Obama's EPA sues Kansas power company

This is awesome.  Apparently a company in Kansas has made major upgrades to its coal plant without also installing the latest pollution control technologies.  That's against the law.  So the Obama EPA is suing them to correct this.

What the EPA is asking for the following:

• Westar Energy has "to install and operate appropriate air pollution control technology in
  order to substantially reduce sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide and
  particulate matter emissions from the Jeffrey Energy Center."
• "... civil penalties up to the maximum amount authorized by law..."
• "... actions by the energy provider to mitigate the adverse effects alleged to have been caused by the violations..."  Which would basically mean paying for carbon offsets of the pollution they shouldn't have been generating over the last decade.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh sweet justice.

Read more on salon.com's HTWW here.

World Of Warcraft: Dancing

This video is awesome... it's a montage of actual in-game character dances matched to their originators... Travolta, MC Hammer, Michael Jackson, etc. Some of them are scary accurate...!!

L'il O'Reilly

Lil' O'Reilly - Obama's First Week - watch more funny videos

Tom Daschle the Scumbag

Wow. Sometimes I'm really shocked by the level of overt corruption there is in our government. Tom Daschle is a great example of it... read this article by salon.com's Glenn Greenwald for the case against Daschle. I had no idea how twisted the power corridors of Washington can run. But this really lays it out.

At one point in the article Glenn quotes Matt Taibbi of the Rolling Stone, who says "When Obama picked Tom Daschle to be the HHS Secretary, I nearly shit my pants. In Washington there are whores and there are whores, and then there is Tom Daschle. Tom Daschle would suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger."

Now THAT'S good investigative journalism. Even *I* wouldn't suck off a corpse for a cheeseburger. And I love cheeseburgers.

Anyways, the point is that as part of Daschle's vetting for his nomination as HHS Secretary, he had to submit a full financial disclosure. That disclosure revealed "for the first time exactly how, without becoming a registered lobbyist, he made millions of dollars giving public speeches and private counsel to insurers, hospitals, realtors, farmers, energy firms and telecommunications companies with complex regulatory and legislative interests in Washington."

And of course that's incredibly embarrassing for Obama, who's trying to clean up Washington, not perpetuate its sleazy corruption.

And the hilarious bit is that despite all the cash Daschle's been raking in, he forgot to pay taxes on his limousine. As Joan Walsh on salon put it, "It must have been so bewildering to Daschle, as if the government had
decided to tax the air we breathe, or the love of our families! My
limousine? My God, who knew?"

So as all of this is coming out, Daschle's made the right call and asked for his nomination to be withdrawn. From what I read in the 2 linked articles, that was totally the right move. Read the details if you like... Greenwald's piece (as always) is a methodical, well-researched argument. Joan's is more of an opinion piece, but much easier to read.

Whichever one you read, you'll be reminded of just how fucked up our government is, and how much work there is ahead of all of us to clean it up.

Zombiefest

So for those of you know me, you'll appreciate how insane this is.

This morning I was on a 4:55am train from SF to San Jose. I had to, because I had a 7am meeting with our CTO this morning. Of course, it was 10am his time in Boston. Oy vey.

The good news is that it seems to have gone well. I went to sleep around 1am... but I'm remarkably perky. Maybe it's all the adrenaline.

But omg, I haven't gotten up at 4:30 am in... years. That's usually when I'm going to sleep.... >.<

Therapy Night: "Running a Racket"

I've really been meaning to blog about this for a while now... I'd like to make it a weekly feature to review my night in therapy and discuss what sort of crazy revelations came of it. The point isn't to air my dirty laundry, and/or provide a show for those of you voyeurs who love a good train wreck... tho of course both of those may end up happening. =P But really, it's more about giving you some deeper insight into my life, and maybe even help a few of you with similar problems to my own. Hell, it could be free therapy!

Anyways. I've been seeing a therapist since last April, ostensibly to help me deal with my various gay-related issues. But I spent most of 2008's sessions working on issues of commitment, which were really hounding me at work and school. (And by commitment I mean managing the ones I make to other people, vs traditional relationship commitment.) That thread sort of culminated in December, when my friend Tiffany and I decided to start an Integrity Journal and work through all of our host of unmet commitments. That's been proceeding apace, although Tiffany completely beat me in December with her awesome flurry of work over the holidays. Though I did actually clean out my bedroom at my parents' house to make room for my sister and brother-in-law... painful, but a very good thing to have gotten done.

But back to tonight. I went in to my therapist after a rather long weekend of school. I was at the new student orientation on Weds, where I met quite a few eligible young bachelors. For most of last week I was 3 kinds of excited about the guys, fantasizing about falling madly in love with one of them and duo-saving the world with our selfless acts of sustainability. By Saturday night I was completely depressed by the truth that they're almost all certainly straight, and I'm still alone and 32 and will never meet a man I want to date more than 3 weeks.

And then I was perusing the Facebook profiles of the few gay friends/acquaintances I have here in SF, when I discovered that apparently they all know each other. Amazingly, guys that in my mind were totally disconnected with one another are all friends, and have likely been hanging out together for years. And that put an even bigger hurt on me as I realized that they've all been socializing together for years, and I've never been invited out with them.

