This really doesn’t have anything to do with green… wait. Yes it does. Aren’t we all tin horns when we start out making something?

At any rate, my new novel is now available via Kindle,

Everybody needs to get away.

You may not have heard of this; I certainly had not. Via LGM, re-framing Afghanistan’s poppy problem as an opportunity for global health:

The Afghan poppy crop could be repurposed away from illicit drug production, and towards manufacturing licit opioid analgesics to address unmet needs for pain palliation, particularly for diseases such as HIV/AIDS and cancer in the developing world—that is, illegal opium could be converted into legal pain medicine, solving two problems at once.

Are they saying that you could actually think about a problem differently and then do things differently to achieve a desired result? Instead of being a’scourge’, opium production in Afghanistan could be channeled into a legal, profitable trade that would reduce pain and suffering worldwide? Wha? Would this sort of change in thinking be open to other issues, or is this a one time offer? I think we should still take it.

Bonus question: What’s the drug war going to say about this? I’ll bet it will worry and won’t be happy.

An extended sabbatical is underway. Look for less writing, more pics, hopefully on topic.

Here’s RC checking out the bike share at Les Halles, not far from our apartment.

Captain Obvious here with a report from the bridge: A connection has been spotted between this

In an example of Republican obstructionism rendered beautiful by its simplicity, the GOP yesterday killed a House bill that would increase funding for scientific research and math and science education by forcing Democrats to vote in favor of federal employees viewing pornography.

Rep. Ralph Hall (R-TX), the ranking member of the House science committee, introduced amotion to recommit, a last-ditch effort to change a bill by sending it back to the committee with mandatory instructions.

In this case, Republicans included a provision that would bar the federal government from paying the salaries of employees who’ve been disciplined for viewing pornography at work.

and this.

Size of Oil Spill Underestimated, Scientists Say

Can we not just stop for a second and look at the long-tail of this form of stupid that seems to be on sale everywhere? Sweet baby in the manger, the short tail should even scare the crap out of us.

There is nothing to fear except but unless you can’t see the obvious.

Pithy text about the image.

link.

source.

Dost our eco-imaginations know no limits? Ladies and germs… the RITI Coffee Printer

In addition to ridding the printing process of the ink cartridge (its most environmentally un-friendly throw-out), the RITI printer also requires a bit of human action to get things going, which eliminates the need for any really significant power source. This last part of the idea seems a bit impractical, but after all that coffee you are drinking, maybe you need some exercise to burn off your excess energy!? Not a coffee drinker? No worries, it works just as well with tea.

Thanks, Amy.

Metamorfossi

“You Americans need to step out of yourselves, we like you people,” George White Eye* insisted, his own focus lit wide, wider than the small room in which I lay. I cannot respond with his fingers inside my mouth. “You understand what I say?”

More…

Whoever thought home prices would continue to rise forever, please raise your hand(s), we’re doing a head count and just need a round figure. Really, though, not to flog a deceased equine but sprawl-building was our last great industry/swindle and its grand finale is the soft focus of much consternation among the hoi polloi. Soft because we’re not really focussing on it much beyond the mortgage meltdown and the bailouts being processed at the top, not seeing how it might be woven into other problems and the fulcrum for the great transition to come.

There is a profound over-capacity of housing; speculation about how and when the housing market, meaning the building of far-flung subdivisions, will ‘bounce back’ is absurd. Its. Not. Going. To.

Sure we’re rather not think or speak about this kind of unpleasantness, and our remarkable powers of disassociation have been noted. But it doesn’t change the fact of so many people out of work: in the construction industry, real estate, banking, even sandwich flipping and all the tag-along support industries related to building, selling and living in suburbs. These folks will have to find something else to make. Whatever it is, it will be green in that it will be made and sold close to their homes, using materials that have been recycled likely several times and will be made by some post-industrial process that i s carbon neutral – so we should begin imagining what some of the things it might be.