electric airplane:

Siemens just unveiled the world's first hybrid-electric aircraft, the DA36 E-Star. It uses an unique power train to do the seemingly impossible: take off and land on nothing but batteries.

Shocking new evidence suggests that vaccines may actually work:

Vaccination against rotavirus, a major cause of severe acute gastroenteritis in children, dramatically decreased hospitalization rates for the infection among infants in three US counties, according to a new study published in Clinical Infectious Diseases....

Gotta run, sorry. Consolation: The Lost Collection (via things). Ge0-Cosmos. Pencil sculptures. Header vignettes. Photos of snowflakes. Heirloom technology. Scenes from La Vie Électrique. The Sathorn Unique. Photos by Metehan Özcan. The Lonely Beat. And photos by Sanna Kannisto.

Here's a cartoon, too.



(Image at top: "A San Diego beach scene drawn with an eight color palette of bacterial colonies expressing fluorescent proteins derived from GFP and the red-fluorescent coral protein dsRed. The colors include BFP, mTFP1, Emerald, Citrine, mOrange, mApple, mCherry and mGrape. Artwork by Nathan Shaner, photography by Paul Steinbach, created in the lab of Roger Tsien in 2006.")

Friday Hope Blogging

Buried in work yet again. Here are some links, though:

UN adopts historic resolution on human rights, sexual orientation and gender identity.

The Department of Education teaches U.S. schools a lesson on LGBT rights.

Bankruptcy court declares DOMA unconstitutional.

Oregon adopts strictest standards in United States for toxic water pollution.

Rhode Island will no longer shackle pregnant women in prison.

California stops automatic delivery of White Pages.

Endangered Species Act protection reinstated for West Virginia northern flying squirrel.

Peru cancels massive dam project after years of protests.

Vietnam and the United States are collaborating to clean up unexploded bombs and Agent Orange.

Huge new boreal forest preserve in Manitoba.

Detroit’s school for young moms rescued from closure.

Panera's pay-what-you-want model is thriving (h/t: RMJ).

Campaign to repeal SB 5 collects over 714,000 signatures, 231,000 required.

Also, too:

The power of mesmerism.

Dear Photograph.

Arabick Roots.

Little Film.

(Image at top: "Storm Brewing" by Lyonel Feininger, 1939.)

Friday Hope Blogging

Civil unions are now legal in Illinois:

A couple together for nearly half a century, two TV chefs and an official in new Mayor Rahm Emanuel's administration were among the 35 gay couples joined in civil union ceremonies Thursday in a downtown Chicago park after a new Illinois law recognized their relationships for the first time.

"Never thought it was going to happen," said James Darby, who at nearly 80 was legally joined to his partner of 47 years in a ceremony presided over by Cook County Circuit Court Chief Judge Timothy Evans.

Apropos of which, here's a moving speech in favor of same-sex marriage by Republican representative John Kriesel:



Furthermore, the Republican governor of Nevada has signed two important anti-discrimination bills:

Yesterday Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval, a Republican, signed into law bills prohibiting discrimination in housing (SB368) and public accommodations (SB331) on the basis of gender identity or expression. Last week he signed AB211, a bill prohibiting discrimination in employment on the basis of gender identity or expression. Taken together, the three new laws represent fairly comprehensive anti-discrimination protections for trans people in Nevada.

And the ACLU reports that an Internet filter used in many public schools will stop blocking LGBT information sites:

Lightspeed's web filters are used in more than 2,000 schools in the U.S., U.K. and Australia, covering more than 6 million students, so this is a big deal.

Lightspeed made this move after several of its school clients received letters from our "Don't Filter Me" project, which combats unconstitutional censorship of pro-LGBT information on public school computer systems.

HHS Medical Administrator Don Berwick has warned, uh, Indiana that they weren’t going to be taking away our arms uh by ringing those bells and making sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be secure and we were going to be free and we were going to be armed:

Yesterday, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) notified Indiana state officials that an Indiana law prohibiting state agencies from contracting with clinics offering abortions violates federal law. Governor Mitch Daniels (R) signed the law on May 10, and in April, the state Senate and House voted to cut about $2 million in federal money that goes to Planned Parenthood, much of which is for Medicaid services. HHS Medical Administrator Don Berwick clarified, "Medicaid programs may not exclude qualified health care providers from providing services that are funded under the program because of a provider's scope of practice."

