What's really "Green"?

Renewable Energy Wrecks Environment, According To Researcher
Science Daily — Renewable does not mean green. That is the claim of Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller University in New York. Writing in Inderscience's International Journal of Nuclear Governance, Economy and Ecology, Ausubel explains that building enough wind farms, damming enough rivers, and growing enough biomass to meet global energy demands will wreck the environment.

I'm not saying this guy is 100% right but it does make sense. I have to find the original article and do more research. Here's another article along those lines:

Bioenergy Could Do More Harm Than Good
Science Daily — Leading environmental groups are making an urgent plea to government not to downgrade other environmental concerns in promoting bioenergy to help tackle climate change.

Looks like it's back to the old drawing board before new policies are made based on the "green"-ness of renewable energy sources. It's about time for articles like this to surface as the US elections are coming right up and there will heated debates between the new & renewable energy supporters vs. the traditional & established energy titans.

Here's where it gets a little preachy...

No regrets.

There are always ups and downs in life but for a long time I have tried to make this my mantra. The reasoning is logical. At any given point in your life, you make decisions based on what you feel is best. The result may not always turn out the way you hoped or things change along the way and your decision from before does not appear so wise now. However you do the best with what information you have. That is why it is important to have trustworthy friends to talk things over, mentors to give advice and loved ones to give moral support.

After having a talk with the roommate last night about his current dilemmas, I realize that my mantra needs to be expanded upon. It's not enough just to have no regrets because in some ways you can assume that every decision you made was right. Alternatively, even if your decisions are wrong and in turn you suffer the consequences, by simply having no regrets, it somewhat waives your responsibilities for the situation, putting the blame on an outside force. One can then easily be trapped in a vortex of complaints and dread for the unfairness of life, allowing himself to be victim to everything that ever goes wrong. The "victim" can then digress even further, withdrawing from healthy interaction with all situations and people. Essentially giving up because what is the point in trying? The unfairness of the world will ultimately put him in his place despite his best efforts. But it's okay as long as it's not his fault, he will never have to admit his wrongs to feel guilt or see the truth behind his choices, yet he will never be happy either.

No regrets. No complaints. No excuses.

Here is the addition which I believe completes this mantra. The first part remains the same but the second and last part kind of go together. Aside from not regretting the choices in the past, one must be grateful for what you have now. You must not complain and put the blame on others for your misfortunes because you are the single most powerful force in your universe. Sometimes those outside forces are pretty strong too but you alone can change how you interact, deal with or shape your future. To achieve that, you must not make excuses for why you cannot change your ways. You cannot make excuses to relieve responsibility of yourself. To have no regrets means to understand and admit your mistakes, then take matters into your own hands and change how it's done in the future. This makes for a true learning experience that will ultimately improve life and open doors for opporunity.

6 months

Yesterday was the 6 month luniversary(?) of starting work at this company as a temp. I'm still at temp status but have been asked several times to stay and take on a full time permanent position, on salary, benefits, etc. but it's like a part of me does not want to accept the fact that this is it. It just seems so final, to admit defeat, to accept that I am only as good as this. This should be a reminder to me to actively look for other employment or concede to taking the permanent position. It's not as if I can't quit and go to something else if I have the opportunity, right?

The mother of all curses

Someone must be cursing something nasty about me. For the past hour, I've been getting involuntary left eye twitching and hiccups. Well, it's either that or my strange sleeping patterns. Also, the past two days I've been getting itchy bumps on my legs, at first they did not look like mosquito bites so it made me think my dog contracted fleas and infested our bed. Luckily I found a mosquito buzzing around in our room this morning so thank god it's not a curse of boils or something.

Wishing luck is on my side today...

Well, in about half an hour I'll be skipping out from work and going to a job interview. If the job would actually pay an acceptable rate, I am pretty excited. Even though it would mean going downtown everyday, it's something related to what I did before and I get to be techie / customer service. I just think it has more potential for me and it seems to be a good compromise. We shall see what comes of my meeting.

