Oh The Humanity! Economic Downturn Impacting Wives of Rich Asshole Bankers

It looks like we’re staring down the barrel of a pretty healthy recession and it’s important to remember the people truly being affected by the economic downturn- the wives of rich bankers. The NY Post reports that the spouses of some of the guys behinds the Bear Sterns meltdown are cutting back on basic necessities like high end interior decorating. They have it:

“We only had about $50,000 worth of final touches [to go], and the wife called me last week and said stop,” said interior designer Darren Henault, whose work has been featured in Vanity Fair and Elle Decor.

“She said they’re not poor, and are never going to be poor,” Henault said, “but their capacity for discretionary income for things like window valances just went out the window.”

It just reminds me how cold and cruel the world can be.

Link [New York Post]

Payback is a Bitch: Treekilling Aussies Get Punked with Huge View-Blocking Box

So you know how your mom used to pull mean shit like washing your mouth out with soap if you used a dirty word or making you do push-ups till you cried when you tried on your sister’s dresses? Well, your mom is a bitch. And so is payback. An awesome, powerful, vengeful bitch- much like the bad ass Mother(earth)lovers of the Port Stephens Council.

A bunch of yuppie tree-murderers in Australia learned that lesson the hard way after the recent disappearance of 20 trees off the coast of Boat Harbor, Australia. The Daily Telegraph reported that after 20 Banksia trees were mysteriously chopped down to create a clearer waterfront view for the surrounding houses, the Council retaliated by slapping down two huge, green cargo carriers right where the trees were. The Council had already warned that chopping down trees was very naughty (and illegal), and they weren’t going to say it twice.

It was time for those bad little residents to pull down their pants and take their municipal spankings. Of course now the residents are whining that they were being treated like children. What do they expect? Break the rules in Port Stephens and you get your ass handed to you. Way to kick ass and take names Port Stephens.

Link [Daily Telegraph]

Carrotmob: Harnessing People’s Dollars To Drive Businesses Green

The Carrotmob is one of the coolest green ideas I’ve heard in a long time. Founder Brent Schulkin has pulled together an amazing concept- organized groups of people channeling their spending power on one specific day to give incentive to companies to green up their operations. The first campaign they are doing is a buyout of K&D Market, a liquor store in San Francisco. All the Carrotmobbers will be showing up on Saturday, March 29th to spend a lot of money on booze. The store won a bidding war by pledging to kick 22% of the revenue generated by the Carrotmob towards greening up their operation, specifically energy saving measures recommended by SF Energy Watch.

If you’re in the Bay Area this weekend you can take part by swinging over to K&D Market to buy a bottle or three. Bring cash.

We’ll be watching Brent and his Carrotmob; it’s a great concept that could take off everywhere. Definitely Pure Awesome.

Link [Carrotmob] via [Boing Boing]

Bash Back at Bulk Mail: Send a Brick Back to Bulk Mailers on Their Dime- Legally!

Junk mail is a pain in the ass. You get all excited to check your mail, hoping for a fatty paycheck or a steamy note from Gladys in HR or at least your FerretFancy magazine, but instead you get shat on with bills for your most recent bladder operation and a ton of crap catalogues and credit card offers.

Besides being downright disappointing, crap mailings also use up around 100 million trees, around 30 billion gallons of water, and wastes about 300 million dollars in local tax money per year. Makes you just wanna leave a flaming shit on those bulk-mail guys’ doorsteps, am I right?

Well, check out this brilliant trick from the Office of Strategic Influence. Apparently, you can use those handy business-return envelopes to mail your steamy dump free of charge. The best part is that the poor bastards actually have to pay 20 cents per pound to receive your stool sample.

Okay, so it’s technically not legal to send poop, but you can definitely get away with sending something awkward and cumbersome like a brick. And there isn’t anyway they can track you down. Bwahahahaha! So fight the good fight, send a brick to bulk!

