I'd Like to See It Before It Explodes

I saw a headline earlier in the week mentioning the thousands of little earthquakes that have occurred in Yellowstone Park since Monday, and immediately thought of the passage in one of Bill Bryson's fine books mentioning that Yellowstone's remarkable geology is a product of North America's largest volcano. Bryson is one of my favorite airplane authors, but I occasionally find myself wondering if he's just making stuff up.

In this case, he's not. The story here goes into some factual detail, but the general argument, that people who think THE END IS NEAR are idiots we should all point at and mock, seems dangerously childish. A volcanic eruption of that size, in that location, would be a disaster of near biblical proportions for those of us living in North America. It isn't keeping me up nights or anything, but it seems wrong to mock people who are pointing to an actual threat.

More Like This Please

So the President-Elect has made the first selections for his science team, leaders in their fields with absurdly sterling academic credentials, and charged them with addressing global warming in the course of attacking years of Bush administration "inactivity."

Link to story here.

I heard someone the other day describe the climate crisis as the human population of the planet driving a car with faulty brakes toward a cliff in a dense fog with the vague idea that they'll be able to stop before something unpleasant happens. Indeed. The policy shift these picks suggest is long, long overdue.

O-ba-ma.

For Reals

So I was shopping for some recycled hemp eco-friendly organic solar-powered reusable shopping bags as a minimal nod toward making a dent in the size of my otherwise yawning carbon footprint when I came across this hot little number:

No! Shopping Bag Bra

You know, for those times when you want to carry groceries around in...I should say with...your undergarments?

The holidays are coming, everyone!

Not What We'd Had In Mind

They've done it again!

Those goofballs at Los Alamos Laboratories, the same cut-ups who brought you the atomic bomb, have just found a new way to bring fissionable nuclear material into your life!

It's the private reactor! That's right, for just a nominal fee, you too can light your town with its very own micro-reactor! The Bush administration being a paradigm of efficiency when it comes to corporate profit, has moved quickly and the publicly produced research has already been licensed to privately owned Hyperion, which is taking orders right now!

They claim that it's totally safe, contains no weapons grade materials*, and can't be stolen- because it's encased in concrete and buried underground! As one researcher put it, it would be like trying to steal, "...a hot barbecue grill..." I can relate to barbecue grills! There's one on my porch right now, and it's pretty safe! Of course, mine runs on the 18th century's uranium equivalent, charcoal...

What could be better! This will show all those Left wing nutjobs ranting about "using less electricity" or trying to develop "green" or "renewable" power sources! Thank you, Bush administration, for pressing ahead with this valuable program rather than those other ones. Finally, my suburban standard of living is secure! Thank you, Los Alamos, for putting nuclear reactors closer to me, and those I care about.

*Reactor, which must be refilled every decade, may contain lots of other nasty stuff though. Please do not ask about storage/disposal of these products. LALALALALA we can't hear you. Please go away.