Overheard among four GOP women waiting in line before yesterday’s school board meeting:
“If those people would just get jobs, they wouldn’t have to worry about living in a bad neighborhood.”
Clueless. Shockingly, unbelievably clueless.
July 2010
Dealing in blood and oil
A Pan Am Boeing 747
There has been speculation in the British press that last year’s release of the convicted bomber of Pan Am Flight 103 (the “Lockerbie Bombing”), Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, was done so to allow BP to sign an oil contract worth billions with Libya. The UK prime minister, David Cameron, got grilled today at the White House by the press (or should I say the British press. What passes for the American press was too busy mindlessly covering the two leaders’ favorite beer. I wish I was joking.)
Top-secret America
Here’s a fascinating look at the ballooning American intelligence world, which has gone on a growth binge following the 9/11 attacks with no limit in sight.
The top-secret world the government created in response to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has become so large, so unwieldy and so secretive that no one knows how much money it costs, how many people it employs, how many programs exist within it or exactly how many agencies do the same work.
These are some of the findings of a two-year investigation by The Washington Post that discovered what amounts to an alternative geography of the United States, a Top Secret America hidden from public view and lacking in thorough oversight. After nine years of unprecedented spending and growth, the result is that the system put in place to keep the United States safe is so massive that its effectiveness is impossible to determine.
via Top-secret America: A hidden world, growing beyond control – The Denver Post.
What the BP oil disaster has shown me
Deepwater Horizon burns
It’s now been three days since BP capped the Deepwater Horizon well and so far this temporary solution seems to be holding. The pause in the gushing oil has provided me an opportunity to think about what it means.
One thing I’ve learned is just how recklessly desperate the world is for oil. This drives a greed-filled drive to meet that demand, no matter what the environmental cost. I thought the wildcatting days depicted in the movie There Will Be Blood were over but that is apparently far from the case. I had no idea before the disaster that tens of thousands of oil rigs are drilling in the Gulf of Mexico.
Another thing I now know is how oil is killing us. Petrochemicals make our modern world: the things they do for us are truly miraculous. At the same time they’re poisoning us. How did we get in this dilemma and how do we get out of it?
This disaster has not only deeply wounded the Gulf of Mexico, it has wounded the concept that we can continue our dirty-energy lifestyle as long as the wells don’t run dry. But they will eventually and that’s a fact. A disaster like this one must never be allowed to happen again.
We’ve had our warning shot. The next one might be fatal to us all.
Tulsi-Hybrid Solar Oven
Tulsi-Hybrid Solar Oven
Check out the Tulsi-Hybrid Solar Oven: a hybrid solar-electric cooker. I’ve been wondering if we could use the abundant sun on our back deck for cooking food, and this solar cooker looks like the perfect solution. When the sun isn’t available to do the cooking, the Tulsi-Hybrid uses electricity to keep your food warm – avoiding spoilage.
I’ve found the Tulsi-Hybrid available online for as low as $240 at the Solar Store.
Sun BD Corporation, presents Hybrid Solar Oven Technology at its finest, it is easy to use, portable, sets up in seconds and is safer to use because there are no dangerous open flames. The Tulsi-Hybrid produces zero carbon emissions!
Fairview Road and high-speed rail
There has been lots of discussion about how the Southeast High Speed Rail project will affect downtown Raleigh. One proposed route would close a grade crossing at Fairview Road. Some have suggested that the neighbors near Fairview Road might prefer that Fairview Road stay open.
I don’t live in right next to the tracks but I do live close enough to cross at Fairview every now and then. About half the time the crossing is blocked: the trains at the nearby Norfolk Southern yard frequently stretch across the road as their freight is assembled. It’s gotten to the point that I simply assume the road will be blocked and that I’ll have to wait. As far as I’m concerned, closing an already-congested crossing wouldn’t be that big of an impact.
Then there’s the noise. All day and night, the trains sound their horns as they move back and forth across the road. I live a mile away from this crossing and even from here they sound loud. I don’t know how the folks at Roanoke Park deal with it. Living right next to the tracks, the trains must be deafening. Closing the crossing would mean the trains would no longer sound their horns. That sounds like a plus to me.
Will the high-speed trains bring change? Sure they will. But they’ll bring more good changes than bad ones.
Could Raleigh’s greenway paths be fiber paths?
Capital Area Greenway
I was thinking again (I know, I know. I should stop that bad habit) about Raleigh and the potential for a municipal Internet network (or a Google one). It occurred to me that the miles and miles of greenways Raleigh enjoys would make the perfect place to run a fiber backbone across our city. We’ve got greenways stretching into every corner of our city and more are being built and stitched-together every year. Why not make burying conduit part of every greenway construction project going forward?
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Birds can see magnetic fields
Found this fascinating:
Some birds can sense the Earth’s magnetic field and orientate themselves with the ease of a compass needle. This ability is a massive boon for migrating birds, keeping frequent flyers on the straight and narrow. But this incredible sense is closely tied to a more mundane one – vision. Thanks to special molecules in their retinas, birds like the European robins can literally see magnetic fields.
What’s making Americans fat
My friend and fellow veteran Grier Martin pointed me to a story in the Army Times that warns that most American kids are too out of shape to serve in the military.
My wife Kelly thinks she knows why kids are getting fatter: the drink sizes offered with fast food have become supersized. The same sized soft drink that used to be considered a large is now the “small” size. It’s crazy.
What to do about it, though? Isn’t the restaurant just giving its customers what they want, regardless of whether or not it’s what they need? If everyone chooses to pig out, landing in the hospital with heart disease; diabetes; and other serious illnesses, the treatment of which will be paid for through my insurance premiums, is that simply free enterprise at work? Or should society try to set a better example?
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Cheap thoughts: clever versus useful
Being clever is not the same as being useful.