Thursday, July 29, 2010

NO!

A billboard in Wyoming, Minnesota asked a simple question that has now been answered:

Link here.

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Interesting Facts

From OMG Facts:

Our sun is so big that 1 million earths could fit inside of it. On the other hand, the largest star known to man is called VY Canis Majoris which could house 9,261,000,000 Suns.

If VY Canis Majoris were put in our sun's place it would extend past Saturn. VY Canis Majoris can also fit 7×10^15 Earths inside of it (that's 7 with 15 zeros after it.)

Astounding!!

Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Gay parents are alright

The results of a study looking at the development of children coming from different types of households seem to give a thumbs up to gay parenting:

In a sample of 106 adoptive children living in different parts of the United States, youngsters were developing well regardless of whether they were living with lesbian, gay or heterosexual parenting couples. The study found that whether or not adoptive children were developing in positive ways was unrelated to the sexual orientation of their adoptive parents.

"We found that children adopted by lesbian and gay couples are thriving," said U.Va. psychology professor Charlotte J. Patterson, who led the study. "Our results provide no justification for denying lesbian or gay prospective adoptive parents the opportunity to adopt children. With thousands of children in need of permanent homes in the United States alone, our findings suggest that outreach to lesbian and gay prospective adoptive parents might benefit children who are in need."

The research assessed adjustment and development among preschool-aged children adopted at birth by lesbian, gay or heterosexual couples. Using standardized assessment procedures, researchers found that parents and teachers agreed, on average, that the children were developing in typical ways. Measures of children's adjustment, as well as parenting practices and stress, were found to be unassociated with the parents' sexual orientation. And, regardless of their parents' sexual orientation, how well children were adjusted was significantly associated with how warmly their parents were oriented to them.

Take that Maggie Gallagher!! They should send a copy to all the gay haters out there.

Support Net Neutrality

Senator Al Franken speaks up for Net Neutrality at Netroot Nation:

I heart NYC

Some gorgeous aerials of the city that never sleeps.  Find many more here.

Captured Blog: NYC from Above Captured Blog: NYC from Above
Captured Blog: NYC from Above Captured Blog: NYC from Above
 Captured Blog: NYC from Above  Captured Blog: NYC from Above
Captured Blog: NYC from Above Captured Blog: NYC from Above
Captured Blog: NYC from Above Captured Blog: NYC from Above

Who do you write like?

This neat little text-analyzer compares your writing style to that of famous authors.  I’ve tried plugging in different compositions and every time I got a different result, but I won’t complain, for I’m in good company.

My latest comparison test:

I write like
George Orwell

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Other results were:

  • Dan Brown
  • H. P. Lovecraft
  • Chuck Palahniuk
  • James Joyce

Try it!

27,000 time bombs?

That’s the number of abandoned oil wells in the Gulf of Mexico.  I’m sure they’ve been entombed once they were no longer useful, but they seem to always be leaking some oil and natural gas in the water.
From an article following the latest placement of a cap on the ruptured oil well:
The government's oil spill chief tried to tamp down fears Tuesday that BP's capped well is buckling under the pressure, saying that seepage detected along the sea floor less than two miles away is coming from an older well no longer in production.
[…]
The seepage is closer to the older well than to the one that blew out, Allen said. Also, he said, "it's not unusual to have seepage around the old wells."
There are two wells within two miles of BP's blowout off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. One has been abandoned and another is not in production. Around 27,000 abandoned wells in the Gulf aren't checked for leaks, an Associated Press investigation showed this month.
Let’s just hope that nothing ever happens, but 27,000 is a lot of holes drilled on the sea floor.  Also, how long do these “tombs” stay stable for?  10 years?  100 years?  Forever?  Let’s not forget that we breached the integrity of the sea floor to suck whatever was keeping it stable with immense pressure out.  Then we plugged said holes with a substance that is different from what’s surrounding it.
Is it really that far fetched that some of these plugs would deteriorate or simply break down?  I doubt it.

Human cruelty

Poaching endangered animals for profit is one of the most heartless and cruelest actions a person can do:

rhinocerosSouth African wildlife experts are calling for urgent action against poachers after the last female rhinoceros in a popular game reserve near Johannesburg bled to death after having its horn hacked off.

Wildlife officials say poaching for the prized horns has now reached an all-time high. "Last year, 129 rhinos were killed for their horns in South Africa. This year, we have already had 136 deaths," said Japie Mostert, chief game ranger at the 1,500-hectare Krugersdorp game reserve.

The gang used tranquilliser guns and a helicopter to bring down the nine-year-old rhino cow. Her distraught calf was moved to a nearby estate where it was introduced to two other orphaned white rhinos.

Wanda Mkutshulwa, a spokeswoman for South African National Parks, said investigations into the growing number of incidents had been shifted to the country's organised crime unit. "We are dealing with very focused criminals. Police need to help game reserves because they are not at all equipped to handle crime on such an organised level,'' she said.

Rhino horn consists of compressed keratin fibre – similar to hair – and in many Asian cultures it is a fundamental ingredient in traditional medicines.

[…]

"The exercise takes them very little time," Mostert said. "They first fly over the park in the late afternoon to locate where the rhino is grazing. Then they return at night and dart the animal from the air. The tranquilliser takes less than seven minutes to act.

