Detroit: Turning Fords into Plowshares?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 11, 2008 by admin in Clean & Green, Lifestyle & Culture
A non-profit called “Urban Farming” has innovative ideas for sustainable urban renewal.
Having grown up in the shadow of Detroit’s Beirut-like inner-city crumbling buildings, it’s exciting for me to find out that someone’s working on an innovative and green idea for re-vitalizing parts of the city. Urban Farming is a non-profit whose mission is to “eradicate hunger while increasing diversity, motivating youth and seniors and optimizing the production of unused land for food and alternative energy”. Sounds to me like a great prescription for many of Detroit’s problems. This BBC News piece has a nice overview, and Urban Farming’s media page has many more press links.
Do Cow Farts Cause Global Warming?
[ 1 Comment ]Posted on July 10, 2008 by admin in Clean & Green
Surely there’s a more humane way to measure cows’ gaseous emissions.
One of the joys of not having an editor is that one can choose to use phrases like “cow fart” in your headlines. That being said, I think I’m going to put off buying that Prius and stop worrying about my carbon footprint until agribusiness takes care of its methane assprint. Who would’ve guessed that a single cow produces 800 to 1,000 litres (no mention of whether that’s gaseous or liquid) of “emissions” every day? And I have to say (after seeing the photo at left) that there must be a better way to measure these life-threatening farts and burps. The next time PETA goes on a save-the-furry-animals rampage, I’m going to have to stand on my soapbox and scream: “WHAT ABOUT THE COWS???” If you really want to learn more about bovine buttprints, watch this Reuters News clip on YouTube.
Hottest New Redneck Trend: Gay Cage Fighting
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 8, 2008 by admin in Lifestyle & Culture, Popular Media
Sacha Baron Cohen creates an uproar in Arkansas with his kissing cage fighters.
Forget this weekend’s NASCAR schedule, we got us some Gay Cage Fights to go to. Some Arkansas cage fighting fans were a little disappointed last month when the fighters they were watching ripped each other’s clothes off and kissed instead of beating each other senseless like good rednecks in cages should. “Disappointed” might be putting it lightly; they apparently began to throw chairs and beers at the ring as the frisky cage fighters made their getaway. It turns out the whole event was staged by Sacha Baron Cohen for an upcoming film project. The Smoking Gun has many more details here. If you find things like gay cage fighting intriguing, be sure to see yesterday’s post about Napoleon’s penis. I just like typing that. Napoleon’s penis.
McCain = Bush = Court Date
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 8, 2008 by admin in Politics
Strong-arming 61-year-old librarians is not going to win the election, Mr. McCain.
You would think an old geezer like John McCain would be more sensitive to the needs of old ladies. Needs which don’t include being strong-armed by security for expressing your thoughts (link includes footage as well as story content). Carol Kreck, a 61-year-old librarian from Denver, was waiting in line to attend a McCain “town hall” meeting. At the behest of McCain’s security people, she was cited for trespassing and escorted away because she was carrying a sign that read “McCain = Bush”. She logically pointed out that if you’re a Republican who voted for Bush, why should you be offended by the sign? Kreck was told “You have two choices. You can keep your sign here and receive a ticket for trespassing, or you can remove the sign and stay in line and attend this town hall meeting.”. To her credit she accepted the ticket and a court date.
Buy a Car, or Buy a Hasselblad H3DII-50?
[ Comments Off ]Posted on July 8, 2008 by admin in Technology
A tough choice if you have thirty grand or so laying around.
This is a beautiful machine, but there are only two reasons to think about buying this camera: 1.) It looks cool on the seat of your Bugatti Veyron 2.) You need hi-resolution billboard-sized photos. Although they haven’t announced the price yet, Hasselblad has released specs on their 50 megapixel H3DII-50. Yes, that’s 50 megapixels, creating 300MB image files at 1FPS (Hold still, dammit, or the pores on your face’ll be all blurry!). This is accomplished with a sensor that is twice the physical size of the largest existing 35mm DSLR sensors. The expected price? Since owners of the H3D-39II