From the GREAT STATE OF MAINE...
Dr. Bill's DK GreenRoots Solution to Climate Change
Did you know there's a frog that can lie dormant in the mud for years without food and water? It just settles in, switches to minimal life support, checks out and goes nappytime. Pretty cool, huh.
I wonder if this little critter might be a key to helping save the planet. I've been doing some thinking, and all we need is to figure out how to put the Republican climate-change deniers into this state of suspended animation. Once they're safely in Limboland, the science-based community will have years during which they can focus on real and substantial solutions, unfettered by the childish rants and obstruction of the conservative planet slayers. (Plus: eliminating Rush Limbaugh's consumption from the food cycle for awhile will virtually eliminate hunger in America). Getting them to curl up in the mud will be no problem, since they wallow there already. But there is one minor glitch:
The researchers speculate that a potential drawback may be the increased production of reactive oxygen species, which may in turn lead to oxidative stress. Since these small molecules are believed to cause most of the damage during periods of re-awakening, increasing mitochondrial coupling does not seem to be a particularly good idea for animals that tend to exhibit short periods of spontaneous arousal during the dormancy period, in some cases even daily.
Burrowing frogs, on the other hand, are believed to remain deeply asleep during the entire period of dormancy.
So how do we keep the flat-earthers from getting spontaneously aroused during their slumber? No problem! We'll cocoon them in giant mud pools inside the Yucca Mountain toxic storage site and keep their mistresses at bay by distracting them with trips and shopping cards.
Because this is DK GreenRoots Week, I'm offering the above solution to climate change free of charge, and hereby declare it to be in the public domain in the hopes that it can be improved upon and put into action.
While my idea is circling the drain scientific community, please join DK GreenRoots, a new environmental advocacy group created by Kossack Overlord Meteor Blades. DK GreenRoots is comprised of bloggers at Daily Kos and eco-advocates from other sites, focusing on a broad range of issues. As part of the group, you'll be alerted about important eco-stories---some not involving mud-dwelling coma frogs, but others that darn well might---in the traditional media and on the Internet. DK GreenRoots can also be used to keep members up to speed of discussions and strategy sessions happening in Monsieur Blades' Green Diary Rescue threads, which also function as a workroom and tiki bar.
To read up on previous GreenRoots diaries by Kossacks who are far more...oh, what's the word...intelligent than me, click here. And please join the discussion. Because if we leave everything to Congress and their fossil-fuel-loving corporate buddies, we're screwed.
Cheers and Jeers starts in There's Moreville... [Swoosh!!] RIGHTNOW! [Ribbit!!]
Cheers and Jeers for Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Note: I've spent the last five days crying in Argentina. I was supposed to be in Poughkeepsie.
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By the Numbers:
Days 'til Teabag Party II: Teabag Harder: 4
Days `til the Grainger County Tomato Festival in Tennessee: 25
Average number of books about Abe Lincoln released each week since 2007: 1
(Source: Harper's Index)
Approximate amount wasted on construction and other contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a congressional commission: $13 billion
(Source: The Week)
Deaths on Maine highways in 2008: 155
The last year during which fatalities were that low: 1959
(Source: Maine Sunday Telegram)
Percent chance that Michael Jackson is listed in the 2000 Guinness Book of World Records for most charities supported by a pop star: 100%
(Source: USA Today)
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And now..."Pimping Pittsburgh!"
Brought to you by the Netroots Nation Convention August 13-16 (44 days and counting) in the David L. Lawrence Convention Center. Speaking of which...
Pittsburgh is home to the world's largest "green" building---the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, certified with a Gold LEED rating by the U.S. Green Building Council. In fact, Pittsburgh ranks second in green-certified space among cities across the nation, at 2.3 million square feet. Pittsburgh also is a leader in brownfield redevelopment. The Steelers' practice field is part of the SouthSide Works including retail, entertainment, and residential development on the former Jones & Laughlin steel mill site.
---Pittsburgh.net
And look! We're on the schedule! We're on the schedule!
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Puppy Pic of the Day: Please obey the rules.