An attempt by Tennessee Republicans to defund Planned Parenthood has been aborted, pre-viability:

Republicans in the Tennessee Legislature have decided to forgo efforts to defund Planned Parenthood through an amendment to the state budget after they were advised that the measure is unconstitutional, according to a joint statement released last week by Senate Speaker Ron Ramsey (R) and House Speaker Beth Harwell (R), the Knoxville News Sentinel/Chattanooga Times Free Press reports.

New York will no longer participate in S-Comm:

In a huge victory for civil liberties, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Wednesday, June 1, 2011, suspended his state's participation in a federal deportation program that tore apart families, encouraged racial profiling and harmed public safety by creating mistrust between police and immigrant communities.

Manitoba is brutally violating the civil liberties of Ayn Rand's ghost by placing new restrictions on hog-waste lagoons:

Manitoba will tighten rules on expanding hog farms and ban manure spreading to cut the flow of phosphorus into the world's 11th-biggest freshwater lake, as Lake Winnipeg deteriorates from algae growth.

The western Canadian province, which has the country's third-largest pig herd, will also protect wetlands that filter out pollutants and force the capital Winnipeg to build a sewage treatment plant, Premier Greg Selinger said on Thursday.

A federal court has ruled against the Forest Service's attempt to open more of El Dorado National Forest to off-road vehicles.

A federal court has rejected the U.S. Forest Service’s plan to increase off-road vehicle use in the Eldorado National Forest. The court decision, released Thursday, found the Forest Service’s “travel-management plan” violated legal protections for fragile Sierra Nevada meadow habitat and the threatened California red-legged frog.

A freshwater limpet long thought to be extinct has turned up in Alabama:

a major mass extinction took place right here in North America in the first half of the 20th century, when 47 species of mollusk disappeared after the watershed in which they lived was dammed. Now, a population of one of those species—a freshwater limpet last seen more than 60 years ago and presumed extinct—has been found in a tributary of the heavily dammed Coosa River in Alabama's Mobile River Basin.

A vaccine seems to increase the lifespan of patients with recurrent glioblastoma:

In data presented at The American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) Annual Meeting, cancer researchers found that the brain tumor vaccine HSPPC-96 for treating recurrent gliobastoma (GBM) has a favorable safety profile and extends survival by two to three times more than the current median survival rate. Patients in the study, conducted at University Hospitals Case Medical Center, University of California, San Francisco and Columbia University, were found to have a median survival of 11 months compared to current three to five month survival.

"The findings are very favorable for patients with this deadly form of brain cancer," said Andrew Sloan, MD, one of the authors of the study presented at ASCO and Director of the Brain Tumor and Neuro-Oncology Center at University Hospitals Case Medical Center. "The vaccine is one of the few immune therapies designed specifically for patients who are not newly diagnosed, and these encouraging results make this a promising therapy for a more extensive Phase 3 trial."

Dear dead days (via things). An online cinematheque (via The Bioscope). Animated anatomy. RIP Spirit. Et jardins romantiques:


Early work by Frederick Gerrish (see also here). Our rotating Earth. Photographs by Richard Shute. And images from the First International Polar Year:


Private die proprietary stamps. Robots and hierogylphs. Printed cuneiform. The Jorge Prelorán Collection. And vegetable anatomy:


And here's your goddamn movie.



(Image at top: "Le dirigeable dans le hangar" by Léon Spilliaert, 1910.)

Friday Hope Blogging

One of Edward Wegman's plagiarized papers has been withdrawn:

The Wegman work is part of a flurry of "analysis" (at least one expert derides this particular paper as "an opinion piece"), that Wegman and Said conducted on behalf of U.S. Congressman Joe Barton (R-Texas), who was using the material to attack the climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann.

If you haven't been following this very entertaining story, proceed immediately to Deep Climate.

Apropos of charlatans, Mark and David Geier, who've been promoting chemical castration as a treatment for children with autism, have finally gotten some attention from the medical establishment:

On Monday, May 16, 2011, the Maryland Board of Physicians charged Dr. Mark Geier with numerous violations of the Maryland Medical Practice Act, and charged his son, David Geier, with practicing medicine without a license. The charges come three weeks after the Board summarily suspended Dr. Geier’s license to practice medicine, in order to prevent harm to the many autistic children entrusted to his care.

