http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671876821/ref=ase_rambles/002-8586454-2882435?s=books&v=glance&n=283155&tagActionCode=rambles

Chicks In Chain Mail (I am told) is da bomb. Perhaps also a fashion statement; just keep the sword in view so you dont’t get busted for carrying a concealed weapon!

The subject of this (Fursday) post should offer a clue to my relative absence. Even the post could be a little geeky:

How does a UNIX Guru have sex?
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; fsck; fsck; fsck; umount; sleep

http://www.grinningplanet.com/2005/06-14/peak-oil-article.htm

(Sorry blogger link didn’t work!)

I love it when someone write a well-researched article better than I can ever hope to!

This should add much perspective to the immigrations versus environment discussion.

Knowing what this article predicts should make us all reconsider plans for the future.

Such easy pickins, son! Is this the ‘Read my Lips’ of 43?

One of the mantras of (post)modern times has been “progress”. We might totally wipe out entire species, but nothing should stand in the way of the machine of change.

So the powers that B currently argue about replacing the highway equivalent to the Kingdome: the Alask Way Viaduct. The state says: we’ll give you money, but only if you promise to replace it with a road of the same or greater capacity. But is this wise? Should we encourage more traffic or less? Should we construct another $millions/mile stretch of road that promotes air and water pollution (through ever-increasing toxic storm water runoff)? One that would further block views of the water?

Shouldn’t we have enough knowledge and courage to determine that building more roads does not solve the problem of demand? Is rebuilding the viaduct, even one that is a tunnel, just more of the same? Or will we suffer without one?

Your thoughts?

Though I know that what’s listed below is a pipedream, but I copied the best parts (Washington Post) for your review. Seems I am not the only one with these ideas:

Two years ago, the European Union admitted 10 new members. Like Mexico, all of these nations were poor, some of them fairly backward and most recently ravaged by war and communist dictatorship.

To deal with the situation, the leaders of the European Union wisely created policies for fostering regional economic and political integration that make efforts such as the North American Free Trade Agreement “look timid and halfhearted by comparison,” according to Bernd Westphal, consul general of Germany.

Europe realized it had to prevent a “giant sucking sound” of businesses and jobs relocating from the 15 wealthier nations to the 10 poorer ones. It also had to foster prosperity and the spread of a middle class in these emerging economies and prevent an influx of poor workers to the richer nations.

So for starters it gave the new states massive subsidies — billions of dollars’ worth — to help construct schools, roads, telecommunications and housing, thus making these nations more attractive for business investment. The idea was to raise up the emerging economies rather than let the advanced economies be dragged down. It was expensive, but the result has been a larger economic union in which a rising tide floats all boats.

In return the 10 poorer nations had to agree to raise their standards on the environment, labor law, health and safety — and more. The incentive of admission to the European club was used as a carrot to pull the poorer nations toward acceptance of human rights and political democracy. There won’t be any border maquiladoras in the European Union.

Worker migration still is regulated. Immigrants will be carefully integrated so as to cause the least amount of disruption to the developed economies, with the goal of having open borders within a decade or two.

This bold yet carefully planned E.U. approach suggests the direction that policy between the United States and Mexico should take. Increasingly the demands of the global economy will push North American regional integration out of the realm of a shadow economy and flawed free trade agreement. But what might such an American-Mexican union look like?

It would start with massive subsidies from the United States to Mexico, a Tex-Mex Marshall Plan, with the goal of decreasing disparities on the Mexican side of the border and fostering a climate riper for investment. This would create more jobs in Mexico and foster a middle class, homeownership and better schools, roads and health care. Fewer Mexicans would then want to emigrate north. Instead, they’d stay home, becoming consumers of U.S. products.

The argument over whether or not there is Global Warming(GW)is useless. It is already here. It is not something that will appear in a few years, we’ll deal with when it gets here. It is here, NOW. Katrina like hurrianes will appear regularly, not every so often. This means we need to make decisions that match reality. I brought this up in the “New Orleans” post; if you know that you will get a Category 4 or 5 every 1-5 years in an area on the coast, below sea level is rebuilding woth the investment? We face many similar circumstances on a wider scale.