Webcomics are great

It's so easy now to have everyone and anyone see your work online. There are so many blogs, comics, so much opinion just floating around out there. Mine is quite insignificant compared to everything else but I love the idea that my thoughts here (if there was anything influential) could spark debate in others. I know there are countries who prosecute citizens for speaking their mind about their governing officials or public policies, but the internet has given us the gift of free-speech. Because of the fact that there is so much superfluous information available, everything becomes lost in the noise.

Imagine you standing on your soapbox, raving like a lunatic about something that may or may not be important, anyone walking by would think you a madman or report you to the authorities. Your presence would be detected right away. The internet allows us to hide, forces us to write semi-cohesive articles and subversively broadcast our views to the world, to anybody who looked. The trick is you have to be looking in order to find it. True, there're a lot of "questionable" material being published too and it's hard to seperate fact from fiction in a lot of cases but it's really up to the individual to validate the source, somehow, some way. If you cared enough, go to it, right? You can't blindly accept something you read, or even see with your own eyes as truth.

Anyways, enough of my ranting, this comic was the original purpose of this posting.

Politics - Science - Pop Culture

Here's a tidbit of political humor utilizing scientific theories as a commentary. I found it from a link in the Scientific American blog. Amusing.

This Modern World - by Tom Tomorrow
A brief explanation of the Cheneyverse.

After seeing that comic, I decided to pass some time researching into the controversy that is Dick Cheney's career. Amongst other articles and blogs, apparently The Washington Post just did a series of articles on that subject in the past week. I am still reading it right now but thought I'd share. It's an interesting read.

Foiled! by Websense

The constant pain in my side at work, aside from my back pain inducing slouching and unending boredom, is Websense. It blocks me from all the truly entertaining websites. Sure I'm supposed to be working but there's no work to be done. What else can I do other than surf? That and email filtering. If anyone in the company cared to check the logs for email and Websense, they would think I was a perverted racist extremist. I just tried to look at Sinfest (the comic) and it is classified as Adult Content. What the?!

Numb is my brain & body

What a brutal day at work! I am falling asleep here. Even with music in my ears, I thought it would save me but it does nothing. I stopped looking up creative/hobby stuff and tried to read more science articles. Some are interesting but something's still making me drowsy. Maybe it's my pork chop lunch causing this itus. Yeah, it's probably the pork.

I shouldn't have agreed to help out at the TV station. Now after hours of doing nothing, I have to show up, wait and do nothing for another 2 hours there before the news broadcast actually starts. Today is driving me nuts. My last email received was 10:58 this morning! There were only a total of 7 emails before that. Where the hell IS everybody? I thought maybe my mailbox was full and I wasn't getting emails, but I just sent one to myself, no problems or error messages popping up. That's the true mark of a bored person there, sending messages to yourself.

Anyways, maybe trying to write lyrics to a song not yet written will help pass some time. The first verse of this I thought of driving home last week.

This is a dedication to...
Those who sweet talk, those who kiss ass,
The ones that smoke c*ck will get the best grass,
The best of choices, the best opportunities,
The best of you and the best of me.

We give without wanting, they'll dazzle before us.
The way of the world, that's how it is.
Can it be changed, can it be different?
Do you really care? I'm kinda distant.

If I get what I need when I need it.
Why expend energy for naught?
Looking out for number one is the only mandate.
I can do it too and won't be caught.

Like steps on a mayan pyramid,
We'll stomp on you to reach the top.
Suppress the ego to nourish the id,
Steep is the climb but it'll never stop.

If you fall behind, bottom of the barrel,
the rat race continues to the high holy shrine.
We'll do it together, a team, no quarrels.
I'll scratch your back then you can scratch mine.

This is dedicated to...
Those who sweet talk, those who kiss ass,
the ones that smoke c*ck will get the best grass,
The best of choices, best opportunities,
awaiting you, awaiting me.