"They saw off the horns with a chainsaw. They do not even need to switch off the rotors of the helicopter. We do not hear anything because our houses are too far away. The animal dies either from an overdose of tranquilliser or bleeds to death."

[…]

Conservationists estimate that there are only 18,000 black and white rhinos in Africa, down from 65,000 in the 1970s. Mostert, who has been a ranger for 20 years, said the animals fetch up to 1m rand (£85,000) at game auctions and cannot be insured.

And poaches aren’t the only ones to blame.  Obviously, they see a profit and take advantage of it.  It is primarily the people that buy the products made with whatever an animal is poached for that bear the ultimate responsibility.  If they stopped purchasing whatever this product was, there would be no market for it, and therefore the killings would end.

So sad.

The spreading of obesity

An interesting chart that shows America’s obesity rates state by state:

The real shocker though, was reading this:

The map above shows America's obesity rates state by state. They hover in the 25 to 30 percent range. To put that in perspective, in 1991, no state had an obesity rate higher than 20 percent.

So in less than 20 years all states but one have crossed the 20% mark.  Where are we headed?

And this is interesting to note as well, although much less shocking:

The report also notes the relationship between income and weight: "35.3 percent of adults earning less than $15,000 per year were obese compared with 24.5 percent of adults earning $50,000 or more per year." Part of the problem there is that a salad costs more than a Big Mac.

Link here.

Monday, July 26, 2010

“Investigate torture or face road to ‘tyranny’”

That’s what New York Representative Jerrold Nadler warned about in reference to the Obama administration’s refusal to thoroughly investigate and prosecute the crimes committed by the Bush administration in the aftermath of September 11, 2001:

A New York Democrat argued that failing to prosecute former Bush administration officials complicit in the use of torture would create a dangerous precedent and place America on a path to "tyranny."

In an interview with Raw Story, Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) invoked a "supremacy of laws" when critiquing President Barack Obama’s decision to "look forward and not backwards" on his predecessor’s abuses of power.

"Those who misuse government power to break the law and subject people to improper pressure or torture ought to be prosecuted," said Nadler, chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights, and Civil Liberties. "That’s why we have laws."

[…]

The Obama administration has declined to launch an investigation into illegal activities carried out during the Bush administration -- such as the practice of waterboarding, which is widely considered a form of torture, on terror suspects.

"If you don’t prosecute, or if you don’t investigate, then what you’re saying is government can do anything," Nadler argued. "And that’s a formula for tyranny. So I think it’s very important." As for looking forward and not backwards? "By that standard you’d never prosecute any crime."

White House officials and some analysts fear that a drawn-out investigation, which would be virulently fought by Republicans, would drain the capacity of Democrats to advance their domestic agenda.

Nadler argues that to sustain a democracy, it's vitally important to hold lawmakers accountable for their crimes – even more so than with private citizens. "People who break the law, ought to be held accountable," he said, "especially if they’re in government, because they have more power."

Wise words.  Alas, we’ll never see neither Bush nor Cheney prosecuted for their crimes, nor any of their minions.  A loss for the rule of law indeed.

A growing acceptance

A nice graph from FiveThirtyEight that shows us how gay marriage is spreading through the world:

According to the site, “there are now about 250 million people worldwide living in jurisdictions which provide for marriage equity.”

They also point out that while last year the gay marriage movement didn’t see much progress, “with countries like Argentina and Portugal now recognizing same-sex marriages the global trajectory has returned to its slow-but-steady upward pace.”

Scary sailing trip

Can you imagine being out on a boat, leisurely sailing on the calm waters, when suddenly a whale jumps on the boat, wreaking it?

It happened to this couple:

The pair were enjoying calm seas off the South African coast when the animal flipped into the air and smashed into their mast.

Ralph Mothes, 59, and Paloma Werner, 50, were helpless as the beast thrashed around on their 33ft vessel before slipping back into the water.

Miss Werner said: "It really was quite incredible but very scary. The whale was about the same size as the boat.

"We'd spotted it about 100 metres away and thought that was the end of it. Then suddenly it was right up beside us.

"I assumed it would go underneath the boat but instead it sprang out of the sea. We were very lucky to get through it, as the sheer weight of the thing was huge.

"There were bits of skin and blubber left behind, and the mast was wrecked. It brought down the rigging too.

"Thank goodness the hull was made of steel and not fibreglass or we could have been ruined."

Moments before the animal leapt it had pounded its tail on the surface of the water in a 'lob-tailing' ritual to communicate with other whales.

Never underestimate the power of your actions

This letter to a friend is incredibly powerful:

the image

Link here.

A Quote By

Mark Ruffalo, actor, currently starring in the highly anticipated The Kids Are Alright, on the anti-gay sentiment in the US and gay families:

“It's the last dying, kicking, screaming, caged animal response to a world that is changing, a world that's leaving a lot of those old, bigoted, un-accepting views behind. It's over.  We live down the street from a gay couple with a young son, my son goes and plays there and has lunch there.  My son is 8 years old, and not once has he come and asked why his friend has two poppas.  His family is no different to my family – they eat at the same time, send their kid to school, discipline him and love him the same way.  It's only the teaching that we give to the child that makes them see those distinctions.”

