| 6-19-08, 8:00pm: The veil was lifted... | | When I was in high school, I took a class where we studied the media. If you look back at history, during the Vietnam war, journalists were allowed to follow the soldiers and send back gruesome pictures of the reality of the war. This led to public protests on a scale we haven't seen since. Have you noticed you don't see pictures like that anymore? The most you might see is a grainy missile camera shot and an explosion. The war has been made to feel far away, inhuman, broken down into numbers of dead with rarely a name mentioned, let alone a picture or a description.
When I took my class I wondered why this change had occured, and who has the power to manipulate the supposedly free media to make such a drastic change to the nature of their reporting? Well, the veil was recently lifted when Jessica Yellin spoke about her career at MSNBC saying that "press corps was under enormous pressure from corporate executives, frankly, to make sure that this was a war that was presented in a way that was consistent with the patriotic fever in the nation and the President’s high approval ratings".
Unfortunately, the veil was quickly lowered again when she ammended her story to try to take back what she said... But as far as I'm concerned, the cat's out of the bag and my trust in mass media is as low as possible. Did you know that almost all our media, which used to be owned by thousands of individuals, is now owned by ten enormous international entities?
The moral of the story is: Don't get your news from the big ten. Take the time to search the internet and find your own way. I like npr.org, or, for true democracy, digg.com |  | | 6-19-08, 7:33pm: Green Future | | I remember I used to be able to fill my 2004 Prius for just under $20. About a week ago, it cost just over $40. The good news in this fact is that everyone is suddenly researching and investing in alternative energy.
The most exciting of these new technologies that I've heard of is third generation solar panels. These panels are in full production as of last December and cost 75% less than older panels, finally putting them at around the same price as electricity from gas, and they'll only get cheaper. Plus they use less materials and can be 'printed' onto curved surfaces such as the roofs of cars or even the bodies of electric airplanes that fly above the clouds in perpetual sunlight.
Big companies are finally jumping on board with Nissan promising an affordable electric car for companies in 2010 and consumers in 2012.
Earthjustice has a new series of short videos highlighting some of the new technologies.
While technology is part of the solution, individual choice, education, and government mandates are all going to be needed to solve the climate crisis and Earth's other problems, but the technology sure is cool. | | | 6-05-08, 6:13pm: Filibuster unbroken | | The vote on meaningful climate change legislation I mentioned earlier was filibustered (blocked from being voted on) by its opponents. There were almost enough votes (54 of the 60 needed) to break the filibuster, and only 36 voted to keep it going. This is far better than in 2005 when only 36 voted in favor of such a bill, and even this bill didn't do as much as most scientists think is necessary. We're headed in the right direction, but much more work is needed. Bush said he would have vetoed the bill if it passed. At least McCain says he supports a cap on carbon emissions, but then again, so did Bush before he was elected, and McCain said he would not have supported this bill because it contained too little funding for nuclear power. | | | 6-04-08, 5:05pm: Obama's In | | I have to say, I'm happy. Barak Obama is a progressive candidate who started in politics through community organizing, who unequivocally opposed the war in Iraq, who isn't afraid to stand up to the politics of fear, and he's now officially the Democratic nominee for president. Obama says "If we are willing to work for it, and fight for it, and believe in it, then I am absolutely certain that generations from now, we will be able to look back and tell our children that this was the moment when we began to provide care for the sick and good jobs to the jobless; this was the moment when the rise of the oceans began to slow and our planet began to heal; this was the moment when we ended a war and secured our nation and restored our image as the last, best hope on Earth."
Big words, but I think we may finally have a candidate who can back what they say. McCain promises more Bush policy. More war. Less health care for more money. No progress on climate change or other environmental issues. Almost four years ago, when Bush "won" a second term, one of my coworkers was in tears, saying she wished she'd done more... Well, I'm going to do all I can this time around, starting with a donation to MoveOn.org. Anyone who's with me, this is our time. This is huge. Do whatever it takes. | | | 5-15-08, 9:22pm: Historic climate vote and hope for transportation | | In fewer than 30 days, a vote on a critical measure to address climate change will take place in the United States Senate. The "Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act" will start reducing U.S. emissions 5% below 2005 levels by 2012 and reduce further from there. The bill is still a compromise but far better than doing nothing as we draw rapidly closer to irreversible consequences. Until June 1st, someone working with Environmental Defense is matching all donations made to help get this bill passed.
