greenpeace action: leaders, not politicians

Check it out!  Greenpeace dropped a banner from Mt. Rushmore demanding real action on climate change – “Americans honor leaders, not politicians.”  Great message, great way to draw attention to it.  They managed to keep in up for an hour – no small feat – and it’s been picked up by tons of news outlets.  And now the G8 have announced a pledge to keep temperature rise below 2 degrees.  I have no idea how they will manage to do this given the weak-ass legislation in all of these countries (ACES is no exception; it’s a good start, but only a start).  Nice words though.  Hopefully there will be a lot of momentum going into Copenhagen, even though developing countries are digging in their heels.  This new Princeton study allocating emissions cuts based on the number of high earners in a country is an interesting approach to the problem.  I think their methodology is interesting, and it’s a good approach.  Tough to tell whether it will influence the negotiations, but I like it.  Seeing innovative policy approaches come out actually lifts my pessimism a bit.

Summer Vacation number 1: The farm

I spent fouth of July weekend in Mount Shasta, visiting my friend Rebecca and her family.  Rebecca lives on a farm, which is very exciting.  Here she is picking peas in the garden:

Did you know that when you pick peas, their sugar starts to break down as soon as they’re taken off the plant?  Peas fresh from the garden are the sweetest that they will ever be.  At the moment, the farm mostly produces animal products from goats, chickens, and cows:

And, of course, no farm is complete without dogs and small children:

More photos on Flickr

I really miss the UK sometimes

Item One: MI6 chief’s facebook information deleted

Foreign Secretary David Miliband defended Sir John, saying no important details had been disclosed.

He said: “What do you know? You know that he wears a Speedo swimsuit. What is that? That’s not a state secret.”

Item Two: Umpire dies in cricket accident

While obviously it’s kind of funny, it’s also quite sad and totally disproves many of my earlier statements that cricket is the dullest game on earth.  That title now belongs to golf.

Repulicans vs. Health Care Reform

I’ve just come across a blog post on Frank Luntz’s talking points designed to help Republicans fight meaningful health care reform.

Luntz warns that “if the dynamic becomes ‘President Obama is on the side of reform and Republicans are against it,’ then the battle is lost and every word in this document is useless.’” The trouble is, it already is useless. Because rather than challenging the tenets of American reform proposals, Luntz establishes a straw man argument against a non-existent health plan.

What Luntz argues against, of course, is a single-payer health care system. For the record, I’m totally in favor of single payer. I spent six years in the UK living quite happily with the NHS, for all its flaws. Yes, I once had to wait for a non-emergency procedure. No, this did not cause me pain or distress. The following things about single payer health care are fantastic: (1) primary care is awesome, I never had to wait more than 48 hours to see a doctor if I was sick. That’s right. Imagine not having to make the choice between the emergency room and having to wait a week to see your doctor. (2) emergency care. Similarly awesome. And I never had to worry about paying my bill. (3) Prescriptions. Cheap as chips. And free birth control. (4) And hey, this is the kicker: I never had to make the decision between financial security and health care. Ever. It didn’t cross my mind. This is what Republicans talk about when they refer to the ‘Washington takeover of healthcare’: never having to be afraid of getting sick.

Anyway. This is not what Obama is proposing, either. Obama is proposing a tremendously middle of the road approach that doesn’t resemble single payer at all. But Republicans and their friends in the HMO industry don’t even want you to have that. Repubs want you to continue suffering, you unwashed uninsured, because they’re ideologically opposed to health care that works. And their friends in the industry will continue to capitalize on your pain and make money hand over fist.

new socks

They’re a little warm for summer, but fortunately I live in the Bay Area – before the current heat wave I got some good use out of them!  The pattern is Sam, designed by Cookie A.

Ravelry Project Page

thinking of iran

Just got an email from a friend in Iran, who is hoping to ‘participate in some things hopefully without being beaten or killed’. How hideous is it to go outside for a peaceful demonstration and have to worry about being beaten or killed? I am thinking a lot about Neda, the girl who was murdered on video who has become, in her death, an icon. What is the ethical meaning of dying on camera in an attempt to win freedom? A friend of mine posted on Twitter that there is no compassion in filming someone’s death; if I were a murdered protestor would i want my last moments captured on camera or not? It is such a violation of the most lonely moment everyone faces, and yet it has helped to bring this struggle into focus for thousands – perhaps millions – of people all over the world.

Is it shameful of me to thank my lucky stars that I do not have to take my life into my hands to defend my rights? I know some people who see getting arrested or beaten or harassed in the name of social justice as a form of glory, a badge to wear next to your Food Not Bombs sticker. Maybe I’m just getting old, but I don’t see the glory in it, I only see the tragedy of it. It makes me so sick at heart to think of the people out there in the streets, knowing full well it could go horribly wrong in an instant, yelling defiantly to tamp down the bubbling fear. And it makes me angry. If I had to choose, I’d rather be angry than sad. It’s more productive.

not what I’m supposed to be doing

I finally (FINALLY) submitted an essay to Cast On, the classiest of all knitting podcasts. This should not have been a difficult thing to do. It’s a thousand word essay about knitting! It’s the summer! But I got 75% of the way there and stalled for two full weeks. Finally, I got to the point where I couldn’t work on it any more, I had to start the next project. And of course I started the next project, a little teeny bit, and finished the essay for Cast On. I feel that I am learning the secrets of my rebellious little brain but I’m not sure how that’s going to do me any good.

the internet police state

so, France has passed a ‘three strikes law’ directed at file sharers.

The bill will create a new government agency called, the High Authority of Diffusion of the Art Works and Protection of Rights on the Internet – known as Hadopi for short.

That group will oversee a process that has caused outrage and controversy among activists in France – and have been called the world’s tightest copyright restrictions.

According to the proposals, the first strike involves sending a message to any user who is believed to have infringed copyright online, with a repeat message sent on the second instance. When the authorities are informed of a third transgression, the user’s internet access could be closed down for a period of between two and 12 months – without judicial appeal.

This is horrifying.  I can’t believe that French people are willing to stand for this, a gateway towards massive economic and political restriction of the Internet.  Bonjour, grand frère.

The Rosa Mitts

I was making a hat for my friend Rosa, who had a really bad spinal injury earlier in the year, and I decided she needs warm hands as well as a warm head.  So I designed a pair of fingerless mittens to go with the hat pattern I had picked out.    I’ve now written up the pattern and you can download it here for FREEEE, and soon it will be a Ravelry Download.  (Takes longer than you think to get set up as a Designer.)

Download: The Rosa Mitts

Beautiful pictures, with the hat and mitts modeled by Margit:

last week was made of fail, this week will be made of win

I interrupt my final paper about the feminist perspective in science and technology to bring you this:

Randall Munroe and Nathan Fillion race each other on electric skateboards.
I SHIT YOU NOT.
This week in XKCD.

The geekery, it burns with the white hot fire of a thousand suns, yea it is a veritable supernova of overeducated nerd-happy fandom.  Srsly ppl.  I think I just squeed my pants.