June 2010 – Hottest on record

To anyone living on the US East Coast this won’t come as news, since we’ve all been feeling the effects of the extreme heat for a while now:

Last month was the hottest June ever recorded on Earth, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Thursday, amid global climate warming worries.

The combined global land and ocean surface temperature data also found the January-June and April-June periods were the warmest on record, according to NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, which based its findings on measurements that go back as far as 1880.

In June, the combined average for global land and ocean temperatures was 61.1 degrees Fahrenheit (16.2 Celsius) -- 1.22 degrees Fahrenheit (0.68 Celsius) more than the 20th century average of 59.9 degrees Fahrenheit (15.5 Celsius).

Temperatures warmer than average spread throughout the globe in recent months, most prominently in Peru, in the central and eastern United States and in eastern and western Asia, according to NOAA.

In contrast, cooler-than-average conditions affected Scandinavia, southern China and the US northwest.

Curious to see how the global warming deniers are spinning this news…

Link here.

The lagging US

A follow up to my post about Argentina’s approval of same-sex marriage:

Argentina now joins Canada, South Africa, a handful of nations in western Europe, several states of the United States and the District of Columbia in recognizing that the full rights and privileges of marriage ought to apply to all people, regardless of sexual orientation.

Sadly, the United States, which has traditionally been at the vanguard of human rights developments, finds itself falling behind in one of the great trends of human history. There are any number of reasons for this: our deeply ingrained religious mores, the generally right-of-center views of our body politic, and a reluctance on the part of timid politicians to unnecessarily energize a dwindling but dedicated group of voters bent on retaliation at the polls.

Prejudice against homosexuals will die away in time; already, younger generations of Americans regard with bemusement their elders' unease concerning the topics of gay marriage and adoption, as they do with matters of race.

Someday, the issue will seem quaint here in America, as it already does in other countries where gay marriage has been seen not to result in a cataclysmic devaluation of the institution of matrimony.

Until then, those who cherish human rights and the concept of equal protection under the law will be heartened in their struggle as they look to advances in countries like Argentina for inspiration.

Link here.

Sunday, July 25, 2010

Treme

Treme This new HBO show, is very promising.  It’s produced by the same guy who produced the critically acclaimed The Wire, which I’m now catching up with on DVD, and the critics love Treme too.

Treme is set in New Orleans in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina’s devastation.  All the characters’ lives have been displaced, some more some less, but all have been affected one way or another.

New Orleans looms large in the background, but it’s the music that spontaneously blossoms on a random street corner, or livens up a party or a night out that really embodies a character onto itself.  Needless to say, the score is outstanding.

And so is the acting, whether from famous actors like John Goodman and Steve Zahn or relative unknowns like Melissa Leo, Kim Dickens, Wendell Pierce, and Clarke Peters (the last two, veterans of The Wire).

While I cannot say I’m wild about Treme just yet, the potential is there for a lasting and engrossing drama that will last for many years.

I’m looking forward to season 2.

Grade: 8

The Tudors

The Tudors This Showtime series ended after its fourth season and it’s too bad because it had gotten better with time.  I know it had good ratings for a cable channel, but maybe it was too expensive to produce and so it kind of got nudged towards the exit door.  I say that simply because while the first two wives got a  full season each in terms of character development, the final 4 got squeezed in between all the political machinations and court intrigue, which themselves require a lot of air time.

The Tudors tells the story of King Henry VIII, one of the most famous English monarchs of all time and the one responsible for the fission between his country and the Vatican.  He’s also very famous because of his many wives (6 in all – unheard of at the time), some of whom he divorced, some who died, others who were sentenced to death by the King himself.

Furthermore, King Henry VIII also fathered 2 other famous English monarchs.  His first born, Mary, came to be known as Bloody Mary for her violent and deadly efforts to revert the country back to Catholicism, and her sister Elizabeth, who succeeded her upon Mary’s death to become Queen Elizabeth I, is arguably the most famous King or Queen ever, and reigned over what is now called The Golden Age.

I had actually thought that, given that the series’ title was generic enough, they could have ended Henry’s cycle, moved on to Mary for a season, and then on to Elizabeth for a few more.  After all, I’d venture to say that there aren’t very many families more interesting than the Tudors.

Anyways, the acting was quite excellent, and the scripts were always very good, full of twists and surprises that kept the show interesting season after season.

Catch it on DVD.

Grade for the entire show: 8

Thursday, July 22, 2010

Invasion of the Body Snatchers, 1, 2, and 3

1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers has the reputation of a classic, so I put it in my Netflix queue.  Given that I really like Nicole Kidman and Daniel Craig, I decided to watch the 2007 remake, The Invasion as well.  And then, watching a featurette on the Snatchers DVD, I found out that that movie itself was a remake of the 1956 original Invasion of the Body Snatchers, which at that point I had to watch also.  I’m gonna review them all together in order to compare and contrast them.

All three movies deal with an alien life form that arrives on our planet from outer space and starts replicating and replacing human beings with emotionless copies that resemble us in every aspect.  In all three, some people realize what is happening and try to fight back, with varying degrees of success.