Recently, I saw "Who Killed the Electric Car" and found it fascinating. Even an electric car charged from a coal-fired power plant is less polluting than the operation of a gas-powered car engine, and battery-power is more efficient than the hydrogen-powered cars that are still so far from being affordable. While the big car companies try to claim electric cars are too expensive or undesirable, individuals are building affordable electric cars even without the cost benefit of mass production. There's tons of people documenting their vehicle experiments on ecomodder.com and independent Tesla Motors has recently released an electric sports car that there's already a waiting list for. The founder's dream is to use the funds earned by the sports car to mass produce an electric the rest of us can afford. I think that's awesome. | | | 12-21-07, 5:39pm: Fuel economy, good and bad news... | Congress finally passed an energy bill requiring U.S. cars to achieve 35mpg average by 2020 (the first time this average has been raised since 1985), and although he's been threatening to veto, Bush actually ratified it! While that's shocking, it's also shocking that the EPA denied California's petition (pending for two years) to increase the fuel efficiency of our cars to 36mpg by 2016. This is the first time EPA has denied a waiver in 40 years and it comes after four recent court decisions ruled in favor of states being allowed to set their own standards, and after 16 other states indicated they may follow California's lead.
The 36mpg in 8 years standard (instead of 35 in 12) is still well behind China's 35mpg and Europe's 40mpg standards for today's cars. We should do better, and even California's Republican governor vowed to fight the EPA's decision. You can help put some pressure on the EPA by signing this petition. | | | 12-05-07, 9:51pm: Some progress... | I see so much more talk about climate change in the media these days. Even Bush has publically admitted it's a real problem. Polls show far more people now believe than disbelieve, but I think there's often a sense of "what can we do?" The problem seems too big. Well, besides all the individual actions you might take, it's very important that governments work on the problem on a global scale. This December 3-14, leaders from 180 countries are meeting in Bali to discuss the first stages of planning the next international agreement to take over after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012. To help show world support and nudge them in the right direction, you can sign a simple online petion. Also, a great way to keep up on environmental news like the Bali talks is the NPR Environment Podcast.
12-16 update from TIME magazine: The U.S., Canada, and Japan were all against specific cuts in CO2 and Al Gore spoke out, blaming the U.S. as the world's major obstacle to an agreement. As the talks were extended into Saturday, Canada and Japan abandoned the U.S., and the U.S. finally signed on to a weakened agreement that still calls for cuts. I'd call it a partial victory. | | | 11-06-07, 10:36pm: Time fixed | | I've corrected the daylight saving start/end dates on the web server and set it to syncronize with an atomic clock, so it should no longer keep slipping gradually away from the correct time. | | | 7-16-07, 11:46am: Downtime due to Network Solutions Incompetence | | Draconic appeared to be down for most people from Sat morning till sometime Mon because Network Solutions is incompetent. Since NS charges twice as much as most other registrars, I moved draconic.net to Tigertech.net about six months ago and have been happy with their service. So, I recently requested that draconic.com be moved as well, and I then realized I had to change the DNS servers to something other than the ones NS hosts. I made that change, and it appeared to work, saying the change would take 24 hours. After 24 hours, my DNS servers were not changed as I requested, but NS stopped hosting my DNS! Therefore, draconic.com could not be resolved to its IP address. I sent a support request to NS and got a useless form letter response back from them about 27 hours later (they said they'd respond in under 24). By that point, NS had finally released the domain to the control of Tigertech.net and I fixed it easily from their end. So much for NS's claim that they provide superior customer service for their expensive rates. In less time than NS took to respond, I've gotten two lengthy, helpful, personalized responses from Tigertech support. | | | 5-30-07, 8:07pm: Speak out for cheaper wireless | | According to MoveOn.org, "The federal government is on the verge of turning over a huge portion of our public airwaves to companies like AT&T, Verizon, and Comcast--who will use them for private enrichment instead of the public good.
These newly available airwaves are a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to revolutionize Internet access -- beaming high-speed signals to every park bench, coffee shop, workplace, and home in America at more affordable prices than current Internet service."
Interesting? Read more or sign the petition. |
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