Two pieces of evidence show the argument is moot, The first is the battle over dominion in the Arctic; any country who borders the area is trying to stake claims to sea-lanes. Why? Because they know the ice is melting and unnavigable areas will open up. Nations do not invest so much for a “maybe”. Secondly, the co-insurers, the ones that insure the insurance companies, have already invested enough money to cover major perctange losses on the Gulf Coast and around Cape Cod. Why? Because all evidence points to these areas being lost. Again, not an “if”, but a when.

So the discussion shouldn’t be about solar panels and super-hybrids. Those are possibilities that may prove valuable later. What we need to address is who gets screwed when land becomes useless, water becomes undrinkable and clean air becomes regional. Katrina proved that our government performs poorly in distasters we expect, especially among the poor, how do you think they will perform when two three category 4 or 5s hit near the same time? Seeing last year’s debacle, I would expect a similar result. How can we give ourselves a better chance? By realizing our situation and calling for better preparation.

Taking that information to the next step. In the who get’s screwed department, in a world where rich countries already dump their problems on the poor (even in their own nations), who do think will get the short stick? Going to Africa to create jobs becomes a ridiculous comment when what the industrialized world does to the environment now diminishes Africa’s ability to suppport life. That’s why solving the GW problem helps everyone; no one is isolated and all contribute to it to some degree. Reducing impact improves all our chances no matter present economic inequalities.

Lastly, contention that “science was wrong on climate change before, why should we trust it now?”, is nothing but whitewash. Science was wrong about eugenics. Yet similar work brought a deep knowledge of DNA to the point where it is an everyday phenomenon. Science, especially these days with its companion, computing technology, means its predicitive ability gets better all the time. Not many question what the Hubble Telescope tells us about the universe almost weekly. Climatology is under question because it is a politcal hot-potato; critics don’t like the answer so they challenge the results. In the last couple of years, however, climate science keeps filling in the details, erasing doubt. At this point anyone who questions the science is not looking at the facts; they’re irrefutable. As I pointed out before, the claim for Arctic sea-lanes and insurance companies’ projection should spur us to move to a more meaningful discussion.

But as much as we now depend on science, it is not the answer to ending human-made impact. Lifestyle and expectation change will produce the best results. Cities and states all over the planet already recognize the problem and are slowly introducing programs and legislation to address it. Yes, many different technologies that reduce greenhouse omissions exist and may work, but a single solution to ending our effect on the atmosphere is impractical. Instead, changing how we live and what we expect will add up to the many small changes we need. Science did not, by itself, create the situation, nor will it solve it.

Global warming is worse than even environmentalists had imagined a few years ago. The alarming news is that all over artic regions the permafrost is melting. Permafrost is defined as anything that has been frozen for two years or longer. Now permafrost that has been around for 1000s of years is melting. The problem is that permafrost contains organic matter that freezes CO2 gases, presenting a greenhouse gas time bomb; once warming reaches a certain level it begins to feed into a viscious loop: more permafrost melts, more CO2 is released, more warming occurs and so on. Climatologist generally refer this as the Tipping Point

Climate change is here to stay. The argument about whether or not it exists is a needless exercise. We need to accept its reality and plan accordingly. Know this: whatever we do now will not reverse the effects. The carrying capacity of all nations will be affected within the next ten to twenty years as more land becomes unusable. Who gets to live where under what conditions will be a political mess we do not have the tools for. So yes, IT IS all about equality, human rights and general fairness.

But don’t take my word for it. Here are links that illustrate the issue better than I ever can:

The Guardian
The New Scientist
Chinese Controled Media: Znet
KTVA-TV Anchorage, Alaska
English Version of German Mag, Spiegel

A Prayer for the Stressed!

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
the courage to change the things I cannot accept,
and the wisdom to hide the bodies of those people I had
to kill today because they pissed me off.

And also, help me to be careful of the toes I step on
today as they may be connected to the ass that I may have
to kiss tomorrow.

Help me to always give 100% at work….
12% on Monday
23% on Tuesday
40% on Wednesday
20% on Thursday
5% on Fridays

And help me to remember…..
When I’m having a really bad day,
and it seems that people are trying to piss me off,
that it takes 42 muscles to frown and
only 4 to extend my middle finger and tell them to bite me!

Amen