Seth in CA (for the summer)

“If only gay sex caused global warming”

Oh my. How did I miss this? And when is Prof. Gilbert going to get a blog? The Freakonomics guys did it to promote their book, and he’s going after the same audience with Stumbling on Happiness, right? (Ooh, looks like Levitt and Dubner are still at it. Cool.)

Go read the whole thing:

If only gay sex caused global warming

Why we’re more scared of gay marriage and terrorism than a much deadlier threat.

NO ONE seems to care about the upcoming attack on the World Trade Center site. Why? Because it won’t involve villains with box cutters. Instead, it will involve melting ice sheets that swell the oceans and turn that particular block of lower Manhattan into an aquarium.

The odds of this happening in the next few decades are better than the odds that a disgruntled Saudi will sneak onto an airplane and detonate a shoe bomb. And yet our government will spend billions of dollars this year to prevent global terrorism and … well, essentially nothing to prevent global warming.

Why are we less worried about the more likely disaster? Because the human brain evolved to respond to threats that have four features — features that terrorism has and that global warming lacks.

Freshman year I e-mailed Prof. Horwitz to encourage him to blog. No answer yet. Maybe Gilbert will be more responsive.

That doesn’t sound like me…

Is there some sort of Internet scam that somehow involves registering fake MySpace accounts? Earlier today I wanted to see if I had a MySpace account (so I could post a comment on the Ezra Furman and the Harpoon‘s blog, of course). I tried a few e-mails on the lost password page and found out that I did, although I didn’t remember creating it and it had a weird password and e-mail I don’t use much. And it had some weird information already entered. I mean, I hate astrology. And gender constructs. Especially ones that don’t really fit, like “female” or United Kingdom:

Female 25 years old United Kingdom Last Login: 7/3/2006

Are these the default settings or what?

Malibu!

This post has a sound track [press play if it appears, otherwise click here], taken from Cowabunga! The Surf Box.

I happened to be listening to that song on the train ride back, which was on the San Bernardino / Riverside line (one of the lyrics is “From Balboa to Anaheim / San Bernardino to Riverside / All the kids in all L.A. / Love to hear Dick Dale play”). Pretty cool.

On Saturday, after a trip to Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills in search of the wears (wares?) of one Baruch Shemtov (see pictures below) Eric and I went to Zuma Beach, in Malibu.

I hope that’s not real fur. If memory serves the brown one was around $250 and the gray one was around $150. It was Eric’s idea.

Is that first song over? Here’s another.

(Both are by Dick Dale & the Del-Tones)

Zuma Beach was beautiful. So beautiful, I didn’t take any pictures. Fortunately, Flickr has way more and better pictures of Zuma Beach than my small digital camera could provide, so here’s a sampling (they’re all Creative Commons-licensed):

Water’s Edge

By LorE Denizen

Waves 1

Untitled

By LorE Denizen

By Perched

The water was really, really cold, but lots of fun.

Oh, blog…

How I have neglected thee.

Wow

Faith in America has more ads here.

Weird…

Over at OutsideTheBeltway.com I just saw the weirdest line-up of ads ever:

Surrender in Iraq Do you accept the Democrat strategy of retreat to defeat? Should we abandon our Iraqi allies to the terror of Zarqawi’s successors?If not, sign Senator Frist‘s digital petition by clicking here now! Read More…

Save the UN The United Nations is facing a crisis.Strong differences of opinion and a rapidly approaching spending cap could paralyze the UN – diplomacy, the reform process, even humanitarian efforts.Sign the petition. Urge world leaders: “Don’t Shut Down the UN.” Read More…

Place a Bet on Iraq With yet another successful election, time may be running out to buy the New Iraqi Dinar before it hits the open market. It’s now unbelievably affordable. The same amount that was once equal to over $82,000 can now be purchased for around $45. But, what happens when the oil really starts to flow? Read More…

This is from the website of the last one, BetOnIraq.com. Sounds like a sick joke to me:

What if?

Let’s say you decide to err on the side of Iraqi prosperity. You take advantage of the 100 year low value and buy 2 million Iraqi dinars. You look them over, admire them, and show them to some friends as a curiosity. The security features alone will have them enthralled. Then you stick them in a closet and go about your life.

A few years from now, you see a program on A&E portraying the lives of average Iraqis. You see people drinking locally bottled, genuine Pepsi Cola; not the ersatz they’d been consuming for years. They are buying their cars from Baghdad Mitsubishi.

Their highly educated engineers, no longer waiting tables or driving cabs, are engineering. The world’s 2nd largest oil reserve is producing more efficiently. Higher quality crops are being harvested, in larger numbers.

You discover that things are going well enough in Iraq to have raised the value of the the dinar to one US cent.

Your $2100 purchase would now be valued at $20,000.

If the dinar were to climb to a dime, you’ve got two hundred thousand dollars in your closet. What if it were to reach a dollar? Or rebound to it’s peak of over $3.00? Do you dare continue to keep your dinars in the closet?

Beware the coming North American community

(Take notice, friends of mine who work at “news” shows: this story is crying out for correspondent coverage.)

