reduce carbon!

so i just had an extremely nerdy revelation: all this talk of "reducing carbon" is, well, accurate.

we want to reduce carbon. as in, the opposite of oxidizing it.

now, i don't know how many of you remember high school chemistry and the concept of REDOX, but i'll try to make it simple. When we're talking about carbon (which cycles throughout the atmosphere, from plants photosynthesizing CO2 into sugars and other organisms breaking it back down), oxidation is the process that animals do (breaking it apart from other atoms and attaching it to oxygen), and reduction is the process that plants do. Anything that takes energy from carbon-based materials, be them hydrocarbons such as those found in gasoline, or simple sugars or even proteins that animals eat, is oxidizing the carbon. It's outputting CO2. Processes which remove CO2 from the atmosphere (which, last time I checked, all the environmentalists were advocating) are reducing carbon.

So Al Gore is right when he says that we need to reduce carbon. We need to reduce more carbon than we're reducing right now, that's for sure.

stupid design

:D

(via pharyngula)

FAUX News

I guess all black people look the same to FOX... check out this clip of them announcing the indictment of Congressman Bill Jefferson on corruption charges... the video in the background is of John Conyers, not Bill Jefferson. One black congressman, another black congressman... what's the diff?



They aired a weaksauce apology the next day, but didn't mention anything about who it really was in the video, or what the video was of... FAUXkers. (I guess they couldn't actually mention that it was footage of the AG* testimony, since that would be, like, fair or balanced or something.)

* Has anyone else noticed that Alberto Gonzales' initials also stand for Attorney General? And Bush's secretary of education is Margaret Spellings. I think he picks these people based solely on their names, or nicknames, and not at all on their qualifications.

wow.

should he be impeached? go vote, then see the results... almost heartening.

for the love of god

tell Bush to sign the bill.

We all know he's going to veto it anyway, but it's worth a shot to sign this petition (yes, it'll put you on the Edwards campaign mailing list, but there are worse fates) and urge Bush to end the war. More importantly, though, this petition urges Democratic leaders in Congress to not back down and give Bush the bill he wants (aka the bill they just passed, minus the timetable for leaving Iraq), but instead, demand accountability from the Decider in Chief for vetoing a bill which fully supported our troops.

Cheney is a War Profiteer, and Bush is his puppet. We must remove these thugs from office. They have already irreparably damaged our Constitution... it's time to stand firm and say NO to this administration.

So please, sign the petition, call your congressperson, email your senator, whatever it takes. It's time to END THIS WAR and the occupation of the White House by thugs and cronies.

go team!

Joe Biden is Dead Right on Iraq, according to Newsweek's Michael Hirsh. after reading this article, i think he's right.

crooksandliars is a great source of outrage material, if you're looking. i love it mostly for its downloadable daily show and colbert report clips. in a time when cnn will pick out the 5 seconds of 8 hours in which the attorney general sounded credible, and play it off as the Democrats attacking the Administration. there's something in its last throes, here, folks... and it's the Administration.

as someone who has officially been awake for the last 6 and a half years, let me say this: it's about damn time you all noticed this shit.

read. and be outraged.

Did the most powerful Republicans in America have the computer capacity, software skills and electronic infrastructure in place on Election Night 2004 to tamper with the Ohio results to ensure George W. Bush's re-election?
Are Rove's missing e-mails the smoking guns of the stolen 2004 election?

let's blame the victim!

they can't be serious: Seed is reporting that apparently Africa isn't doing enough to stem climate change. AFRICA. you know, that continent with all those gas-guzzling SUVs, that air-travel-addicted populace, their bustling industries, and their ample cash flow. jeez, really, they ought to be doing more, like turning off the lights when they leave the room or NOT BREATHING (which, for many Africans, might be the only way they possibly could decrease their carbon footprint). Of course. let's all point our fingers at africa, and say, until those guys in Ethiopia get their CO2 emissions down, we don't have to do SHIT.

Those assholes over in tuvalu should think about switching to Priuses, too. geez. can't these people do more to stop their own destruction? no? well, i guess we can't do anything either.

delta(regime)

read this.

it's a very concise, well-written version of what we've all been thinking for the past 6 years. fuck the bush regime, fuck authoritarianism. mad props to the former republicans joining the ACLU. mad jeers to the man behind the curtain, dick "is a killer" cheney, and to several spineless senate democrats.

the 2006 elections didn't change anything about the president's willingness to ignore the rule of law. the fight has really just begun.

also: bring our damn troops home. yesterday.