Link [Office of Strategic Influence]

Watch Your Favorite Green Eps of South Park Online- Trey and Matt Set SP Free

I am an unabashed hardcore fan of the show South Park. I’ve seen every episode thanks to the magic of file sharing and YouTube and was happy to hear last year that Matt and Trey were planning on setting the show free on the net. They’ve always encouraged their fans to share episodes online and worked out a deal with Comedy Central to stream them all on SouthParkStudios.com. The site went live last week.

South Park has always ridden the edge when it comes to political and social issues and they haven’t shied away from writing about the environment. Here are a few that touch on green and eco issues. Enjoy!

Rainforest Schmainforest- The kids take a school field trip to the rain forest and discover that it actually kind of sucks.

Fun with Veal- The South Park boys bring out their inner animal rights activist and battle to save a bunch of baby cows from being killed for veal.

Die Hippie, Die- South Park is taken over by hippies who converge on the town for a massive hippie rock show. Sure, it’s not really all that environmental but it’s about hippies and we all know hippies love the earth.

Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow- A giant beaver dam breaks and the town figures out that Global Warming is to blame. Naturally, they panic to hilarious effect.

Smug Alert- The Brovlovski Family gets a hybrid car and become smug jerks about it. They move to San Francisco and are saved by Cartment from a giant Smug storm that takes out the city.

ManbearPig- This is my favorite one. Al Gore comes to town to warn the citizens about the dangers of Manbearpig- half man, half bear, half pig.

Link [South Park Studios]

For The Millionare Who Has Everything: The CarLoft Means Never Having To Say Hello (To Your Neighbors)

The other day I was wondering about hugely famous people like Oprah Winfrey, wondering if they ever even breathe fresh air anymore. I mean, a lot of celebrities drive (or are driven) from parking garage to parking garage - riding a complex series of elevators and automobiles, chutes and tunnels, until they arrive at their climate controlled destination. But what a bummer to always have to walk down the hall to the elevator that goes to the parking garage, right?

Thankfully, a German company with the ever-so-clever name of CarLoft is putting that long walk down the corridor to the parking garage elevator behind us. This incredible waste of money invention means that hi-rise city dwellers need not mingle with the likes of the creepy parking attendant or dirty up a shirtsleeve while reaching to swipe a parking card at an electric gate. (Again, perfect for celebrities.) No, you can just ease your beautiful ride into the lift, cruise on up and drive the thing onto your balcony. So your dinner party guests, who may have already arrived… via the (oh, how awful) front door… can greet you with a cocktail and then stand around and compliment you on your clear coat.

There’s something all too unnecessary about the CarLof. Not only will this elevator (remember, it’s a CAR elevator, people) consume unreal amounts of electricity, but the potential disasters are almost laughable: warming up the car and leaving the sliding glass door open is not recommended, I would imagine. And then there’s that whole idea about waving extremely heavy objects over crowded city streets. Not really thinking THAT’s a great idea either.

Thank you CarLoft, but I’ll take the stairs.

Link [CarLoft] via [Concept Trends]

Head For the Hills, Stock Up The Larder, And Git Yer Guns Loaded, Another Huge Antarctic Ice Shelf has Collapsed

Stock up the foot, clean the guns, and get your waders on- the collapse of the Antarctic ice shelf is in high gear. The Wilkins ice shelf, an area 160 square miles large, seven times the size of Manhattan, has suddenly collapsed. Scientists had the rare opportunity to film the collapse when they saw it happening over satellite images and diverted more lenses to cover it, even getting an airplane in the air to shoot video and photos.

There are two kinds of polar ice- sea ice and land ice (not the scientific names, but they’ll do here). The sea ice sits in the ocean, most of it sitting below water level. When those ice shelfs break off they don’t have much of an impact on sea levels. When the land ice- the glaciers sitting on the ground above sea level- collapses, it adds new mass into the ocean and can quickly raise sea levels across the globe.

