And Irma, we don't really give a crap about you, either. Water, Water, Everywhere Twenty-seven TRILLION gallons of water dumped on Southeast Texas in six days? That's what the various reports say. And we say, "Big whoop!" Wild-Westy, pavement-obsessedy Houston essentially destroyed, molded, and steeped in a toxic stew from chemical plants gone kablooey while the … [Read more...]
Reassessing Arctic oil
Shell Oil will discontinue drilling for oil off the coast of Alaska during the summer of 2013. According to Marilyn Heiman, Director of the U.S. Arctic Program of Pew Trusts, “[Shell] had some safety and management challenges that I don’t think they had fully thought through.” Shell, along with every other oil company out there, has a lot to learn about drilling in the … [Read more...]
Terrible tech toy tortures toddlers and tweens
We don't own a TV, so I don't see many ads. But since I love the NBC show Parenthood, I had to subscribe to HULU Plus to catch the show every week. There, I'm subjected to the every-eight-minutes commercial assault on our minds, dignity, and behavior so central to the TV "experience." This, HULU Plus calls "limited commercial interruption." I call it Hell. Ever since … [Read more...]
Green waste
I was riding my bicycle into town on trash collection day last week and noticed that one of my neighbors had filled their can with weeds and other green waste. They had obviously cleaned up their yard and had accumulated a lot of green material in the process. But, I stalled out in trying to figure out why they had put it in their trash can? Weeds, grass clippings, twigs and … [Read more...]
The gates of Hell
In a letter to Ernest de Chabrol dated 9 June 1831, Alexis de Tocqueville wrote: As one digs deeper into the national character of the Americans, one sees that they have sought the value of everything in this world only in the answer to this single question: how much money will it bring in? Nearly two hundred years later, de Tocqueville has been vindicated not only as a … [Read more...]