Political Matching Quiz

Here you can answer a short quiz on different social and political issues and the computer spits out the most similar candidate for president. Also, gives some interesting reasons why this candidate is similar to your beliefs.

I got Bill Richardson, the current governor of New Mexico. I met him while I lived in New Mexico, and Mr. Richardson seems extremely well-versed in international politics, as well as the fact that he is very aware of issues surrounding climate change and nuclear proliferation, two biggies for me. I’m not certain that I’ll vote for him, but it was interesting to see why he ‘lined up’ with my selections.

Drink Tap Water, damnit

Honestly, there is no reason to buy bottled water. Tap water tastes fine.

Bottled water also has all kinds of associated costs - bottles (duh), bottling, transportation, waste, and so forth. If you fill up a reusable bottle, then you negate many of these problems.

Oddly enough

Lion, tiger kill man at meat plant.

I wish I had come up with this title, but it was not me. We have Reuters to thank for that. Why does Reuters never give the writer credit anyway? It’s not as if the corporate body wrote this piece.

Anyhoo, I just thought it was totally righteous and coincidental that a meat plant working feeding his pet carnivores (caged on the top of the factory), was eaten by them. Also, the short article really goes into detail about the attack, “which left scraps of bloodstained clothing on the floor of the cage”. Mmmm.

And then the part about the animal protection authorities sedating the tiger and securing it’s muzzle with a block of wood… only to have the animal suffocate on the way to the zoo. Woops.

I feel bad for Pandas

There’s been much worldwide concern and focus for the pandas, just like the whales. One article documents how the first released panda (born in captivity) has died. There’s also a lot of hoopla each time a panda is born, largely because pandas have have unique reproduction habits, which essentially limit there natural success. The females are rarely in estrous, the male has a hard time inseminating her, the baby is born small and vulnerable… Just bad luck reproducing, and as evolution goes, that’s not a good trait for selection. Could this trait breed Pandas out of existence? I sometimes wish I would be around to know.

One Hour No Power - Can it work?

I’m going to encourage this as much as I can, because I think that each electron saved is, well, an electron saved:

http://www.onehournopower.com/

Quite a simple, straight-forward idea (and presentation). Use no electricity on Sunday July 1st from noon till one. A worthy cause. Everyone turns off their own lights, homeowners and businesses alike.

To me, it is akin to the recent fascination with “user-driven content”.  Aren’t most of our economic operations already user, or human driven? The coordination of our electrical (-and other resource) consumption is driven by distributions of supply, demand and transport.

One Hour No Power aims to knock at one of these three pillars of resource consumption - demand. Pragmatically, the ability to make your own choices is the greatest freedom you retain. Can we, through individual/group action send a message to the higher-ups through programs like this?