The Antarctic land ice is being held back by the now quickly collapsing sea ice. As the world’s temperature rises snow and ice melt and run down to the ground through the glacier in giant ice tunnels. The water follows the slope of the land down to the ocean and acts like a lubricant between the ground and the glacier ice above. When the sea ice has collapsed enough not to hold up the lubricated land ice, it can all fall apart in a matter of hours and days.

How do you think the world would react to a 20 foot rise in sea levels over the course of a day? It’d be pure chaos and madness, epic disaster movie style.

Someone smarter than me has put together a Google Maps mashup that will show you what rising sea levels look like on a map of the world meter by meter. See for yourself. New York City would be really screwed.

The future will be nothing if not interesting.

Links [Huffington Post] & [The National Snow and Ice Data Center] & [The British Antarctic Survey]

Developing Nations Struggle to Cope with Rising Food Prices, Once Again The Poor Get Screwed

I live on the edge of town, with real farmland about a quarter mile away. The fields in one direction have been in alfalfa for a decade. Around the corner, in a second field, they’ve been growing tomatoes for about as long. A couple of months ago, I drove past and saw machinery in both places, and thought for a dark moment that it was another suburb going in–but no. With the housing market collapse, those days are gone. Instead, wheat sprouted and grew, hundreds of acres of it. The wheat is now tall enough that, when the wind blows through the fields, it looks like it should have its own inspirational soundtrack.

Why did they switch to wheat? Because the price has gone through the roof, which is having grim repercussions all over the world. From the International Herald Tribune:

Egypt’s government is struggling to contain a political crisis sparked by rising world food prices. Violent clashes have broken out at long lines for subsidized bread, and the president, worried about unrest, has ordered the army to step in to provide more.

The crisis in the world’s most populous Arab country and a top U.S. ally in the Mideast is a stark sign of how rising food prices are roiling poorer countries worldwide….

The issue in Egypt centers on subsidized versions of the flat, round bread that is a staple of people’s diets. Acute shortages of subsidized bread, which is sold at less than one U.S. cent a loaf, have caused long lines at distributors, prompting violence at some sites in poor neighborhoods in recent weeks.

At least seven people have died, according to police.

At first, one might hold Egypt’s kludgy government responsible, but as the article explains, economists place the blame “mainly on the rising cost of wheat on the world market, where prices have tripled in the last 10 months.” World food production has been a single integrated entity for a long time now, and it does respond to prices; hence, the ketchup tomatoes down the block from me made way for wheat. The problem is that it will still take months for that food to reach mouths in, say, Egypt, and hunger won’t wait that long.

Link [International Herald Tribune]

Photo Credit: Flickr user MrBologna

The Pedal Pub Allows You to Burn Your Calories and Brain Cells At The Same Time

We love it anytime someone is able to combine saving the world with getting a good buzz on. The following video shows the Pedal Pub, which offers pub tours of the Twin Cities for those looking to do their exercise and drinking at the same time. Right now you can’t actually drink while peddling, you grab you pints in the pubs and pedal in between, but state Rep. Steve Simon has introduced a bill that “”would allow for consumption of alcohol on commercial multi-passenger bicycles.” Designated drivers would be doing the steering, but the law would allow for your engine to be drunk off its collective ass.

Via [Treehugger]

Video Shows Growth of Wal-Mart Matches Outbreak of Infectious Disease

This is awesome- Kiwi Tobes has a downright creepy video showing the growth of Wal-Mart since its founding. I’d be willing to lay a tenner down on the table betting that the growth of Wal-Mart is similar to the outbreak pattern of an infectious disease released from Bentonville- think Stephen Kings The Stand here.

