Petrol

Abo pointed me towards this page the other day.

From the page:

* If we raise fuel efficiency standards in American cars by one mile per gallon, in one year, we would save twice the amount of oil that could be obtained from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge

* Raising it by 2.7 mpg would save enough to eliminate all the oil imports from Iraq and Kuwait combined

* Raising it by 7.6 mpg would save enough to eliminate 100% of our gulf oil imports into this country


So.. why don't we just make cars more freaking efficient? Wouldn't that be a lot less painful that going to war with Iraq, drilling in various reserves, and furthering global warming? (Oh, I guess it wouldn't make as much money for the administration..)
(Note, a 1992 honda civic gets about 45mpg on the freeway... we haven't come very far in fuel efficiency.)

The fox is guarding the hen house...(again)

The other day, I was driving through the beautiful green fields of Northern Idaho, and listening to a very disturbing report on NPR about the high levels of mercury used to keep vaccines free of bacteria and mold. What was especially alarming about this report was that, it has a huge impact on a very large group of people including me, and most everyone I know. Basically, if you have had a vaccine since 1931, you have probably been exposed to some level of mercury. Apparently some data and studies strongly suggest a link between these early doses of mercury and some of the odd neurological dissorders such as autism, hyperactivity, learning dissabilities etc which are causing a lot of trouble in schools these days. The mercury is part of thimerosal which is a preservative. It comes in the form of ethylmercury which one can read about here in the PAN Pesticides Database which says that it is a fungacide which acts as a developmental or reproductive toxin in humans. On this page there is a list of things which also contain ethylmercury. And on this page you can calculate how much mercury you have been exposed to from vaccines.
A good article covering the political aspects of this situation can be found here on Salon.com. If you don't have a Salon membership, you have to view an add to get access to the article. But, the article is WELL worth it. One of the more disturbing things it points out is that the CDC, FDA, and various pharmaceutical companies have known about this for a long time, but have made a pretty major effort to cover it up. This coverup was probably made possible by the serious conflict of interest on the part of CDC and FDA officials who are also heavily involved with pharmaceutical companies. This whole deal seems strangly reminiscent of the oil men and arms dealers running a war in Iraq. When will we learn that letting the fox guard the hen house isn't the smartest idea?

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fireworks 

 

I went up to Moscow for the 4th. Here are some pictures of a cool waterfall on Elk Creek. (Sorry Mike, forgot to turn off the date....) 

A question for the religiously inclined to ponder..

So I saw this weird thing on slashdot, about how "Pittsburgh's Safar Centre for Resuscitation Research has developed a technique in which subject's veins are drained of blood and filled with an ice-cold salt solution." Apparently they can keep the dogs "dead" for at least 3 hours before reviving them, at which point they come back with not apparent brain/organ damage. They plan to try it on humans sooner or later. So, if the animal/human is dead, where does the soul go during that time? And, if someone had this done, and then wasn't brought back, at what point would they really be dead? Would their soul stick around until the probability of resuscitation was nill, and then head for warmer (or in some cases more temperate) waters? If this is done to a person, and the soul gets kinda confused and takes off too early, will the person be revived a soulless ghola? We need answers from someone with some serious religious training here!

A little road trip

I went up to the UofI in Moscow last weekend, they have a nice campus up there. Tshering showed me the lab where she's sectioning fish eyes, and looking for optic nerves. The lab was spacious, modern and organized compared to others I've seen. Tshering even has her own desk!
Moscow is kinda fun too. The city reminds me of a mini Boulder CO, lots of big old style houses rented by students, some artsy shops, and lots of young people hanging around. I imagine the place is a real riot during the school year.
It was nice to be in a cool green place after dealing with the first heat wave of south Idaho summer. I was also particularly impressed by the huge rolling fields. Apparently they don't have to irrigate at all up there. The rain is sufficient to keep things green and growing.
Driving through the Nez Perce Indian Reservation, and then down out of the mountains into the lush green camas prarie, I couldn't help but wonder how the previous owners would view the roads, houses and towns which dot the fields which once were theirs. Seeing the richness of the land, gave me a new understanding of the motivation behind driving Chief Joseph and his people off of the land.

Questions...

So I was wondering.. if you are a pro-lifer, do you start calculating age at the day of conception? Since "pro-life" seems to be the way the country is headed (George et. al.), maybe we ought to throw out this whole "birthday" idea, and adopt "conceptionday" in it's stead. This is a whole new war yet to be fought between the pro-choicers and pro-lifers, and of course, the pro-choicers will all end up being 9 months younger, which could sway those who are worried about old-age towards a pro-choice stance. Still, it would be more compatible with what appear to be the up-and-coming social views (who cares whether they are biologically sound anyway). And lets not forget about the interesting impact on legal drinking age.

The rain was accompanied by a lot of hail. Here it has collected in screens. 

Finally, an excuse for all these big pickups! 

Luckily the houses are kind of raised. 

This car wasn't doing too well. 

The trailer park across the street got a LOT of water. 

Last Friday we got a lot of rain fast (2.7 in a few hours). Caldwell isn't really geared for this sort of thing, so the following madness ensued. This is the parkinglot of the place where I work.