Maryland has passed its own version of the DREAM Act:

While Democrats in the Senate are still getting their efforts together at passing the DREAM Act -- which just barely fell short of passage in January, despite a relentless campaign of remorseless lying waged by Republicans -- legislators in Maryland have shown them how it's done -- simply get it passed, and watch the nativist Republicans reveal themselves as the hollow, lying hatemongers they are in the process.

The Homeland Security Department will discontinue the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System (NSEERS):

The program consisted of a series of controls designed to collect information, fingerprints, and photographs of certain noncitizens entering and living in the United States, and to monitor their status and movement once within the country's borders. From its inception, it was determined that NSEERS would only target male noncitizens of a certain age from predesignated countries.

The program drew criticism from various civil and human-rights groups, members of Congress, and at least one committee of the United Nations. Specifically, NSEERS was censured for its focus primarily on nationals of Muslim-majority countries, its alleged inability to identify terrorist threats, and the strict legal and immigration consequences put in place for participant noncompliance.

The DHS will also extend protected status for Haitians:

“It’s really good news for the community. We were all holding our breath and waiting,” said Marleine Bastien, founding member and executive director of Fanm Ayisyen Nan Miyami, or Haitian Women of Miami. “Some of our clients were already getting very anxious because of their work permits.”

Indonesia has finally imposed a moratorium on logging permits:

[T]he moratorium is seen as an important step toward Indonesia meeting its commitment of reducing carbon dioxide emissions by at least 26 percent from a projected 2020 baseline. Indonesia is presently the third largest greenhouse gas emitter after China and the United States due primarily to degradation of peatlands and deforestation.

An animal thought to be extinct has made an appearance:

The red-crested tree rat (Santamartamys rufodorsalis) had not been recorded since 1898 and was thought possibly extinct—that is until one showed up at 9:30 PM on May 4th at a lodge in El Dorado Nature Reserve in northern Colombia.

"He just shuffled up the handrail near where we were sitting and seemed totally unperturbed by all the excitement he was causing," said Lizzie Noble, a British volunteer with Fundación ProAves a conservation group in Colombia focusing on birds.

Photo by Lizzie Noble/ProAves.

In the UK, butterfly populations seem to be making a rebound:

Although Britain's butterflies remain in long-term decline, the populations of three-quarters of threatened species increased in 2010. This change in fortunes has been put down to targeted conservation action, combined with better weather last year after a series of disastrously wet summers. Butterfly experts hope that if Britain experiences a similar summer this year, some of the country's most threatened species could continue to make a significant recovery.

In Hawaii, the Kaua‘i Island Utility Cooperative will be forced to reduce its impact on seabirds:

“It’s unfortunate that two lawsuits were needed to get KIUC to take responsibility for its actions,” said Marjorie Ziegler of Conservation Council for Hawaii. “Corporations operating in Hawaii should understand their kuleana (responsibility) to protect our precious natural heritage.”

The permit requires the KIUC to carry out actions described in a “habitat conservation plan.” These include a schedule for the KIUC to lower its power lines, obscure them with fast-growing trees, or attach them to bridges to minimize bird fatalities in key flyways — Keälia, Hanapëpë, and Kapa‘a.

New York may ban cars from Central and Prospect parks:

The Regional Plan Association reported that closing the “Loop” in Central Park would force as few as 20 percent and as many as 60 percent of drivers to either change their mode of transportation or significantly modify their driving patterns, forcing people to reconsider driving as a luxury not a necessity.

The removal of cars from parks is not new. It has been on Mayor Bloomberg’s agenda since 2001 when he campaigned for the reduction in private automobile use and a complete removal of cars from parks. Parks in the city were originally car free, and if June’s board meeting goes as planned, the city could be one step closer to returning parks to their original state.

Speaking of Prospect Park, area residents and businesses have banded together to protect the park's geese from extemination:

A group of Brooklyn residents, business owners, and wildlife advocates have devised a program to stand guard over the Prospect Park geese at all hours of the day to prevent federal officials from using mass extermination methods as a way of maintaining the geese population. Armed with binoculars, cameras, and video recording equipment, the pro-geese group is determined to prevent another massacre like last summer’s.

Wuxtry, wuxtry! The California Chamber of Commerce frequently says things that are not true:

The chamber continues to promote its job killer list, despite the fact that its dire warnings of economic doom have been consistently wrong. And it does so despite the fact that Californians broadly support laws and protections that have made our air cleaner, our workplaces safer and our families more secure.