It’s pretty damn clever how the video was put together. Here’s what Kiki Tobes says:

Freebase has a topic for every zip code, along with it’s longitude and latitude. Here’s one example. One query pulls out all the ZIP codes along with their longitudes and latitudes. You can turn longitudes and latitudes into graphical coordinates with some simple transformations (which will vary based on the region you’re plotting and how big your image is) — here are the ones I used:

x=(longitude+127)*16
y=(50-latitude)*20

If you plot all the ZIP codes using a library like PIL, you get a nice map with dots that roughly match population density, which has the advantage of looking a little bit like a night-time satellite photo of the United States.

Freebase also contains a list of Wal-mart locations, along with their addresses and the year that they opened. Here’s an example. One query pulls all of these out of Freebase.

To create the animation, I generated 30 images for each year starting with 1962. I spread all the Wal-marts that opened that year over the 30 frames. To show the appearance of a Wal-mart, all I had to do was plot a large white dot over the small yellow dot for the appropriate ZIP code. I turned the 1380 images into an animation using MEncoder.

Here’s a version I found on YouTube, but I like the one on Kiki Tobes much better. There’s something about seeing it spread out into the black and slowly trace the outline of the country, as if the ocean is the only thing holding its hungry growth back. Click over and watch the Kiki Tobes version, it’s worth the minute it’ll cost you.

Link [Kiwi Tobes] via [Boing Boing]

Is Helix A Green(er) Film Production? Will Be Shot In One Take

Writer/Director Aram Rappaport is shooting a movie in Chicago and he’s doing it in one take. His 100 minute thriller Helix, will be filmed in one continuous shot five different times, once a day over five days. I’m guessing they will pick the best take and release it, though if they were smart they’d include all five takes on an ultra lux special edition DVD.

Film sets have pretty large environmental footprints- they suck up energy running lights, equipment, and trailers, burn through diesel running trucks and generators, and pump pollution into the air with explosions and stunts. Limiting shooting time to five days vastly reduces the environmental impact of your standard movie. Post production consists of a few guys in an editing suite running Final Cut Pro on a desktop Mac and will be particularly light on Helix considering there won’t be any cuts in the movie. They’ll do some color correction, sweeten the sound, and add the titles and credits and export it out ready to rock.

I hope the movie doesn’t suck, I’d like to see more like this.

Link [Wired]

Q & A with Mr. Cranky Green: Snowy Winter = Global Warming Called Off? and Adventures in Wind Credits

Q&A with Mr. Cranky Green is a new feature we’re rolling out here at EarthFirst. It’s written by the collective EF Hive and answers our readers questions about all things Green. If you have a good questions for Mr. Cranky Green, send them on to MrCrankyGreen@EarthFirst.com.

Dear Mr. Cranky Green,

I’m confused. I know everyone is talking about Global Warming, but I’m sitting here looking at three feet of snow on my back deck. We’ve had the coldest winter since I can remember and it’s looking to me like this Global Warming thing might be a bit overblown. Can I go back to driving my SUV without feeling guilty? Why is Al Gore trying to steal and eat my babies?

J. Baskind
Eugene, Oregon

Dear J,

No, you should still feel guilt ridden every time you fire up the Landrover. Global Warming doesn’t mean the whole place gets warmer all the time. Planet wide weather patterns are incredibly complex and a colder/warmer/whatever season in one region doesn’t mean jack. Winter was colder in the U.S. this year, but much warmer in Europe. The overall trend of global temperatures continues to rise in correlation with increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. That’s a fact and three feet of snow in your backyard doesn’t mean it’s not true. Al Gore is a Manbearpig fighting God amongst Men. He needs your babies to keep up his energy.

Mr. Cranky Green

Dear Mr. Cranky Green,

My batty old treehugging aunt bought me some ‘wind credits’ for my birthday, once again not getting me the present I actually asked her for- the fourth season of Full House on DVD. What’s the deal with these things?