That’s where the similarities end though, as each movie is a clear product of its time.  1978’s Snatchers is definitely the darkest of the three, while Invasion is the only one that leaves nothing to the imagination of the spectator.  In spite of 1978’s Snatchers reputation, however, my favorite is decidedly the 1956 original.

Invasion of the Body Snatchers (2) 1956’s Snatchers is the only one that doesn’t show us the alien form in its original state or how it got to our planet, and its visual effect are quite crude, but given the sparsity with which they are used, this is not a problem.  What it does have is a lot of suspense and build up towards a final act that is hopeful but not fully resolutive, leaving us to imagine what happens next.  The acting is very good and the script briskly moves the action along while giving us enough character development to make us care for our hero (Kevin McCarthy).  Overall, I don’t have any negative comments about this movie.

invasion of the body snatchers1978’s Snatchers is not only the darkest, but also the scariest, and perhaps the most effective at creating a tense, horror-like atmosphere, which no doubt contributes to its ‘classic’ status.  The visual effects are fairly good and the acting, while too theatrical for my tastes (especially Donald Sutherland’s and Jeff Goldblum’s – I guess the campiness is part of its appeal too), is good.  However, the script lacks polish and it’s a little too hard to believe how these huge, mysterious pods don’t get noticed until it’s too late.  The best part of this version though [SPOILER ALERT] is a finale that leads us to believe that the aliens are actually going to prevail. [/SPOILER ALERT]

the invasion The Invasion, keeping in line with Hollywood’s current modus operandi of nicely tying up all loose ends and leaving nothing for the audience to guess or imagine, tells us exactly [SPOILER ALERT] how the humans defeat the alien invasion in a quick final montage.[/SPOILER ALERT].

The fact that Hollywood has so little faith in a spectator’s ability to make use of his own imagination speaks volumes about the quality of contemporary cinema productions.  However, I also have to give credit to The Invasion’‘s producers for brilliantly reworking the alien life form’s origin, arrival, and transmission into a much more believable story.  Nicole Kidman, Daniel Craig, and Jeremy Northam all do a good job, and I loved Veronica Cartwright’s cameo after having seen her in 1978’s Invasion.  The script is just average though, and the final product is lukewarm at best.

Grades:

1956’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers: 8

1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers: 7

The Invasion: 6

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

A Solar Eclipse

Seeing a total solar eclipse the way these people experienced it must be one of the most exhilarating experiences ever and something I hope I’ll be able to see during my lifetime:

Monday, July 19, 2010

A Quote By

1Englishman Ben Cohen, rugby star, gay icon, and self-assured straight man, gracing the cover of the latest issue of gay magazine Compete:

“I embrace diversity more than just a gay fanbase. I think that everyone should be able to say, think and feel the way they want to as long as no one else is hurt. I don’t think we have the right to judge what is right and wrong. I am happy and content in my life and feel that everyone should have the opportunity of feeling that way and being true to themselves.”

Toy Story 3

Toy Story 3 Needless to say, Pixar has done it again.  They have created possibly the best and quite likely the most “credible” and “grown up” animated movie ever.  Toy Story 3 made me laugh and cry and care for the characters on the screen as if they were real, even though its whole premise is that they are just toys.

Additionally, with the dump scene, Pixar dared to go where few studios that make animation dare to: bringing their entire cast on the brink of utter destruction, only to be miraculously saved at the eleventh hour by the most unlikely heroes.  That scene, with the very real possibility of losing one or more of you favorite characters, must have looked terrifying to countless kids (and adults), and scaring your core audience at a family oriented movie is something unheard of.  Nowadays, Hollywood plays it very safe, preferring to make movies that satisfy as many “quadrants” as possible (men, women, young, and old), rather than risk alienating any part of an audience.

Toy Story 3 finds our favorite cast of toys worried about their future now that their beloved owner, Andy, is about to leave for college.  What will happen to them?  Will they end up forgotten in a box in the attic or – gasp!! – on the curb as trash?!  The adventures our friends are subsequently thrust into have nothing to envy of the often stale high-octane spectacles of the summer box office.

This movie is headed straight for a Best Animated Feature Oscar next year, and hopefully it will follow into Pixar’s Up’s footsteps and garner a Best Picture nomination as well.  Heck, I’d love to see it win the latter!!

Toy Story 3 is a must see for every fan of the series as well as for those who never saw any Toy Story movie, although I’d suggest they rent the first 2 either before or after seeing this one, as they are top notch as well.

No praise would do justice to the technical perfection of the animation or the deft use of the 3D gimmick, which is so seamless it never gets in the way of the story and is so “real” it doesn’t feel forced or abused.

Don’t miss it!!

Grade: 10

Friday, July 16, 2010

The joy that comes with equality

The reaction of the crowd waiting to find out how the Argentine Senate would vote on the issue of gay marriage:

Thursday, July 15, 2010

VIVA ARGENTINA!!

Argentina’s Senate today narrowly passed a same-sex marriage bill that had already passed the lower House and is supported by the President:

Argentina legalized same-sex marriage Thursday, becoming the first country in Latin America to declare that gays and lesbians have all the legal rights, responsibilities and protections that marriage brings to heterosexual couples.

After a marathon debate in Argentina's senate, 33 lawmakers voted in favor, 27 against and 3 abstained in a vote that ended after 4 a.m. Since the lower house already approved it and President Cristina Fernandez is a strong supporter, it becomes law as soon as it is published in the official bulletin, which should happen within days.

