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Journal (The Ember Update)

Thursday, February 26

Valentine's, Times Square and Hiking

[Click photos to enlarge them.]

Toy Fair happens most years over Valentine's Day, but Alison and I were given a reprieve from being there for the beginning (Alison was working, I wanted to be home). Because her sweeties were away and Janet was using our kitchen for the day, Kevin and I decided to celebrate at Wunderland with Alison. I made a yummy dinner and we all watched Amélie. I don't know why anyone would care, but — for my own memory — here are the before and after pics of our dinner (and that's the OM plate I made).

While at Toy Fair, Andy, Alison and I went in search of a Sound Sculpture at Times Square (Andy's report). Times Square always reminds me of NYC in The Fifth Element:

You know which generation is in power when they're making Starsky and Hutch movies…

Also, since the cold weather has finally broken, Kevin and I have been out bicycling and hiking already. We most recently biked and hiked along the Potomac River, where these two photos were taken.

Lead, Arsenic, and Mercury (Oh My!)

The local scuttlebutt over the last month is that there is record-breaking high lead content in Washington DC water, where I lived three years ago. While the EPA limit is 15 ppb (parts per billion), in DC they've found as much as 300 ppb (one house privately tested had 900 ppb) … and when WASA discovered the problem last year they did nothing about it! At least 23,000 homes are serviced by lead lines (records are missing/incomplete so they don't really know). WASA is telling people to run their water for 10 minutes (=5 gallons) before drinking or cooking with it. While they are now sending out filters to 10,000 homes, who's going to pay for them and all that water waste? (Their customers, undoubtedly.) WASA did a test at DC schools and said most were fine, but that was after they ran the water for 10 minutes before testing. Show me a student who is going to do that at a drinking fountain. What about water used for cooking school lunches?

On top of lead contamination, there's been ongoing discussion on Bush's actions to weaken limits of arsenic in our drinking water. Now he wants to defer Mercury emissions controls too! Is our government trying to kill us? (I thought wholesale poisoning of citizenry was one of the reasons we ousted Saddam Hussein…)

What can we do?

Suppressed by the Pentagon

[Update March 2, 2004: My friend Frank says this is probably just a worse-case scenario for planning by the government. Let's hope so!]

Rash linked to this alarming article about Global Warming (something my first husband — a Limbaugh-loving geology professor — claimed was a liberal invention … I hope to never see him again, for this and numerous other reasons). The report this article is based on was first commissioned, and is now being suppressed, by the Pentagon. (Too bad for them that the article ranked #1 on the Yahoo most emailed links list a few days back.)

A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world. […]

Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated. […]

The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence. [source]

And if that's not enough, Jonathan sends along these two links: "Ice Age Ahead?" and "The Thermohaline Conveyor Belt - or what to do with your spare time until the next Ice Age."

Thursday, February 12

Not Much

We've been busy getting ready for Toy Fair, so I don't have much to write this week. Here are a few random photos (click to enlarge):

Ice at the cabin last week.

A blossoming vine decorates a tree in a private Palo Alto park. Deer grazed nearby.

Buttons on a piece of artwork at Greenbelt Community Center (sadly, I didn't keep the artist's postcard).

Well, that's all folks!

Thursday, February 5

Pirates' Feast

My friend Chort (a.k.a. John Montrie) has been organizing an annual Pirates' Feast at the Adelphi Mill for 20 years now. I had two tickets to this anniversary event, where pirates leered and sneered, the Chancellor banged his staff and threatened, the Queen waved, belly dancers provided pirate porno (as someone called it), one naughty wench was banished to Australia, peasants and pirates alike lunged after a handful of tossed gold coins, barmaids took payment in their cleavage, insults were traded (but duels and sword fights were avoided), and so forth.

Here are a few pictures (clicking on any takes you to the complete selection):

Censure

Here's what I tacked onto the top of my letter:

When I first heard about President Bush's call for an independent inquiry into US intelligence competency, my immediate reaction was to ask WHY we're going to spend (even more!) taxpayer money on this smokescreen. It's clear to me that this is just another diversion away from the true intelligence failure, namely that of our President and his administration.

My brother has been in the Air Force for 15+ years — currently serving in the intelligence field — and it's no mystery to him and our family that the real reason for this war was NOT because of the threat of WMD. I implore you to censure President Bush for endangering the lives of my brother and thousands of other servicemen and women for no good reason, as well as for all of the debt and international good-will fallout that has resulted.

Contact

Today I wrote this in response to an email from David Darling (he was requesting a product shot of Chrononauts for possible use in an upcoming book):

P.S. I used to run SETI@home, but then I got to thinking about what might happen if it worked and we actually made contact with outside beings. We all know what happens when two previously-unfamiliar cultures discover one another ... conquest and/or disease. I'm still thrilled by the idea of extraterrestrial beings (having seen my share of mystifying UFOs), but actual contact seems a potentially deadly prospect! Anyway, that's just my two cents...

He responded by asking if I remembered the old Twilight Zone episode, "To Serve Man." Indeed.

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