A. Allehe

Dear A,

Wind credits are a kind of ‘offset’. You might have heard the term ‘carbon offset‘- an ethereal credit created when someone does something that reduces a unit of carbon dioxide from being created somewhere. There are a bunch of different kinds of offsets- tree planting, industrial emissions reductions, efficiency gains and renewable energy generators like wind turbines. They are basically a market based consumer generated subsidy that helps drive advancements and development of green projects like tree plantations, wind farms, solar installations, and industrial CO2 scrubbers.

Wind credits are created for the energy wind farms put on the electricity grid. Wind farms can sell these credits because they displace dirty fossil fuel created electricity on the energy grid. For every kilowatt of energy a wind turbine puts into the electricity pool, that much less coal (statistically most of our energy comes from coal) is burnt to meet the demand. Those emissions and pollution saved are what you are “buying” when you get wind credits.

Wind credits are some of the more trust worthy kinds of offsets because their positive environmental impact is much easier to accurately measure. It’s nearly impossible to get accurate numbers on planting trees and many offset projects have been criticized for their use of mono-culture farms planted over the ground of cut down native forests.

We’re fans of Renewable Choice Energy around here at EarthFirst. They’re the ones who supply wind credits to Whole Foods, Kettle Chips (yumm…. salt & vinegar…), Stratton Mtn., Vail Resorts, and 360 Organic Vodka. We love them mostly because our Publisher Shea was a founder and will get kinda rich when they get around to selling out, but they actually sell a damn fine high quality wind credit.

Mr. Cranky Green

Q&A with Mr. Cranky Green comes atcha every Tuesday or so on the EarthFirst Blog. Send us your questions to MrCrankyGreen@EarthFirst.com so we don’t have to make up these questions.

Photo Credits- Flickr Users EverSpoon (Wind Tubines) & Shelms (Snowy Guy)

How Now See Through Cow- Front Row View on a Bovine Stomach

Behold the fistula.

It’s guaranteed to creep people out, but in the world of cows and other such creatures, it’s routine. “Animals can live a surprising amount of time with a permanent hole to their stomach, especially if it is a surgically made fistula.” There is a reason:

Agricultural scientists learn about the digestive system of cattle by putting holes in cows–and the cows stay alive and well. These cows (fitted with a sealing cover called a “cannula”) each have a hole into their stomach. Through this hole one can extract food caught mid-stream through the digestive system.

Fistulated cows are used to research the digestibility of different foodstuffs for cattle. One can feed the cow, then later catch the food while it’s digesting to see how it’s doing. Without fistulated cows, one would have to look at external factors in order to garner information about the best food for cows–none of which are as accurate as food sampled right from the stomach.

The site explains that cows with fistulas live longer since it’s easier to treat them when they have illnesses in their digestive systems. I can add that a fistulated cow is liable to have a long life because she’s more valuable. Apart from giving milk, having a fistula is the nearest thing, in a cow, to having a useful talent.

I know about these things because it so happens that, in my life, fistulas are pretty routine. I work at UC Davis, where we have a big experimental dairy herd, and a number of the cows are fistulated. Although, jeez–the fistulas in these photographs are huge compared to ours. They’re like portholes. You expect to see someone inside the cow, peering out.

Link [Oddity Central]

EarthFirst Blog Week in Review March 17 - 21

Well we are just shooting up faster than Bio-tech corn here at EarthFirst! We’ve added a bunch of hot new writers (Professor Scott Herring and token Swede Anders Porter) and features (Mr. Cranky Green!) and are getting more hits than Tony Soprano during tax season. We’ve covered Green Fire Works, a terrifying robotic pack mule, and celebrated World Water Day like eco-rockstars! We also have two EarthFirst birthdays coming up under the Aries symbol; our wide-eyed editorial intern and writer Caroline turns 23 on the 28th and our fearless leader Jordan will rock out on the 27th when he turns…old. Yippee-Ki-Yay!