[…]

The approval came despite a concerted campaign by the Roman Catholic Church and evangelical groups, which drew 60,000 people to march on Congress and urged parents in churches and schools to work against passage. Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio led the campaign, saying "children need to have the right to be raised and educated by a father and a mother."

[…]

Same-sex civil unions have been legalized in Uruguay and some states in Mexico and Brazil. Colombia's Constitutional Court granted same-sex couples inheritance rights and allowed them to add their partners to health insurance plans. Mexico City went further, legalizing gay marriage and launching tourism campaigns to encourage foreigners to come and wed.

Argentina now becomes the first country in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage nationwide, granting gays and lesbians all the same rights and responsibilities that heterosexuals have. These include many more rights than civil unions, including adopting children and inheriting wealth.

[…]

Gay activists in neighboring Chile hope Argentina's milestone will improve chances for a gay marriage law currently in committee in their own Congress.

"Argentina's political class has provided a lesson to the rest of Latin America," said Rolando Jimenez in Santiago. "We hope our own countries and political parties will learn that the human rights of sexual minorities are undeniable."

Activists in Paraguay plan to propose a similar law to the senate in October, said Martin Viveros of the group Somosgay. And in Uruguay, gays unsatisfied with the partial rights that come through civil unions are preparing legislation that would replace references to "man and woman" with "spouse" throughout the civil code.

[…]

The president, who helped the law's chances by bringing two senators opposed to gay marriage with her on a state visit to China, spoke out from there against the Catholic Church's campaign and the tone she said some religious groups have taken.

"It's very worrisome to hear words like 'God's war' or 'the devil's project,' things that recall the times of the Inquisition," she said.

That’s fantastic news, and apparently wouldn’t have happened without the firm leadership and support on the part of the President.

If only Obama put his full weight behind our civil rights, imagine where we would be today…

Contained!?

BBC’s Breaking News:
BP says it has stopped oil flowing into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time since a well ruptured in April, causing a massive leak.
Seems like BP was finally able to contain the oil pouring out of their Gulf of Mexico thanks to a new cap they placed on top of it:
BP says a new cap has stopped oil from leaking into the Gulf of Mexico for the first time since April.
BP has been slowly dialing down the flow as part of a test on a new cap. Engineers are now monitoring the pressure to see if the broken well holds.
Engineers got to work after replacing a leaky pipe. Kent Wells, a BP PLC vice president, said at a news briefing in Houston that the leak was found on the side of the towering, 75-ton capping stack and it was fixed by replacing the assembly, called a "choke line."
The work sent the oil giant back to restarting preparations for testing whether the cap can stop the oil without blowing a new leak in the well. If it works, the cap will be a temporary fix until BP can drill into the gusher to plug it for good from underground, where the seal will hold better.
[…]
Retired Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the Obama administration's point man on the disaster, said at a briefing it's not clear yet whether the cap, which was mounted on the well Monday, will ultimately be used to shut in the oil or to channel it through pipes to collection ships overhead.
"I have a high degree of confidence we can substantially decrease the oil coming into the environment," Allen said.
The cap remains a temporary fix, he said, until one of two relief wells BP is drilling can reach the gusher underground and plug it permanently with heavy drilling mud and cement.
"Make no mistake, the number one goal is to kill the well ... to stop it at the source," he said.
The test will involve closing off all three openings in the cap to the Gulf, in theory stopping the oil leaking into the Gulf. BP will be monitoring pressure under the cap. High pressure is good, because it shows there's only a single leak. Low pressure, below 6,000 pounds per square inch or so, could mean more leaks farther down in the well.
BP expects to keep the oil trapped in the cap for 48 hours before it decides if the approach is working.
The government estimates 1.5 million to 2.5 million gallons are leaking every day.
As of Thursday, the 86th day of the disaster, between 93.5 million and 184.3 million gallons of oil had spewed into the Gulf since the Deepwater Horizon rig leased by BP exploded April 20, killing 11 workers.
Fingers crossed.

Senior mishaps

This video is too funny!!

Monday, July 12, 2010

20 productive months

Like many other gays and lesbians, I am oftentimes upset by the lack of concrete movement on the gay rights legislation we so hoped would be pushed through Congress thanks to solid Democratic majorities in both houses and a “fierce advocate” in the White House.

That has not happened and we don’t know at this point if it will, given that the Democrats could possibly lose the House in the upcoming November elections, and will surely see their large majority in the Senate shrink considerably.

However, this video makes it clear that Obama has not been idle in spite of the constant and total stonewalling tactics on the part of the GOP:

A Quote By

Lord Hope of the UK Supreme Court in the judgment suspending the deportation of two gay men to their home countries of Iran and Cameroon.  The ruling was unanimous:

"To compel a homosexual person to pretend that his sexuality does not exist or suppress the behaviour by which to manifest itself is to deny his fundamental right to be who he is. Homosexuals are as much entitled to freedom of association with others who are of the same sexual orientation as people who are straight."

Wednesday, July 07, 2010

Space Chimps

Space Chimps A barely entertaining animated movie that Danny picked for Family Night, Space Chimps focuses on the grandchild of the first monkey sent into space, who now works in a circus, entertaining the audience with his wild and dangerous antics, until the day he’s sent on a quest in space as well.