Research into the excretory behavior of forest-dwelling Ursidae is ongoing.

Deseret Chemical Depot has destroyed its stockpile of mustard gas (h/t: Cheryl):

The last of the bulk mustard gas stored at Deseret Chemical Depot in Tooele County was destroyed Monday, a milestone for the facility that has been incinerating aging munitions since 1996....

In addition, the depot also plans to destroy in coming months lewisite, a blistering agent, and GA, a World War II-era nerve agent recovered from German stockpiles.

Furthermore, in summation and notwithstanding: Student assignments and the Rapture. A Milky Way panorama. A gravity map. Unfortunate corporate logos. Bricks of the past. A gallery of monster toys, complete with battery-operated yeti. And homemade dams:

The National Jukebox is a new project from the Library of Congress. The Bioscope has already compiled a playlist of songs relating to early cinema. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any songs about early American monorails:


Visual indexes. Vintage cereal boxes. A map of Kibera (via things). Matchbooks. Portuguese book covers. Indian dragonflies. The complete works of Hassan Fathy. The Morton D. Barker Paperweight Collection. And scenes from General Carerra Lake (here's a soundtrack to go with it).


Also, not only that, but a movie as well, too. (Don't try this at home! Unless you feel like it.)



(Photo at top by Saul Leiter, 1957.)

Friday Hope Blogging

The U.S. Department of Labor has added pregnancy and gender identity to the Equal Opportunity Act:

The U.S. Department of Labor announced late last week that a revision of the Equal Opportunity policy now ensures protections of federal government employees based on gender identity and pregnancy. Both protections have been added under sex discrimination, and will apply to hiring, disciplinary action, and promotion for agency employees.

The Presbyterian Church will accept openly gay clergy members:

[L]ast night the Presbytery of the Twin Cities (MN) cast the decisive 87th vote required to give the amendment the support of a majority of church presbyteries, or local governing bodies. “We applaud the Presbyterian Church for taking this historic step,” said Wayne Besen, Executive Director of Truth Wins Out. “It is our hope that other religious leaders and faith communities will choose to follow their example.”

Papua New Guinea has suspended a program that grants community lands to foreign corporations:

The move comes after local protest and complaints from prominent scientists, including the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation (ATBC), the world's largest professional society devoted to studying and conserving tropical forests. Last month ATBC urged the government to declare a moratorium on SABLs.

ConocoPhillips will not drill for oil in uncontacted indigenous territory in Peru:

The withdrawal comes after pressure from indigenous-rights and environmental groups to leave two Peruvian oil blocks—39 and 67—alone, due to the presence of indigenous people who have chosen to remain uncontacted. ConocoPhillips and other companies have been warned they will 'decimate' tribes if they remain.

New England's Salem Harbor generation plant will shut down by 2014:

For years -- for decades, really -- environmentalists and politicians have been crusading to clean up or shut down the Salem Harbor electric generating station, a 60-year-old coal- and oil-fired plant that sends plumes of pollution over the coast and is considered a toxic eyesore in neighboring Marblehead.

But after years of having New England power-grid operators keep the plant open, saying it was critical to reliable electric supply, there's finally a firm date for the plant to close: June 2014, when plant owner Dominion says stringent new federal air-pollution laws will make the plant uneconomical to keep open.

China's reforestation efforts seem to be working:

China's response to large-scale erosion with reforestation is paying off according to a study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science (PNAS). The 10-year program, known as Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP), is working to turn some 37 million acres back into forest or grasslands after farming on steep slopes in the Yangtze and Yellow River basins had made them perilously susceptible to erosion and flooding....

The study, which describes the program as 'exceptional', found that SLCP had largely succeeded on its environmental goals, decreasing soil erosion by up to 68% in some places.

Apparently, the most terrifying words in the Japanese language are not "I'm from the government, and I'm here to build a tsunami barrier."

Japanese villagers are overwhelmed with gratitude for the former mayor who conceived of this gargantuan floodgate. Plagued by visions of the 1933 tsunami that killed hundreds of villagers, Kotaku Wamura insisted on the $30 million project completed in the 1970s. The residents of Fudai were completely opposed. It was ugly. It was huge. And it was expensive. But a few decades later, that very floodgate spared the lives of all but one of Fudai’s residents when the tsunami struck in March this year.