• Q&A With Mr. Cranky Green: Send Us Your Questions!!!!!
• Five Killer Bug Swarms to Avoid If You Can
• Uh…What’s That Green Shit… On Your…Head?
• No More Eco-Guilt on July 4th- Chemists Developing Green Fireworks
• Watch Five Hours of Cable News, Get One Minute of Environmental or Science Coverage
• This Day in Green History: March 18th, 1974- Arab Nations End Oil Embargo
• The March of Incompetence: Climate Change Denier James Inhofe Also Hates the Troops
• If We Can Build BigDog, We Can Engineer a Green Society
• Hulu Opens to the Public with Three Green Video Shows
• New See-Saw Technology Harnesses The Power of Children
• The Eco Drop Shower Invites Pain Into Your Daily Routine
• Weeds Season Three Coming Out in Green (Legal) DVD Packaging
• Hospitals Are Saving Millions and Reducing Their Landfill Load By Reusing Single Use Medical Devices
• Heidi Fleiss is Opening The Greenest Little Man-Whorehouse in Vegas
• Solar-Powered Boat Does Not Come With Sexy Mannequins
• Getting High: Climbing the Tallest Red Wood Tree in the World
• Green Extreme Sports: Paddling Across the Atlantic in a 23 Foot Coffin (Kayak)
• BBC Puts Reality TV Show Stars Out With the Trash- Literally
• The Green Bohemian Grove- Richard Branson Hosts Meeting of Green Gurus on His Private Tropical Island
• The Oracle of Omaha Loves Him Some Railroad Stocks
• Guy Kawasaki Wants to Invent 500 MPG Car But Fears Valleywag and TechCrunch Won’t Like It
• Inventor of Virtual Water Honored by Stockholm International Water Institute, Wins 150 Large

Creationist Science Tours: Helping Build Tomorrow’s Crack Ass Backwards Fundamentalist Christians

Fundamental Religious thinking, no matter what religion found in, is the enemy of mankind and the environment. After all, if the world is going to end sometime soon in a rapture of godly light, why on Earth would I take the time to recycle? Global Warming can’t be real, and if it is there’s certainly nothing we can do about it- it’s all part of god’s plan. Fundamentalism is a virus that in part lives on through the indoctrination of children, as seen here in a bit from ABC News on two guys who give tours of modern museums but spew a bullshit young earth creationist spin on the whole thing. It makes me sick to see those little kids looking up at the adults who are filling their head with their Literal Bible propaganda. Blech… And just so our Fundy Muslim friends don’t feel left out- here’s a video of a Koranist (is that a word?) insisting that the Earth is flat because the Koran says so. Link [The Friendly Atheist]

Britney Spears Does a Turn for The Environment: Auctioning Waredrobe for the Natural Resources Defense Council

Jobby McGillicuddy is a Writer, Winemaker, Adventurer, Ninja Master, Maple Sugarer, and Bookkeeper who splits his time between his home in Springfield and tree house in the forests outside Dillon, Texas. 

This is an odd nexus of Britney Spears and the Environment- she’s auctioning off the clothes she wore while filming a guest spot on How I Met Your Mother and giving the proceeds to the Natural Resources Defense Council. PopCrunch has it:

CBS and 20th Century Fox TV are sponsoring the online auction, which will take place immediately after her appearance on How I Met Your Mother. Items up for bid include a Nanette Lepore dress and cardigan and a dress designed by Juicy Couture.

Link [PopCrunch]

Fake Steve Jobs is Mad He Wasn’t Invited to Join Richard Branson’s Secret Planet Saving Club

 

Fake Steve Jobs just went off on a tear about Richard Branson and his not-so-secret cabal of planet saving green moguls. He thinks Richard Branson is a con man, Global Warming is probably a crock of shit (he should have lunch with Bob Lutz), and even throws in a dig at Al Gore for good measure.

It’s good, here’s a snip:

Here’s the thing. Everyone who’s ever dealt with Richard Branson realizes that he’s a complete con man, and his involvement in anything is a sure sign that it’s a crock of shit. Honestly, no matter where you are, if Branson gets on board you know there’s something profoundly wrong with the project. It’s the business equivalent of finding out that some movie has Donald Sutherland in it.