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CHEERS to clearin' outta Dodge. American forces are packing up (don’t forget those toothbrushes!) and riding their Big Wheels out of Iraq's major cities---which we liberated for them at great cost in blood and treasure---and Iraqis are celebrating more fervently than they did when Saddam was toppled. To repeat: our leaving is more cause for celebration than taking out Saddam's regime. Lesson: it's better to be a despot and kill hundreds of thousands of your own people than it is to be an invading force and kill hundreds of thousands of not-your-own people. And folks wonder why aliens steer clear of our solar system. Mission Acc...acc...complished?
CHEERS to making John Boehner cry. Considering how close Friday's vote on the climate bill was in the House, it's a tepid victory for the Green movement, and it shows just how unserious many in Congress are about climate change. Still, Nancy Pelosi (via email) is coming out of her stockings over it:
A short time ago, the House passed the historic American Clean Energy and Security Act. In doing so, we took a monumental step to get America running on clean energy, create millions of new jobs, strengthen our security, and reduce pollution in the air.
This legislation was masterfully written by two longtime champions for building a clean energy economy in America and aggressively fighting climate change---Chairman Henry Waxman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and Chairman Ed Markey of the Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming. Most of all, this victory belongs to you. It is directly because of your grassroots support and the leadership of President Obama that progress on climate change is indeed happening in Washington.
Translation: This legislation had nothing to do with you "grassroots people" and everything to do with going easy on Big Pollution and calling in lots of chits and twisting a bunch of arms to get it to squeak through. Now the Senate will take a crack at watering it down even more, and by the time Obama signs it, it will consist of polite requests to exhale less and toss the odd swatch of cheesecloth over a few smokestacks. Golly---if this is socialism, then socialism is a total pussy.
JEERS to forcing a patriot to walk the plank. 1st Lieutenant Dan Choi emails:
[Today] I will face a panel of colonels who will decide whether or not to fire me---to discharge me for "moral and professional dereliction" under the military's "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. [Today], I will try to prove that it's not immoral to tell the truth.
As an infantry officer, an Iraq combat veteran and a West Point graduate with a degree in Arabic, I refuse to lie to my commanders. I refuse to lie to my peers. I refuse to lie to my subordinates. My case requires that I provide personal testimony from people who can attest to my character. That's why several members of my military unit have written letters of support and offered to testify on my behalf.
Not to bring innocent bystanders into it, but I wonder how President Obama would feel if First Lieutenant Sasha Obama---a valued linguist with an outstanding record of distinguished service in the U.S. Armed Forces---turned out to be a lesbian and got summarily drummed out of the military. Would Wacky Baracky sit there and watch his own daughter go through the humiliation of being treated as a second class citizen...or would he snap his fingers and, at a minimum, put a freeze on such discharges via executive order? If he had an ounce of courage and compassion (empathy, even!), the answer would be obvious. Unfortunately, he'd no doubt tell me that "I don't deal in hypotheticals." I knew this would happen, y'know---by sleeping in Bush's old White House bedroom, Obama has contracted conservacooties. And the only known way to successfully fumigate the place is by spraying it with Dennis Kucinich's pheromones. (I understand the roasted buckeye aroma wears off after a few weeks.)
JEERS to he who is laughing last. On June 30, 1520, Montezuma II was murdered as Spanish conquistadors fled the Aztec capital of Tenochtilan. Today he gets his revenge by inflicting diarrhea on tourists who visit Mexico and drink the water. Coincidentally, American tourists who visit Europe experience the same effect when they walk into a bank and convert their dollars to Euros.
CHEERS to justice served. Yesterday Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in the slammer (it damn well better not be one of those country club-style minimum-security setups). That means he'll be behind bars until he's 221. When he gets out I bet he's gonna make a beeline for a tanning booth and a steakhouse.
