Are Green Power Programs a Scam? - Mother Jones

When a hawker at an Oregon farmers market urged Laura McCandlish—with a coupon for free veggies and a postcard with pictures of bucolic windmills—to sign up for her utility's green power program, she thought it sounded like a good deal: For a few extra pennies per kilowatt hour, her home's energy would come from local turbines instead of dirty coal plants. Right?

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The Potential for a 40-MPH Man - Wired

New research suggests the human body is capable of handling running speeds up to 40 miles per hour, if only our muscles could contract faster.

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Could Cars Have Contributed to Mortgage Meltdown? - Wired

Study of foreclosures in three cities finds those who don't have access to mass transit and are more dependent on the cars they own are more likely to default on their mortgage.

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Peacefires newest Circumventor:

stardream.info -- you can access it with either http:// or https://
sneezecloud.com -- you can access it with either http:// or https://
clowntail.com -- you can access it with either http:// or https://

Remember, always try https://www.stupidcensorship.com   first.

The big list.

Peacefires newest Circumventor:

clothbrain.com -- you can access it with either http:// or https://
goblinrobot.com -- you can access it with either http:// or https://
battleflower.com -- you can access it with either http:// or https://
woodcloud.com -- you can access it with either http:// or https://

Remember, always try https://www.stupidcensorship.com first.

The big list.

Time to ban mountaintop mining due to externalized costs - Ars Technica

A new, comprehensive analysis of mountaintop removal mining, which is common in the Appalachian region of the United States, shows that its environmental effects extend to the hydrology of its surroundings, ruining streams and the ecosystems they support. Technically known as "mountaintop mining with valley fills" (MTM/VF), it consists of stripping away forests and topsoil from the tops of mountains and then using explosives to break through rocks that cover the coal inside the mountain. The resulting rocks are then pushed away into valleys, where they interfere with and often bury existing streams.

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Senator Demands IP Treaty Details - Wired

That a U.S. senator must ask a federal agency to share information regarding a proposed and "classified" international anti-counterfeiting accord the government has already disclosed is alarming. Especially when the info has been given to Hollywood, the recording industry, software makers and even some digital-rights groups.

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Eason Service System - 2009.09.26

Photos taken at the closed Eason Service System shop.

The decade's top 10 quotations - Salon

Before our country can move forward, we need to know how we got here in the first place. Here are a few clues .

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FTC reminds us that storing data in the cloud has drawbacks - ArsTechnica

The Federal Trade Commission worries that consumers don't really understand the privacy implications to storing some of their most crucial data in the cloud, and it wants the FCC to think about such issues when finalizing its national broadband plan.

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Kendall-Jackson to drastically cut water usage - CNet

Jackson Family Wines, known for its Kendall-Jackson label, has developed a process to reduce winery water usage by 70 percent.

A new system developed by Jackson Family Wines recycles and filters the hot water used for rinsing, losing only about 10 percent of that water in the process, the company said Tuesday. The system also retains 75 percent of the water's heat. As a result, the process also saves energy.

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Peacefires newest Circumventor:

peachgod.com -- you can access it with either http:// or https://

Remember, always try https://www.stupidcensorship.com first.

The big list.

Christmas Lights - 2009

Just an assortment of Christmas lights taken during this month of December

Jon Stewart on Bruce Springsteen:

I am not a music critic. Nor historian, nor archivist. I cannot tell you where Bruce Springsteen falls in the pantheon of the American songbook. I cannot illuminate the context of his work, or its roots in the folk and oral history traditions of our great nations.

But I am from New Jersey.

So, I can tell you what I believe. And what I believe is that Bob Dylan and James Brown had a baby. Yes! And they abandoned this child, as you can imagine at the time ... interracial, same sex relationships being what they were ... they abandoned this baby by the side of the road between the exit interchanges 8A and 9 on the Jersey Turnpike ... that child was Bruce Springsteen.

I believe that Bruce Springsteen is an unprecedented combination of lyrical eloquence, musical mastery and sheer unbridled, unadulterated joy. Exuberance in the act of telling stories so familiar, stories that have never been told so well or so uniquely. And I know he's hating this right now. He's a modest man, and he doesn't like sitting there in that little box, with his little suit, wearing a little rainbow dreamcatcher or whatever they have on there ... he doesn't like it.

He wishes he had his guitar and that I would shut up, but I will not. He is the Boss ... But I didn't understand his music for a long time, until I began to yearn. Until I began to question the things that I was making and doing in my own life. Until I realized that it wasn't just about the joyful parade on stage and the theatrics.

It was about stories of lives that could be changed. And that the only status that you could fail to achieve is the status quo. The only thing, the only failure in life was not to make the effort to change our station. And it resonated with me because, and I say this truly to him ... I would not be here, God knows, not even in this business if it were not for the inspirational words and music of Bruce Springsteen.

Camera Toss Christmas Lights - 29 December 2009

I caught the idea from an article on the Wired website

Social Network Photos Bridge Taiwan-China Gap - Wired

The U.S. Postal Service expects to deliver over 3 billion cards and letters this holiday season. Halfway around the world, a group of young web enthusiasts have initiated their own version of Americans’ traditional year-end communication flurry.

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Walt Handelsman - 28 December 2009

 
Signe Wilkenson - 29 December 2009

Inspired by Saturday afternoon movies, the two boys storm the local bank – sort of. - Robert C. Jones/CSM

James Carlyle and I were downtown, letting our tricycles graze outside the door of the First National Bank. James’s was light blue, a full two hands higher than my red one. I, however, wore a real buffalo-fur cowboy vest - bulletproof. In addition, I had on my genuine Mexican sombrero, which, if I turned the brim down all the way around, made a very workable tent. One of us - I think it was James, but it might have been me - said, "Let’s rob the bank!"

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Whoppers of 2009 - FactCheck

Summary Although 2009 was not an election year, it kept us exceptionally busy, and led to millions of visits to our site. In this year-end summary, we offer some of the worst examples of the falsehoods we encountered during the first year of the Obama administration. The list of howlers includes the ...

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Sublime Sand: Desert Dunes Seen From Space - Wired

The sculpted, shifting sand dunes of some of the world's most spectacular deserts are especially stunning when seen from space. This gallery showcases some of the tallest, strangest and most extensive dunes in the world.

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