Truth is, Goldilocks does not really believe the world is about to burst into flames. What he does believe is that the global warming “crisis” is the next big way to make money off hype and fear. It’s the Y2K scam all over again. Truth is, the photo above and the ones on the linked page show a bunch of lucky rich bastards scheming to get even more rich. I’m telling you this because I’ve talked to these guys. I’ve been invited to invest in these funds. And I’ve done it. Why not? If the ducks are quacking, as they say.

Every VC in the Valley has a hard-on for greentech because it’s the first market they’ve ever seen where they can mitigate their risk by laying it off onto governments (ie taxpayers). The trick is to spread lots of hype and put pressure on governments (hence Kleiner hires Al Gore) so that governments will provide subsidies to keep these venture-funded startups alive until they can be flogged off onto the public markets. They’ll sell these stocks to dentists and they’ll use the same pitch that Toyota uses on the Prius — sure it’s overpriced, but think how good you’ll feel. These will be IPOs as a form of therapy, and the Birkenstock-wearing suckers will sing Kumbaya and talk about how capitalism is saving the world.

I’m guessing Fake Steve Jobs didn’t get an invite to Branson’s meeting. Poor fake guy.

Link [Fake Steve Jobs]

Hillary Clinton Does the Waffle Dance Around Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

The word “jobs” is a magic talisman for politicians. When they want to push a dubious policy, they promise that “jobs” will come of it, and rarely does anyone note that some jobs are not worth having.

West Virginia is having a primary soon, and Hillary Clinton, campaigning there, had the following to say about mountaintop removal mining, a kind of Extreme Coal Mining that does what it says–it removes the mountain to get at the coal. She seems to be okay with it:

I am concerned about it for all the reasons people state, but I think it’s a difficult question because of the conflict between the economic and environmental trade-off that you have here.

I’m not an expert. I don’t know enough to have an independent opinion, but I sure would like people who could be objective, understanding both the economic necessities and environmental damage, to come up with some approach that would enable us to retrieve the coal but would enable us to do it in a way that wouldn’t damage the living standards and the other important qualities associated with people living both under the mountaintop and people who are along the streams.

You know, maybe there is a way to recover those mountaintops once they have been stripped of the coal. You know, I think we’ve got to look at this from a practical perspective.

Meh. Grist does a good job taking this apart. Strip mining for coal in Appalachia was never even good enough to be called a devil’s bargain; the devil got everything, and still does. It’s comparable to burning down your house in order to get a “job” hauling the remains to a dumpster. At the end, Hillary grasps for a tedious old dodge: once the mining is done, we’ll restore the landscape. In my experience of such restoration, the only thing left is rubble and toxins, and the only thing you can grow is noxious weeds.

Link [Gristmill]

Fabulosity - Kimora Lee’s Adventures in Doggie Diamonds (Literally)

The bat-shit crazy ex-wife of my personal prince charming Russell Simmons is being histrionic again. Kimora Lee, star of the reality show Fabulosity and author of the “self-help” guide of the same name has just reported to People that she plans to recycle her late dog. Zoe, the 18-year-old black pomeranian famously snubbed by the Barbie company in the creation of the Kimora Lee doll will be turned into a diamond. At least Zoe will get her moment to shine now.

LifeGem - a Chicago company that can turn your dead pet, loved one, or just a wee lock of hair from the head of that person you are obsessing over into a precious gem - will be pressing Kimora’s departed dog into a piece of carbon ice. And get this, there is no telling what color diamond will be created from the corpse. Grandma might be green and Snowflake might be pink! As the process takes six months of high pressures and temperatures, creating a dead doggie bauble probably wastes far more energy and is less green than just, say, digging a hole in the ground, but you know Kimora can’t be breaking no acrylic nail tips!

Links [People] via [GreenDaily]

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