In India, vultures seem to be making a tentative comeback after the 2006 ban on diclofenac:

The ban on a veterinary drug which caused an unprecedented decline in Asian vulture populations has shown the first signs of progress, according to scientists. However, the recovery of the wild vulture populations requires efforts to see the drug completely removed from the birds' food supply.

In the Philippines, mobile phones are helping to reduce maternal mortality:

In the Philippines, where nearly 40% of the population lives below the poverty line, the equity gap is stark and wide. However, the ownership of a mobile phone is one of the few things that has crossed the income divide, making telecommunication relatively affordable and more accessible in this country of 7,100 islands. There are 70 million Filipinos who have mobile phones, compared to only 7 million installed fixed phone lines.

This is the basis for developing a program that uses text messaging to inform and educate pregnant mothers on safe motherhood. Aside from its mass appeal, mobile phones provide the advantage of two-way communication. Mothers are not just passive participants receiving information, but can also ask questions or communicate their concerns if they need to.

Reason #312 that chimpanzees are more qualified than John Boehner to be Speaker of the House:

Chimpanzees are self-aware and can anticipate the impact of their actions on the environment around them...according to a study released Wednesday.

Carlsbad Caverns is getting new and better lights:

The current lighting in Carlsbad Caverns is being replaced in favor of the new LEDs (Light Emitting Diodes). This is being done not so much as a cost-saving measure but rather because by using LEDs the exact light frequency or color emitted can be very carefully selected. Algae growing in the cave have been a problem since lights were first introduced. Algae blooms near and around the lights were not only unnatural and unsightly, but damaging to the cave as well. By adjusting the exact frequency of the light emitted to that which algae are insensitive, the algae can be stopped or greatly reduced. The park service has already converted one underground room as a test site and the results are very encouraging.

Amateur cylinder recordings. The Electric Pencil. Photos by Simon Roberts. A photoblog entitled Autant que Faire se Peut. And photos by Charles Nègre.


Hummingbirds. Pink hearts, orange stars, yellow moons and green clovers. The Federal Theatre Project. And photos by Serge Vargasoff.


Weird bridges and record players. Scenes from the post office railway. Photos of Moscow in 1909 (via things). And decay fibers.


And a movie.



(Photo at top: The Nebra Sky Disk by Dbachmann.)

Friday Hope Blogging

First, this:

Traditionally a Republican constituency, police and firefighters are rapidly turning to Democrats after assaults on their union rights in Wisconsin, Ohio, and elsewhere. “Who are these evil teachers who teach your children, these evil policemen who protect them, these evil firemen who pull them from burning buildings? When did we all become evil?” asked the national president of the Fraternal Order of Police.

Once again, hard-right sociopathy provides a more compelling argument for progressive values than Democratic leadership. Perhaps when GOP governors unilaterally legalize unregulated medical experimentation on people who can't pay their hospital bills, we can consider taking another tentative look at the public option.

Anyway, the first recall petition has been filed in Wisconsin:

La Crosse area Democrats say they will file petitions today with enough signatures to trigger a recall election of Sen. Dan Kapanke, one of eight Senate Republicans targeted over votes to curtail collective bargaining rights for public workers. If approved, it would be just the fifth recall election of a Wisconsin legislator.

A co-chairman of David Prosser's campaign is supporting his opponent:

"I have followed with increasing dismay and now alarm the campaign of Justice David Prosser, whom I endorsed at the outset of his campaign and in whose campaign I serve as the honorary co-chairman," Lucey said in the statement. "I can no longer in good conscience lend my name and support to Justice Prosser's candidacy. Too much has come to light that Justice Prosser has lost that most crucial of characteristics for a Supreme Court Justice—as for any judge—even-handed impartiality. Along with that failing has come a disturbing distemper and lack of civility that does not bode well for the High Court in the face of demands that are sure to be placed on it in these times of great political and legal volatility."

And that may actually be the least of Prosser's problems.

What if they held a Tea Party rally, and nobody came?

Tea party organizers had high hopes for their rally today in Washington, DC—high enough hopes that they arranged for Fox to give it live coverage.

Then something sad happened. Just a few dozen people showed up.

Apropos of which, persecution complex is the defining modern psychosis. Or at least, that's what they want us to think.