CHEERS to Cheers and Jeers: Lightning Round!!! Keeping track of all the unfolding dramas in the era of the 1-hour news cycle is like drinking from the proverbial fire hose these days, so here are a handful of quick hits that tell you everything you need to know about some hot stories of the moment:
The Supreme Court disagreed with a ruling co-written by Sonia Sotomayor. Big fucking deal. She'll still be confirmed by a comfortable margin. But now, instead of making her first official act as a Supreme Court Justice getting fitted for a gown, she'll be giving five justices a wedgie. The real story from yesterday is that it was Justice Souter's last day on the bench. I believe I speak for everyone here when I say: Thank You, sir, for hanging on through the Bush II years...and thank you, Bush I, for choosing someone who so diligently helped blunt your son's dry-drunk rampage across the Constitution.
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Michael Jackson is still dead. I'm not sure which gaggle of vultures is finding the carcass tastier...the media or the lawyers.
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Mark Sanford. Two words: "Resign." "Idiot." Not necessarily in that order.
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The Franken-Coleman race: TapTapTapTap....
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Dana Milbank called Huffington Post reporter Nico Pitney---whose Iran reporting would earn him a Pulitzer if there was any justice in the world---"a dick." Which I take to mean, "You ask the hard questions, you've got a good head, and your writing oozes life."
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Fort Worth, Texas, is home to police thugs with really bad timing. Cops there raided a gay bar for no apparent reason other than to bag some inebriated queers---on the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots. We always did like Austin better.
Oh...and life is pointless and these chips are stale. That'll be 25 cents, please.
JEERS to feeling (the) mighty low. Pardon us if we Mainers seem to be a little CRANKY!!! lately. Thanks to a series of low pressure systems created by scientists at the Canadian Bureau of America Taunting, June '09 was the fifth-wettest on record, and today's rainfall might push it up to number four. (If you're into schadenfreude, you'll love hearing that there's no end in sight.) I suppose we shouldn’t complain too loudly. You folks down south are baking like potatoes under a heat lamp at Country Buffet. And the Venus flycatchers in our garden are now so big they've completely taken care of our rat problem. Our sympathies, however, go out to the family of the late Madge McGillicutty, who got a little too close to them. Once our lawyer gives us the green light, we'll turn over the shoebox containing her glasses, slippers and wig.
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Five years ago in C&J: June 30, 2004: Triple Play!
CHEERS to Gore's speech. At Georgetown University Law Center, Al melts another microphone, accusing Bush of making "a decision to start mentioning Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein in the same breath in a cynical mantra designed to fuse them together as one in the public's mind." What OsamaSaddam is he OsamaSaddam talking about??
JEERS to bad manners. C&J is shocked...SHOCKED!...to learn that Dick Cheney told the Right Honorable Senator Patrick Leahy to "Go Fuck yourself" on the Senate floor. And you kiss your wife with that mou....ewww, sorry for that visual. Memo to the media: Remember all the attention you gave Janet Jackson's nipple? Let's see you match it with Mr. Pottymouth's yap.
JEERS to pigs at the trough. Fulfilling their commitment to be more responsible with your money, Congress loaded up the 2004 budget with 10,656 pork projects---a record. Price tag: $23 billion. But lay off Maine's projects...teaching our lobsters how to speak Spanish is critical to our economy. [6/30/09 Update: Back then, the Republicans, who controlled Congress, thought pork was peachy. Now they bitch about it. What changed, I wonder? ;) ]
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And just one more...
CHEERS to a big-league pitcher. In my previous life, before y'all snatched me up and made me your blogger slave, I wrote and occasionally hosted quite a few infomercials during my time in advertising. Call 'em cheesy, call 'em obnoxious, call 'em dopey, call 'em a waste of time...you'll get no argument from me. But on those rare occasions when you find a pitchperson with the natural enthusiasm, charisma and ability to deftly demonstrate a-hundred-and-one uses for a product like Billy Mays had, you can call 'em something else: money machines. Mays, who achieved the status of a pop-culture icon largely because of his OxiClean shows, died over the weekend at 50. He was often imitated, never equaled. He'll be busy in the hereafter. We understand The Boss has a thing for white carpets and his kid is a klutz with the sacramental wine.
Oh, and your lesson for the day: Always take the high road. Floor's open...What are you cheering and jeering about today?
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Today's Shameless C&J Testimonial:
Boehner: Cheers and Jeers is a "pile of shit"
---Think Progress
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