While the animation is technically good and the script inspires a few chuckles here and there, Space Chimps is far from the standard we’re now accustomed to when it comes to feature animation.  After any of the cinematic marvels produced by Pixar and the genial work done by DreamWorks Animation with Shrek, a movie like Space Chimps feels weak, regurgitated, and stale.

It can be rented for a family viewing, but it will be soon forgotten.

Grade: 4

My Oscar Ballot

Here’s what my revamped Best Picture Oscar ballot would have looked like:

  1. Up
  2. Precious: Based on the Novel Push by Sapphire
  3. The Hurt Locker
  4. Avatar
  5. Up in the Air
  6. Inglourious Basterds
  7. A Serious Man
  8. District 9
  9. The Blind Side
  10. An Education

An Education

An Education I finally saw the last movie on this year’s Best Picture list and I’m quite underwhelmed.  I’m not saying it’s a bad movie, on the contrary, it’s quite enjoyable, but Best Picture material?  Hardly.

The only justification I can come up with is that An Education is a nice throwback to a long gone golden era when scripts and performances were what mattered most, while the technical department only played a supporting role often largely ignored by the audience, and perhaps many Academy voters wanted to acknowledge and reward that.

Ironically, given that what I prize most in a movie is a good script followed by good acting, I should be thrilled with the Academy (and other awards bodies) for recognizing this movie.  I just didn’t find it very memorable, that’s all.

I also have to admit that I’m a sucker for the technical aspects of movies, whether it be great costumes, intriguing sound effects, wonderful set designs, or, above all, mind blowing visual effects.  As long as all that “stuff” is used in the service of the film as a whole and is not all there is, then I love it.  Unfortunately, nowadays it’s more likely that Hollywood will serve us a flick chock full of expensive visual effects loosely wrapped in a script so unimaginative and unoriginal that the end result is oftentimes simply pitiful.

An Education tells the story of a young English girl at a crossroads: she wants to pursue a higher education in a prestigious college, mostly because that could be her ticket out of an ordinary life, and then she falls for an older man who is unlike anyone she ever met.

The script is slick and solid and the acting is very good on the part of everyone, including Carey Mulligan, who was nominated for a Best Actress Oscar, which also puzzled me.  Yes, she is good, very good, especially at making us believe she’s a teenager, but her performance was several orders of magnitude below Meryl Streep’s in Julie & Julia as well as Gabourey Sidibe’s in Precious or Sandra Bullock’s in The Blind Side (I haven’t seen Helen Mirren in The Last Station yet).  I really have to wonder at how she ended up on this shortlist.

So all things considered, An Education is a good movie showcasing great acting and a good script that unarguably benefited more than any other film from the Academy’s decision to widen the Best Picture field by doubling the nominees.

Grade: 7

Monday, July 05, 2010

Altered

altered I picked this totally unknown movie from the list of horror movies on Netflix’s streaming service.  Altered wasn’t bad but it wasn’t terribly original either.

The story: 4 guys had been abducted by aliens many years ago.  The 3 survivors are now reunited by the need to deal with the dangerous abduction of one of the aliens.  Who will make it out alive?

While the acting is reasonably good and the visual effects are well done, the script is a little too weak to really hold the whole production together, which is a pity because this could have certainly been a better movie and as horror movies go, it has its moments.

Grade: 5

Friday, July 02, 2010

Shooting oneself in the foot

That’s what we do when we release toxic chemicals in the environment, because it looks like they come back to us on our dinner plates, sooner or later.
From Raw Story:
Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth's oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only for marine life but for the millions of humans who depend on seafood.
A report released Thursday noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. From polar areas to equatorial waters, the whales ingested pollutants that may have been produced by humans thousands of miles away, the researchers said.
"These contaminants, I think, are threatening the human food supply. They certainly are threatening the whales and the other animals that live in the ocean," said biologist Roger Payne, founder and president of Ocean Alliance, the research and conservation group that produced the report.
"The entire ocean life is just loaded with a series of contaminants, most of which have been released by human beings," Payne said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting.
Ultimately, he said, the contaminants could jeopardize seafood, a primary source of animal protein for 1 billion people.
"You could make a fairly tight argument to say that it is the single greatest health threat that has ever faced the human species. I suspect this will shorten lives, if it turns out that this is what's going on," he said.
Though it was impossible to know where the whales had been, Payne said the contamination was embedded in the blubber of males formed in the frigid polar regions, indicating that the animals had ingested the metals far from where they were emitted.
"When you're working with a synthetic chemical which never existed in nature before and you find it in a whale which came from the Arctic or Antarctic, it tells you that was made by people and it got into the whale," he said.
How that happened is unclear, but the contaminants likely were carried by wind or ocean currents, or were eaten by the sperm whales' prey.
Now, the real question is, Didn’t the people in charge of all the factories that produce those chemicals and dump them in the ocean or the atmosphere -- without catching them first and cleaning them up -- think that they’d eventually be ingested by the same animals that later on would be eaten by them, their families, and their employees?
I wonder if all those chemicals (and pesticides) will actually end up altering our DNA so that in hundreds of years our bodies will function in radically different ways.
In the meantime though, a lot of people will get cancer or other illnesses that will kill them.