Former U.S. Special Counsel Scott Bloch is going to jail:

The contempt of Congress charge is just one of the many lowlights of Mr. Bloch’s time as the head of the Office of Special Counsel. Considering all that Mr. Bloch did to make a mockery of his position, it’s fitting that he’ll have some time to reflect about his misdeeds in a federal prison.

Background info here.

Michael Mann is suing Tim Ball for libel:

Dr. Michael Mann, Director of the Earth Systems Science Center at Penn State University, is suing the climate change denier Dr. Tim Ball and the think tank/web site Frontier Centre for Public Policy for libel - and particularly for suggesting that Mann is somehow guilty of criminal fraud for his part in what has come to be known as "climategate"....

The suits are also stacking up for Ball, who is already facing a similar action from the Canadian climate scientist Andrew Weaver.

About time:

For the first time in its 98-year history, the Federal Reserve on Thursday identified banks that borrowed from its oldest lending program.

The Fed was compelled to name the banks that drew emergency loans during the financial crisis after the Supreme Court rejected a bid by major banks to keep that information secret....

A number of lawmakers, led by Vermont Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders, pushed to open up the Fed after complaining that it had operated in secret for most of its history.

Sanders on Thursday called the Fed discount-window lending “welfare for the rich and powerful.” He said the disclosures are “lifting another veil of secrecy at the Fed."

Washington will recognize out-of-state same-sex marriages:

Basically what this is saying is that, no matter how you’ve codified your same-sex partnership, Washington will recognize it to the extent that their law allows, which is domestic partnerships, which, if you’ll remember, were voted on by the people and approved. Now, the legislature is bringing everything in line with their laws, as they currently stand, because if you’ll remember, Washington has a same-sex marriage ban remaining on its books. When that goes away [and it will], those couples who were married elsewhere should be bumped up to married status in Washington. Governor Chris Gregoire, by the way, has said she will sign this bill

Meanwhile, the Netherlands celebrates its tenth year of marriage equality. The traditional gift for a 10-year anniversary is apparently tin or aluminum. Perhaps we should all mail a ball of foil to Maggie Gallagher.

HSBC says we have 50 years of oil left:

The senior global economist at the world's second largest bank warned that the global oil supply might run out in under 50 years.

"Energy resources are scarce," wrote Karen Ward, HSBC's senior global economist in a research report that was obtained by CNBC. "Even if demand doesn’t increase, there could be as little as 49 years of oil left."

In the Midwest, paved roads are returning to the dust whence they came:

The paved roads that finally brought rural America into the 20th century are starting to disappear across the Midwest in the 21st. Local officials, facing rising pavement prices, shrinking budgets and fewer residents, are making tough decisions to regress. In some places, they have even eliminated small stretches of gravel road altogether.

In Borneo, an indigenous community has seized control of an oil palm plantation:

[T]he action came after months of inaction by IOI, following the March 2010 court decision that two concessions held by the palm oil company were planted on community lands. Despite the ruling, IOI continued to operate its plantations. It also broke its commitment not to appeal the court decision, according to RAN. So earlier this month, the people of Long Teran Kenan blocked the road and occupied the plantation. They have since started harvesting and selling the fruit to a nearby palm oil mill.

A federal judge has restored ESA protections for the West Virginia northern flying squirrel:

A federal judge reinstated endangered status for the West Virginia northern flying squirrel late Friday, holding that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had violated the Endangered Species Act by not following its own recovery plan for the species in its decision to remove protection for the rare animal.

Farmers are suing Monsanto, for a change:

Genetically modified seed giant Monsanto is notorious for suing farmers [PDF] in defense of its patent claims. But now, a group of dozens of organic farmers and food activists have, with the help of the not-for-profit law center The Public Patent Foundation, sued Monsanto in a case that could forever alter the way genetically modified crops are grown in this country....

If the suit is successful, not only will it limit Monsanto's ability to sue farmers, the company will have far greater responsibility for how and where its biotech seeds are planted. The regulatory free ride will be over.

Skype offers a new platform that connects classrooms around the world:

Good news for teachers looking to collaborate with their colleagues in other parts of the world. Skype has a new free service just for educators called Skype in the classroom, "a free global community created in response to, and in consultation with, the growing number of teachers" using the tool to help students learn.

Teachers already access the eight-year-old service for joint projects, global language exchanges, and guest lectures, but have had a hard time using it to find like-minded collaborators. Skype in the classroom solves that challenge by letting a teacher specify what grade or subject she teaches, and what kinds of projects she's interested in working on together, when she first sets up a profile.