I’m glad I’m not the only one concerned by those internationalist Republicans and their plan for a United States of North America.

A concerned citizen writes:

Dreier for `guests’

Unfortunately, the recent letter from Genevieve Clavreul is factually mistaken when it attempts to conceal a statement made by Rep. David Dreier.

A Los Angeles Times article of Dec. 16, 2005, clearly quotes Dreier stating, “Any final bill that emerges from the House and the Senate, must include a guest-worker program both for future migrants and for illegal immigrants already here.”

Appallingly, Dreier is campaigning to legalize up to 30 million illegal immigrants now in our country, rewarding their lawlessness.

According to La Opinion of May 16, 2004, Dreier even agreed with officials at a meeting in Guadalajara, Mexico to work to legalize the greatest possible number of “migrants without legal documents” in the United States. What blatant betrayal of America!

Even worse, Dreier is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations which is working to merge Canada, Mexico and the United States into a single “North American Community” by 2010 (see www.spp.gov). This would dissolve our borders at the expense of American sovereignty and independence, which we cannot allow to happen.

The only candidate on the Nov. ballot for Congressional District 26 opposing all forms of “guest worker” or “temporary worker” amnesty for illegal immigrants is Elliott Graham of the American Independent party.

Jan Akers

La Cañada Flintridge

Someone should really call Dreier’s office and ask them where he stands on transnational nation-merging.

Real life Seth in CA

This is today at 7:30 PM [Map].

For readers in the area, come to the Democratic Club of Claremont meeting:

Do not miss our June 26th meeting!

“The environmental impact of the food we eat”

Global Warming is getting a lot of press these days. The new documentary movie with Al Gore’s slide show, An Inconvenient Truth has won praise from a wide variety of scientists, not just those involved specifically with the environment. (It is now showing locally in Ontario.)

Because of this, Bonnie Yelverton, our June 26th speaker, will be focusing on a different issue of our environment. She will instead talk about the environmental impact of our food production. This involves topics like energy, water, pollution, land use and sprawl, transportation, nutrition – and just plain good taste.

Bonnie Yelverton has long been involved with improving our impact on the environment. In the early 90’s she ran a diaper service in Denmark. Later she studied environmental management for businesses, in particular methods of motivating people to act sustainably. Since moving to California in 2000, she has worked for a windmill company, she drives a hybrid (but commutes by bus) and attempts organic farming in her condo courtyard. She is a member and frequent contributor to many environmental action-based organizations, such as Environmental Defense, the Wilderness Society and Sierra Club. She considers herself an enlightened layperson who reads a lot of books about the environment. If you’d like to read more, download her list of suggested readings on environmental issues.

Bonnie has provided us with a four-page reading list on environment issues. General topics covered are Global Warming, Food, Ecology, Oceans and Fish, and Sustainable design. You can (click on &) check it out at her environmental reading list.

Club business will include a vote on whether the Club will endorse Cynthia Matthews, who won the primary election for the Democratic nomination in the 26th Congressional district. She will oppose David Dreier, the Republican incumbent, in the November general election.

Map of 660 Avery Rd, Claremont, CA 91711

Google Maps – Yahoo! Maps – MapQuest

“Connecticut Local Politics: Senate 1970”

Fascinating account of the 1970 Connecticut Senate race:

Liberal Democrats began rallying around the Rev. Joe Duffey, a supporter of Eugene McCarthy’s failed presidential bid and head of the antiwar group Americans for Democratic Action. Duffey also led the progressive, antiwar Caucus of Connecticut Democrats, of which a young attorney named Joe Lieberman was a founding member (Lieberman, 167). Senate Majority Leader Ed Marcus and the more conservative Stamford lawyer Al Donahue, who was backed by the state Democratic machine (Lieberman, 169), were the other Democrats in the race. Secretary of the State Ella Grasso and Mayor Richard Lee of New Haven were also mentioned as possible candidates, but Grasso decided to seek the 6th District Congressional seat and Lee retired from public life (“Dodd”).

(Hat tip: TPMCafe.)

A Terrifying Message from Al Gore: Creative and effective ways to get your message out

(cross-posted at Daily Kos)

Atrios remarked a few months back that if the right viral video came along, Lieberman would be toast. (Was Lieberman’s bear ad the unintentional answer?) The PoliticsTV guys enlisted Moby’s help in the fight for Net Neutrality. Now Al Gore and the creators of Futurama enter the fray.When I saw Al Gore’s global warming presentation at Harvard, he quite memorably used a clip from Futurama:

Now Gore appears with Bender in a short animation on YouTube advertising An Inconvenient Truth

This is probably a good time to mention ShareTheTruth, which I found linked from Larry Lessig’s blog.

ShareTheTruth and the Moby and Gore videos are great examples of the ways that politicians and activists are making creative use of the Internet to reach out to people. I know I certainly want to see more of this. And I’ll bet there are lots more celebrities out there willing to lend their star power to a cause in a more compelling way than the press conference. But celebrities aren’t essential: just check out the most popular videos on the front page of YouTube I’m collecting other similar examples of viral videos, creative website and e-mail campaigns, banners, and technological advocacy and messaging etc. Post what you’ve seen works in comments.