Toxic rain coming to all of us

Looks like we might be in for several years of toxic rain all over North America:
When you pour more than a million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants on top of an oil spill, it doesn’t just disappear. In this case, it moves to the atmosphere, where it will travel hundreds, if not thousands of miles from the site of the BP oil spill, in the form of toxic rain.
BP’s oil spill-fighting dispersant of choice is Corexit 9500. It has been banned in Europe for good reason. Corexit 9500 is one of the most environmentally enduring, toxic chemical dispersants ever created to battle an oil spill.  Add to that the millions of gallons of oil that have been burned, releasing even more toxins into the atmosphere, and you have a recipe for something much worse than acid rain.
The European Union Times reports "A dire report prepared for President Medvedev by Russia’s Ministry of Natural Resources is warning today that the British Petroleum (BP) oil and gas leak in the Gulf of Mexico is about to become the worst environmental catastrophe in all of human history threatening the entire eastern half of the North American continent with “total destruction”.
[…]
Oil in the environment is toxic at 11 PPM (parts per million). Corexit 9500 is toxic at only 2.61 PPM. But Corexit 9500 has another precarious characteristic; it’s reaction to warm water.
As the water in the Gulf of Mexico heats up, Corexit 9500 goes through a molecular transition. It changes from a liquid to a gas, which is readily absorbed by clouds and released as toxic rain. The chemical-laden rain then falls on crops, reservoirs, animals and of course, people.
It is futile to believe that we can keep ‘Corexit rain’ from occurring since it has already been released and the molecular transformation has begun. We have set off an unprecedented chain of events in nature that we cannot control.
By releasing Pandora’s well from the depths and allowing it bleed into the sea the unimaginable becomes material.
Yet unlike a bad dream, we will not wake up from this nightmare and find it gone. The BP Gulf of Mexico oil spill will be touching millions of earth’s life forms for uncountable years.
Tragic and unfathomable.

Iceland joins the club

I can’t believe I missed this, but last month Iceland passed a gay marriage law.  Unanimously!!

From Reuters:

Iceland, the only country in the world to have an openly gay head of state, passed a law on Friday allowing same-sex partners to get married in a vote which met with no political resistance.

The Althingi parliament voted 49 to zero to change the wording of marriage legislation to include matrimony between "man and man, woman and woman," in addition to unions between men and women.

Iceland, a socially tolerant island nation of about 320,000 people, became the first country to elect an openly gay head of state in 2009 when Social Democrat Johanna Sigurdardottir became prime minister after being nominated by her party.

The article goes on to say that “the prime minister's sexual orientation garnered far more interest among foreign media than in Iceland, where the attitude toward homosexuality has grown increasingly relaxed in the past two or three decades.”

How very enlightened Icelanders must be.

The Doomsday Scenario: a sinkhole

I honestly don’t know how far fetched the possibility of something like this happening really is, but if it did happen, it would surely qualify as the biggest man made disaster in the history of the world.
From Pam’s House Blend:
There has been speculation that the rapid outflow of oil from the underground reservoir is setting things up for a sinkhole. If that happens, it is almost certain that tens of millions of gallons of petroleum and tons of natural gas will be released all at once.
With this new evidence, the estimated amount of the spill has been upped to as much as 70,000 barrels a day. That is almost 3 million gallons every 24 hours.
There is, as yet, nothing to prove that the seeping oil is related to the drilling or the explosion. It is very likely that there is a causal relationship, however. At these depths (over a mile down, remember) sediment and rock behave differently than they do closer to the surface: rocks that are normally brittle are held together by the immense pressure. Disturbing that rock -- drilling, vibrations caused by drilling, an explosive release of gas, the sudden loss of pressure beneath the rock as oil and gas are removed -- can weaken its integrity and cause massive cracks. This is a well know scientific fact, one of the many that British Petroleum ignored in their greedy quest for profits.
In addition to oil coming out of the seabed, observers have noticed a rapid increase of already high amounts of methane (aka natural gas) in the outflow. From the Associated Press via Yahoo:
     It is an overlooked danger in the oil spill crisis: The crude gushing from the well contains vast amounts of natural gas that could pose a serious threat to the Gulf of Mexico's fragile ecosystem.
     The oil emanating from the seafloor contains about 40 percent methane, compared with about 5 percent found in typical oil deposits, said John Kessler, a Texas A&M University oceanographer who is studying the impact of methane from the spill.
     That means huge quantities of methane have entered the Gulf, scientists say, potentially suffocating marine life and creating "dead zones" where oxygen is so depleted that nothing lives.
     "This is the most vigorous methane eruption in modern human history," Kessler said.
Methane is extremely flammable in the presence of oxygen; it is believed that a sudden outgassing of methane is what caused the Deepwater Horizon rig to explode. As microbes "eat" methane for energy, they remove oxygen from the water, meaning that large quantities of dissolved methane usually results in vast anoxic regions where most life cannot exist. In other words, the outgassing is expanding "dead zones" and creating new ones. And, methane is an extremely potent greenhouse gas: when the gas begins to seep into the atmosphere, we will see a rapid increase in global warming and resultant climate change.
Even if the well were capped today and its outflow brought to zero, and even if the integrity of the rock is not further weakened and there is no sinkhole, oil and methane will continue to seep out through the sea bed for a very long time.
The blogger refers to what’s happening right now in the Gulf of Mexico as “ecological Armageddon.”
I cannot but agree with that assessment.

