Friday, September 09, 2011

Stuff below the fold

Floods in the Berkshires and in Broome County NY...and the Philly suburbs....My prayers to friends and relatives in those areas.

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from ThinkGeek:

Today in Geek History: Star Trek first airs in 1966, pioneering a multiracial--and multi-species--television cast. 45 years later, Star Trek is still boldly going. Live long and prosper! \\//,

and Bakingdom has instructions on making your very own Spock cookie.

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Crocodiles in the Philippines? Yes, writes the PhilInquirer: they used to be common, and one of the scenes in "Noli me Tangere" is about a man rescued from a croc attack.

the writer also notes that in the Philippines, we have St. Nick and Santa Claus, but some in the Philippines also celebrate San Nicolas de Tolontino on Sept 10th...and this St. Nick doesn't bring presents, but they do give out a cookie in his honor.

DessertComesFirst discusses the cookie HERE
...more info at Traveleronfootblog.
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American support for the MILF is no secret.

The problem was probably made worse by US colonial policies...

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leaving trash behind on the moon...

as one wag put it: well, at least it proves that the moonwalk wasn't faked...
not that it will change the minds of the conspiracy paranoid types.

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Lake Orumieh in Iran is drying up, and locals are worried and protesting. PBS report HERE.
Dr. E, who is active in environmental issues, also has a report, and comments dryly:

The DOE had warned the officials in 1998 we had layed out a road map for the protection of the Lake. Many parts of that project were underway in 2004 . These protection schemes and strategies were later abandoned by the ninth government and only reconsidered recently after serious protests rocked the region. No one can dispute the fact that the environment was never a priority for the government of Mr. Ahmadinejad.

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the RedLake Ojibwe have plans to reforest areas destroyed by the federal gov't overlogging the area in the past century.

In the lawsuit filed by Red Lake, tribal officials say the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs allowed too much clear cutting and they sold timber cheaply to big loggers and timber barons. The tribe says it lost nearly $400 million in timber revenue over the past 80 years.


I was always shocked to see the forest degredation there,..we had protected forest area near the hospital, but in other areas, much of it was scrub pine/straggly aspen with only a few large trees near the roadways.....
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Oklahoma has an ebook/audiobook/mp3 library program.

They will send what you want to you via your local library...which should improve the ability to get books in small towns (unlike the coal town in PA which had a good selection of books for their kids going to college, in Oklahoma the library had mainly junk to read, not textbooks/college level specialty type books...I had to buy the books I wanted used from Amazon...which is why I have such a large library with me here in the Philippines).

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The Green Global economy Index list...

South Africa is number three, proving that the apartheid laws keeping the locals living their green "traditional" lifestyle (57% below the poverty level) instead of driving around in cars and eating hamburger at McDonalds is good for the planet.

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