Fracking: worse than you realize

A reckless experiment in unpatriotic and unnecessary greed and national disaster without study, in which the EPA is complicit.

By any reasonable and informed conjecture, the damage is happening faster and is far worse than commonly (mis)understood.  "First do no harm" is a nice aspiration; currently a joke.

(more)

Aaron Swartz, RIP

Aaron Swartz was truly brilliant. JSTOR backed off the case, but Stephen Heymann's ego-driven, careerist prosecutorial overreach continued and by all accounts was largely responsible for Swartz's recent depression and suicide.  Shame on Carmen Ortiz and all the prosecutors involved, and on MIT for its cowardice in not standing up for a more democratic internet. 

Please sign:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/remove-united-states-district-attorney-carmen-ortiz-office-overreach-case-aaron-swartz/RQNrG1Ck

via Scott McLemee (see here and here).

And more here.

I'm a hunter who supports US gun control

It is long past time to join the rest of the industrialized world (cf. Australia).

Climate Change is Hell on Earth

http://ncadac.globalchange.gov/  (via).

-Australian sand storm, January 2013 (story here)

"Summers are longer and hotter, and periods of extreme heat last longer than any living American has ever experienced. Winters are generally shorter and warmer. Rain comes in heavier downpours, though in many regions there are longer dry spells in between.

Other changes are even more dramatic. Residents of some coastal cities see their streets flood more regularly during storms and high tides. Inland cities near large rivers also experience more flooding, especially in the Midwest and Northeast. Hotter and drier weather and earlier snow melt mean that wildfires in the West start earlier in the year, last later into the fall, threaten more homes, cause more evacuations, and burn more acreage. In Alaska, the summer sea ice that once protected the coasts has receded, and fall storms now cause more erosion and damage that is severe enough that some communities are already facing relocation. ...

These and other observed climatic changes are having wide-ranging impacts in every region of our country and most sectors of our economy. Some of these changes can be beneficial, such as longer growing seasons in many regions and a longer shipping season on the Great Lakes. But many more have already proven to be detrimental, largely because society and its infrastructure were designed for the climate of the past, not for the rapidly changing climate of the present or the future."

-Beijing, January 2013.  Source and story in The Atlantic:

"The readings in the past few days have been in the previously unimaginable 700s-and-above range, reported as "beyond index" by @BeijingAir. The worst I have personally seen in Beijing was in the high 400s, and that day I did not understand how life could proceed any further in such circumstances. The conditions this weekend have been much worse..."

Update: Also, no more oysters, and no more coffee. And these things are just the canaries in the gold mine...

Harry Reid was right: Mitt Romney Paid No Taxes for 15 Years

Duh:

http://politics.gather.com/viewArticle.action?articleId=281474981730200

538 - The only source that matters

Obama's going to win the electoral, thank God, but North Carolina could sure use some help.

There was an actual debate that happened, by the way, in case you missed it.  Full of actual substance and proper pathos of indignation, as opposed to that other, vile thing.

Apple's profits double, tax rate falls to Romney level: 9.8%

(Please disregard the possible degree mill that produced this infographic as a strange form of advertising. Diploma mills are some of the most exploitive, predatory and shameful enterprises out there.)


Apple's profit margins are simply criminal.  $319 for each new iPhone, net profit.  Foxconn gets $8/phone assembled.  The situation in China is unsustainable, to say the least, politically, environmentally, and socially.  A few casino capitalists are getting very, very rich for at most another decade before shit hits the fan.

At what cost?

 

This is brilliant

n+1:

According to Adorno, in psychoanalysis only the exaggerations are true. If you wished to characterize the Democrats and the Republicans in terms of true exaggerations, you might say that the Republicans have become the Party of Psychosis while the Democrats have become the Party of Neurosis. The Republicans are psychotic because they have lost contact with reality, and orient their behavior not toward realities but toward fantasies. The Democrats are neurotic because they are aim-inhibited, as an old-fashioned shrink might say: their anxieties, hang-ups, and insecurities mean that they can’t attain satisfaction, since in a basic way they won’t even allow themselves to know what they want.

This is not a pizza peel

GreenRiverWoods on Etsy

GreenRiverWoods on CustomMade

Asheville Art in the Park

Last weekend was a great show.   Please come see all the incredibly hardworking and phenomenal artists at AshevilleArtinthePark the next two Saturdays in June, downtown Asheville in Pack Square, and then again three Saturdays in October!

TPP

Huh.

Reading Karl Ove Knausgaard, and about our future with the stupidity of computers (n+1 sub required)...and feeling grateful for the persistence/resistance of certain literary blogs.

Regarding NC Amendment One

Please just read Digby. And then sign this. And then organize. This isn't over.

Butcher Block Desk Top

Experiments with hand-rubbed polyurethane, end grain patchwork walnut and rock maple:

GreenRiverWoods on CustomMade.Com, on Etsy, on Facebook

Half the shrimp have no eyes

Turns out Corexit isn't such a good thing after all, 3 people are shocked to discover: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/4/23/gulf_oil_spill_bp_execs_escape

Custom Butcher Block Top

End grain walnut and rock maple. This one measures 54" x 16" x 1.5"



Free estimates please contact: GreenRiverWoods. Now also on Facebook, if you're into it.

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