Hello from Peabody’s Coffee Bar in Palm Springs, California.
I’m just off to do a trail run on Mt. San Jacinto, off the tramway. It’s sunny summer down below. But I hear there is plenty of snow up high. In fact, they rent snow shoes and cross country skis atop the lift.
After a few days hiking in the Joshua Tree area, I fly to Mazatlán, Mexico on Tuesday for more dental work.
Steve Greenberg (blog) is an editorial cartoonist and news artist with the Ventura County Star.
(via The Goat)
Close-up of the very cool art exhibition showing the patterns of American consumption.
Thanks Brian.
For me 2008 feels a lot like 2007.
The biggest change in my life is that I’m now training for Adventure Racing, specifically an event in Lake Tahoe next September.
Here’s a video of some of our team in a training run (7-8mi) last week.
Click PLAY or watch it on YouTube.
More information on our team website – Fast FARTS
Rich urged me to see this 2006 film. And I finally have.
It’s a unique, thought provoking, unusual film. I’m glad I saw it — though it didn’t change my life.
The quantum physics is interesting. More emphatic is the concept that what you think affects you at the cellular level. True, I understand.
Deaf actress Marlee Matlin is the lead, and very good.
That’s it. None of the ideas in the film were new to me. Likely I’ll not remember this film after a week or two.
What the Bleep Do We Know!? – Wikipedia
From email:
STROKE: Remember The 1st Three Letters…. S.T.R.
RECOGNIZING A STROKE
S * Ask the individual to SMILE.
T * Ask the person to TALK and SPEAK A SIMPLE SENTENCE
R * Ask him or her to RAISE BOTH ARMS. If he or she has trouble with ANY ONE of these tasks, call 999/911 immediately and describe the symptoms to the dispatcher.
New Sign of a Stroke ——– Stick out Your Tongue
As usual, I checked to see if it was valid:
America’s National Stroke Association lists the following as common symptoms of stroke:
* Sudden numbness or weakness of face, arm or leg, especially on one side of the body
* Sudden confusion, trouble speaking or understanding
* Sudden trouble seeing in one or both eyes
* Sudden trouble walking, dizziness,
* loss of balance or coordination Sudden severe headache with no known causeGiven this list of symptoms, it is easy to see how the simple three-question test could help identify a stroke.
However, there is an important point that needs to be considered. While the central information in the email is true, the absence of these symptoms does not necessarily indicate that a person is NOT having a stroke. It could be extremely dangerous to reach the conclusion that a person did not require medical attention just because he or she could successfully carry out the three steps outlined in the test. …
I lived in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan for 10yrs.
It’s a great city.
Sadly, I only seem to get back about once a year, usually over New Year’s Eve.
I missed the big bonfire on Emma Lake this time, landing in the Toon Town on January 1st.
For 3 days I was busy with a gymnastics clinic. But still had some time to catch up with good, old friends.
Also drank with some good old rogues (above) at Alexander’s.
All the best in 2008 to everyone in Saskatchewan. Also Billy Bentley who is loafing at some sort of resort in Washington State. Fight Billy!
This is likely somewhat hyperbolic.
Still, the USA is nuttier than any other civilized country when it comes to soft drugs.
What would you buy if you had an extra $42 billion to spend every year? What might our government buy if it suddenly had that much money dropped onto its lap every year?
For one thing, it might pay for the entire $7 billion annual increase in the State Children’s Health Insurance Program that President Bush is threatening to veto because of its cost — and there’d still be $35 billion left over.
Or perhaps you’d hire 880,000 schoolteachers at the average U.S. teacher salary of $47,602 per year.
Or give every one of our current teachers a 30 percent raise (at a cost of $15 billion, according to the American Federation of Teachers) and use what’s left to take a $27 billion whack out of the federal deficit.
Or use all $42 billion for a massive tax cut that would put an extra $140 in the pockets of every person in the country — $560 for a family of four.
The mind reels at the ways such a massive sum of money could be put to use.
Why $42 billion? Because that’s what our current marijuana laws cost American taxpayers each year, according to a new study by researcher Jon Gettman, Ph.D. — $10.7 billion in direct law enforcement costs, and $31.1 billion in lost tax revenues. And that may be an underestimate, at least on the law enforcement side, since Gettman made his calculations before the FBI released its latest arrest statistics in late September. The new FBI stats show an all-time record 829,627 marijuana arrests in 2006, 43,000 more than in 2005.