Criminal conduct

Sometimes the stuff you read is just mind boggling:
It may be hard to fathom, but even with gallons of oil spewing every minute from BP's broken well head in the Gulf of Mexico, not all the oil pollution in the Gulf is BP's fault.
[…]
But even though many millions of gallons of crude oil have leaked into the Gulf, much of what is washing up on beaches near in and around the Gulf is not from the Deepwater Horizon spill.
"We've done a number of tarballs from Florida, Key West, Miami and so forth, none of which so far have matched the Deepwater Horizon," Gronlund said. "The tarballs that have been found on the beach in Florida are fuel oil."
Fuel oil -- that means the oil comes from ships, not crude oil from a broken deep sea oil well.
[…]
Why might other ships spill oil? Coast Guard officials said some may have an undetected leak. Others, officials surmise, may be purposely spilling waste oil and dirty oil-laced bilge water into areas already fouled by a major spill hoping not to get caught. Dumping like that is cheaper than having tanks pumped out and cleaned properly according to government regulations when they get to shore. But if they are caught illegally dumping they could face fines above $1 million.

[…]
And the dishonest shippers do often get caught. Coast Guard inspectors will board ships when they come into port. They will obtain a sample of oil from the ship's tank, send it to Gronlund's lab where his scientists can compare the oil in the sample to the oil found on the shore. If they match, it doesn't matter why the oil leaked out -- accidentally or not. The ship's owners are responsible. Gronlund's chemists often have to testify in court about the oil they test.
Willingly dumping oil into the ocean, where countless creatures live, just to save money goes beyond being reckless.  That’s just criminal.  I sincerely hope that they catch all those bastards and make them pay.

Thursday, July 01, 2010

Despicable humans

Watch this sickening video:

It’s heartbreaking to see something like this happening in this day and age, when we should have stricter laws protecting endangered and iconic animals such as these and when hunters, proving they are worse then their prey, should stop following their most barbaric instincts and hunt down animals just for fun.

From TreeHugger:

Shockingly, it's still OK to hunt polar bears, as Brian reported in March. Back then, a proposed ban on the international trade of polar bear skins and parts was shot down at a United Nations Convention of International Trade in Endangered Species. The opposition at the CITES meeting was led by Canada. The United States pushed for the ban because (duh) international trade is damaging populations that are already endangered by habitat loss due to climate change.

The video is apparently from the Humane Society of the United States. The narrator says the footage comes from a commercial hunting video, and features American hunters tracking down and killing a polar bear on Canadian soil. "Yahoo!" one of them yells after their slaughter of the "beautiful, big polar bear." They pay up to $35,000 to kill one.

The video was recently posted at TrendHunter.com: Imagine if polar bear hunting becomes a trend. About 20,000 of the animals are left.

Heartbreaking.

The Dirty Dozen

That’s what the Environmental Working Group calls the fruits and vegetables that are so loaded with pesticides that they are more likely to do you harm than good.

This is what they’re reporting:

If you're eating non-organic celery today, you may be ingesting 67 pesticides with it, according to a new report from the Environmental Working Group.

The group, a nonprofit focused on public health, scoured nearly 100,000 produce pesticide reports from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to determine what fruits and vegetables we eat have the highest, and lowest, amounts of chemical residue.

Most alarming are the fruits and vegetables dubbed the "Dirty Dozen," which contain 47 to 67 pesticides per serving. These foods are believed to be most susceptible because they have soft skin that tends to absorb more pesticides.

The group suggests limiting consumption of pesticides by purchasing organic for the 12 fruits and vegetables.

"You can reduce your exposure to pesticides by up to 80 percent by buying the organic version of the Dirty Dozen," Rosenthal said.

Not all non-organic fruits and vegetables have a high pesticide level. Some produce has a strong outer layer that provides a defense against pesticide contamination. The group found a number of non-organic fruits and vegetables dubbed the "Clean 15" that contained little to no pesticides.

So here’s the list of The Dirty Dozen :

  1. Celery
  2. Peaches
  3. Strawberries
  4. Apples
  5. Domestic blueberries
  6. Nectarines
  7. Sweet bell peppers
  8. Spinach, kale and collard greens
  9. Cherries
  10. Potatoes
  11. Imported grapes
  12. Lettuce

I hate celery, but I love peaches, strawberries, and cherries.  I also like spinach, peppers, nectarines, grapes, and lettuce, so I guess I’m in a bit of a pickle am I not?

And these are The Clean 15: 

  1. Onions
  2. Avocados
  3. Sweet corn
  4. Pineapples
  5. Mango
  6. Sweet peas
  7. Asparagus
  8. Kiwi fruit
  9. Cabbage
  10. Eggplant
  11. Cantaloupe
  12. Watermelon
  13. Grapefruit
  14. Sweet potatoes
  15. Sweet onions

I guess I’m lucky here because there isn’t a single item I don’t like on this list, but buying organic for the others, when available, would still put a big dent in our wallet.