If you want to reward me for my continuing labors on this semi-defunct z-list blog, you can buy me this (or failing that, this). Meanwhile: UTERUS UTERUS UTERUS UTERUS UTERUS. Photos by Richard Kolker (via Coudal). Mercury from orbit. Festival of colors. Ingenious Hebrew letter forms. And ingenious English letter forms:


Thanhouser Films Online (via the Bioscope). Folklore and Mythology Electronic Texts (via things). Spiderwebs. Cars as sedimentary particles. The geoid. And photos by Lewis Baltz:


Google Body. A survey of aerial fields. Rain on Titan. A walk through Durham Township, Pennsylvania. A sound map of Tallinn (for Cheryl, natch). Electrosphere. Photographing an island. Early 20th-c. panoramas. And tiny scenes from the Age of Power and Wonder.


Also, a movie.

(Photo at top: "Violin-Making Machine" by unidentified photographer, c. 1912.)

Friday Hope Blogging

With two deadlines here, and another one looming, FHB is not foremost on what's left of my mind.

Here are a few links to solace your existence, all the same.

Education cuts found unconstitutional.

Canada announces support for gay refugee committee.

Rodale data show organic just as productive, better at building soil.

Forward-looking power utilities support EPA air toxics rule.

US mayors speak out against tar sands pipeline.

EPA will revoke approval of potent greenhouse gas.

Vermont House passes bill calling for a single payer health care system.

Japanese engineers repair earthquake-ravaged road in only 6 days.

Oldest wild bird in U.S. survives tsunami.

New seabird discovered, first in 55 years.

Western snowy plover to get critical habitat protection doubled.

Harmful New Mexico forest road plan blocked.

Virginia overhauls its school textbook-approval process.

Apple dumps “Gay Cure” iPhone app.

Incredible creatures from Russia's White Sea.

Playtimes: A Century of Children’s Games and Rhymes.

As always, nobody's stopping you from posting good news in comments. It's the human thing to do.

(Photo at top: "Untitled" by Ralph Steiner.)

Friday Hope Blogging

First things first: Click here to see how you can help victims of the earthquake and tsunami in Japan. While doing so, bear this in mind:

Tucked into the House Republican continuing resolution are provisions cutting the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, including the National Weather Service, as well as humanitarian and foreign aid.

Then, click here to tell the New York Times to apologize for its utterly grotesque reporting on an 11-year-old victim of gang-rape.

Last, please click here to contribute to the recall effort in Wisconsin.

Apropos of which, Wisconsin high school students are planning a walkout, and calling for students in other states to join them.

Wisconsin Students in Solidarity is asking for the nationwide walkout to happen this Friday, March 11, 2011 at 2:00 p.m. local time. Less than 12 hours after being formed, the Facebook event, Nationwide Student Walkout, has almost 2,000 "attendees" from across the country and student-led copycat groups and events are springing up on the social media hub.

And other activists are targeting Scott Walker's campaign contributors:

The blowback from Wisconsin governor Scott Walker’s union-busting crusade has only just begun—and it may soon hit the governor where it really hurts: in the deep pockets of his biggest donors. Workers have begun organizing a “Move Your Money Campaign” against M&I Bank, whose employees are among his chief financial backers....

On Thursday morning, several hundred protestors surrounded an M&I Bank across the street from the Wisconsin State Capitol shouting “You Got Bailed Out, We Got Sold Out.” International Association of Fire Fighters Local 311 President Joe Conway, Jr., told me two union members marched in and pulled a combined $192,000 dollars out of the bank. “Hopefully this sends a message to the bank,” says Conway. “We wanted to illustrate how serious our threat is by having just two of our members pull their money out. “ The union said it plans to escalate actions and will soon begin handing out flyers at protests asking people to move their money.

Meanwhile, Seattle food safety attorney Bill Marler is calling on law firms to support public unions:

Marler is using social media to encourage other law firms to show support for public union employees in Wisconsin. Marler is closing his law firm early Friday as a gesture of solidarity and as a protest against the state's efforts to reduce collective bargaining power for Wisconsin public union employees....

“I believe we owe a debt to the union employees who keep our society moving,” said Marler. “Times are economically challenging, but it’s short sided and socially unconscionable to so greatly devalue the work of those who fix our roads, drive our buses, and, not to mention, educate our children.