AlterNet: DrugReporter: The War on Pot: America’s $42 Billion Annual Boondoggle
If spending money fighting a “War on Drugs” is a good idea, why is it not working?
Reefer Madness – the movie
Congratulations Maureen!
In our local paper today:
Water diverts lawyer’s attention
Corporate lawyer questions our entitlement to water
There is perhaps nothing more innocuous than water.
It’s what we drink, what we cook with, what we wash with . . . it’s always there.
Question is: will it be?Maureen Bell is a lawyer by profession and it’s that job that drives her day. But the quest for the preservation of one of our most cherished resources takes up much of her time and passion, as well.
Bell is a principal of Water Rights Inc., which is focused on finding pioneering solutions to issues that arise from or are related to water and water rights in Alberta. The hope is that these efforts will lead to the reconsideration of Alberta’s water strategy to overuse the rivers.
“I wanted to explore the entitlement of water,” she says. “My goal was to understand water well enough so that we weren’t fighting for nothing.”
Bell lobbied to create a water trust that sets aside licences to keep a healthy supply in the rivers; in other words, keeping water in trust for recreation, water management and fish habitat.
It’s a challenging task, considering that communities and industries are competing tooth-and-nail for an apparently dwindling supply.
“There are other trusts in other jurisdictions, but because Alberta’s different, we had to make appropriate changes to fit our jurisdiction,” she says.
“We created the trust working with the government of Alberta to garner their support. There is a lot of support, but we haven’t received our first water
“We’ve approached the city and we know that citizens are conserving water . . . so where’s that conserved water going? We asked, ‘Can you donate it to the trust?’ The answer was no.”
Bell has been practising law for more than 30 years, specializing in corporate and commercial law.Her interest in this particular subject grew after she “decided I wanted to understand water from a legal perspective.”
Bell is in the process of completing her master’s degree at the University of Calgary, in collaboration with the Canadian Institute of Resource Law, with a focus on the water issue.
© Calgary Hearld 2008
Thanks Rocco.
I was in healthier-than-thou Vancouver, Canada recently. They still allow smoking in public places indoors.
YUCK.
One of the proofs that we may not be doomed — that the world is getting better — is a reduced smoking rate.
According to Torontoist: “An American study showed that, worldwide, smokers toss at least 4.5 trillion butts on the ground every year, and that’s not only revolting to look at, but causes significant environmental damage. Cigarette filters are made of non-biodegradable polymer acetate (read: plastic), and discarded butts start fires, kill small animals, and are the most common item washing up on beaches. A 2006 City of Toronto litter audit found that cigarette butts were the fourth most common small litter item, after chewing gum, paper, and glass pieces.”
What?
I thought smoking litterbugs were lashed in Singapore. This doesn’t go far enough:
“To maintain the clean and green city, there are strict laws against littering of any kind. First-time offenders face a fine of up to S$1,000. For repeat offenders–it’s a fine of up to S$2,000 and a Corrective Work Order (CWO). The CWO requires litterbugs to spend a few hours cleaning a public place, for example, picking up litter in a park. The litterbugs are made to wear bright jackets, and sometimes, the local media are invited to cover the public spectacle. Naturally, the authorities hope that public shame will make diehard litterbugs think twice about tossing their scrap paper or cigarette butt on the roadside.”
• nuclear war
• civil wars worldwide
• potential pandemics
• child hunger
• overweight and obesity
• increasing gap between richest and poorest
I would spend time and money NOT on solving global warming, but rather:
• education of girls and women
• population control in those parts of the world that need it
• making available safe water to those who need it
• youth work experiences in the developing countries
• anti-smoking measures (those proven to work)
• protecting wilderness
• promoting “voluntary simplicity” and “reduced consumption”
• improving migration of workers to parts of the world that need workers
My main motivation in writing this post is:
“the hypocrisy of western concerns over future global warming disasters, while ignoring the extreme misery and suffering being endured right now in developing countries.”
This guy agrees: Priorities – Can you worry about global warming while your children are dying? » Celsias
Global warming may or may not exist. May or may not have been caused by industrialization. May or may not be changed by future technology.
Don’t talk to me about it until these greater, more urgent global needs are getting more attention.
I’m especially ticked off with those making MONEY by being global warming alarmists.
Those are just a few of the issues more important than global warming to me. Leave a comment if you want to add to the list. Or refute me with hard, reputable scientific evidence that I am wrong. (Don’t mention Dr. Suzuki, please.)