And Iraq Veterans Against the War is planning a solidarity march:

Iraq Veterans Against the War calls on all veterans and peace organizations to mobilize to Madison, Wisconsin on March 19th, the 8th anniversary of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, to stand in solidarity with workers organizing for their rights....

As military veterans, we call on our brothers and sisters in the Wisconsin National Guard to refuse and resist any mobilization orders. We believe military service members are public employees. It is dishonorable to suggest that military personnel should be deployed against teachers, health care providers, firefighters, police officers, and other government employees, many of whom are serving in the National Guard. The Wisconsin National Guard was sent in to repress workers fighting for the eight hour workday over a century ago. It is vital that our brothers and sisters know they have a choice and can fall on the right side of history this time by standing with the working people of Wisconsin.

In New Hampshire, organized protesters derailed a Republican attempt to deny voting rights to college students:

The New Hampshire House Elections Committee shot down an attempt to screw students out of the right to vote in their campus towns. Students, who have been organizing against this travesty since it was introduced in January, deserve full credit for their protests and letter-writing campaigns.

In tangentially related news, young Americans have sex.

Illinois has abolished the death penalty:

Gov. Pat Quinn signed into law Senate Bill 3539, ending Illinois' dysfunctional and broken death penalty system. The measure ends an embarrassing history in Illinois, during which 20 men sentenced to death have been exonerated and released from the state's death row....

After more than a decade of struggle, after 20 exonerations, after all the work and toil, today the death penalty system in Illinois has been eliminated. It is a good day for justice.

In Virginia, plans for the Potomac Appalachian Transmission Highline have been suspended:

This is great news for clean energy advocates—as the proposed PATH is a $2 billion proposal to build a 275-mile long 765-kV transmission line starting at the John Amos coal-fired power plant in West Virginia, which would go through West Virginia, Virginia, and Maryland.

Denver is using water fees for forest restoration:

Like many cities around the world, Denver gets its drinking water from rivers and reservoirs, which in turn get their water from forests. Many of those forests, however, are in trouble – thanks to funding cuts, climate change, and a horde of opportunistic beetles. That puts the city's water supply at risk as well, so Denver teamed up with the U.S. Forest Service to funnel money it collects from water fees into forest restoration. And it's not the only city to do so.

I'm skeptical about this scheme, but I can't help admiring its scale:

This eye-popping Hydra Tower aims to solve the hydrogen conundrum in the most logical awesome way possible -- by harnessing bolts of lighting to smash molecules of water into hydrogen and oxygen. The spire's sinuous exoskeleton is made from graphene, a carbon super-material that is 200 times stronger than steel and highly conductive to heat and electricity - the better to channel incredible amounts of energy straight from the sky.

Anti-Qaddafi protesters have seized his son's London mansion:

Calling itself Topple the Tyrants, a U.K. group has taken control of Muammar Gaddafi progeny Saif Al Islam Gaddafi's multimillion-pound mansion in Hampstead, London, a tony Inner London suburb. The activists now occupy the property and have taken to the 17-room home's roof with a Libyan rebel flag and several anti-Gaddafi banners. They also have a spokesperson who's talking to reporters: "We didn't trust the British government to properly seize the Gaddafi regime's corrupt assets, so we took matters into our own hands."

In the Philippines, women are marching for reproductive health care reform:

More than 6,000 women gathered near the House of Representatives building to urge lawmakers to pass the bill aimed at giving poor women more access to artificial birth control and better maternal health care.

Elizabeth Angsioco, chairwoman of the Democratic Socialist Women of the Philippines, said the passage of the Reproductive Health Bill would help prevent the deaths of 11 women daily from complications from pregnancy or child birth.

Why we fight: The Jane Austen Drinking Game (via Feministing). The Appalachian Trail. Up, up and away. Tourist photography maps. And the thrilling exploits of people seeking peace of mind through psychoanalysis:


Nineteenth-century travel albums (via Peacay). Terra Nullis. Photos by Vanessa Winship. Photos by Irina Werning. Illustrated newspaper supplements. And the Powerhouse Museum's International Women's Day set:


Nine eyes. Anamorphic writing. The Gerd Arntz Web Archive. Grassroots aerial mapping. The Maras Salt Mine. Lifecycle of the Common Jezebel. And Talinn's North Corridor.


Here's a song, too:



(Photo at top: "Rouages" by Germaine Krull, circa 1929.)