So I went into therapy angry and bitter and depressed. I was triggered by all the things I wrote above... I feel like I'm on the outside in the cold dark, looking in through a window at a beautiful holiday event where everyone is warm and cozy and laughing together. And I can't find the door to get in there... I know it's probably just around the corner, but I'm too scared to go looking for it. So instead I'm left out, suffering, and waiting for someone to rescue me.

So I shared allllll of this with my therapist. And boy, did he lay into me. He told me that I'm running a racket, just like a mobster with a laundry shop who's running shady deals in the back. From the front, it looks great, respectable, normal. But in the back it's a dangerous mess. I come off all friendly and charming and whatnot.... but the truth is that I'm angry and bitter and scared. OK, so maybe that's a little dramatic. But it's not too far from reality.

I've been hiding. I've known for years what I need to do... I need to make gay friends, spend time with them, get introduced to their friends, get involved in gay charities, go out in the Castro, etc etc etc. But I don't. My life is comfortable, I know my friends, I can get along really well in the straight world. But the gay world is scary and unknown, and I'm too chicken-shit to just sack up and immerse myself in it. And as long as I continue to hide, I'll continue to be alone. I don't have to face my fears, but as a result I'm in some ways terribly unhappy.

Every time I go out, I'm surrounded by straight men and women. That's fine, in some ways. But the problem is that my chances of meeting a man to date are nearly 0%. Instead, I look around the room at all these guys and think, wow, how awesome would it be if that one over there was gay? And that's the closest I ever get to the game of meeting someone, flirting, taking that colossal risk of asking them out... etc. The closest I ever get to dating is to look at someone and think, "what if..."

So.

Clearly I need to make some changes. I know what they are, and I have some first steps. But it's so fucking intimidating. I don't know that I have the courage to do it. And I have so many good excuses why I won't.... my job makes me travel, I'm in school, I'm a student rep, I'm buying a house, I want to see my friends, I'm not hot enough, etc etc etc.

I asked my therapist to tell me what to do. Instead, he made me tell him. So I gave him 3 things. I've got one done, and the other 2 are in progress. I'll have to keep chipping away at this with him, every week, I guess. He's been pushing me to join the SF Gay Softball League. He says it's zero pressure, lots of fun, and the guys are all friendly. I don't know if I will... I mean, I'm out of town for work so much, and I'm in school, and I'm buying a house... (see how easy that is?)

Right now I'm feeling... I dunno. Numb, maybe? I really don't want to deal with this... I want the perfect guy to be handed to me on a silver platter. But that won't happen. I'll need to put in the work, and deal with the rejection. And I have to put in the TIME. That's one of the biggest things. I'll have to spend a lot of time on this.

Intellectually, I know it's worth it. But that doesn't make it any easier.

Stargate AOT: Adria vs Morgan LeFay

So I finally saw Stargate: The Ark of Truth. Stargate ended after 10 seasons... it was one of my favorite shows of all time, and I was really sad to see it go. But they've continued the franchise in direct-to-DVD movies, which have been making them a lot of money.

Ark of Truth was the first (there's at least one other), and they're likely to continue making them for years to come. This scene was at the end... and it was gooood. It probably means nothing to you without any of the context of the series and film, but it's one of those "oh, shit, we're fucked" moments, when a hero shows up and saves the day. I love scenes like this, especially in scifi, where the stakes are typically so high (entire planets hanging in the balance, for example).

But I do think there's some pure aesthetic value to this video... the effects are pretty incredible, esp when viewed in HD. Check out those continuous flames covering Adria... every scene in the movie with her had her covered in those, as she walked around the room and conversed... it was really amazing to see. I'm so impressed with the special effects team that work on the Stargate projects...!!

The Lament of Captain Placeholder

This is so great... another awesome machinama, but this one has original music! And the guy's voice and performance are really good... I'm loving it.

The Craft of War: Blind

So this is my new favorite machinima. It's a World of Warcraft creation by an independent artist going by the name of percula. Watch it... it's really amazingly done, with very catchy music.

What's machinima? Well, click that link above to read up about it on wikipedia. But it's basically the hijacking of computer game animation to create an original work of art. In this case, the animation artist uses models and art from World of Warcraft, but creates his own animations from WoW's animation infrastructure. A really popular example of machinima is the South Park episode, "Make Love, Not Warcraft," in which the boys become addicted to World of Warcraft, and half the episode consists of them running around talking with each other in-game in the form of their WoW characters.

If you'd like some backstory on "The Craft of War: Blind," here's a quick overview. The main character is a blood elf, and she's part of the Horde, one of the two primary political factions in the Warcraft universe. The city she's in is Stormwind, the capital of the humans, and a member of the other political faction: the Alliance. The Horde and the Alliance aren't exactly in open war, but there is constant skirmishing going on between the two sides all over the planet.

The main character has infiltrated Stormwind, and seems to have a target in mind: the woman with the staff. Her name is Lady Katrana Prestor, part of Stormwind's nobility. Except that she's actually an evil black dragon named Onyxia, disguised as a human with the intent of undermining the Alliance from within. There's a very long and involved quest chain in World of Warcraft that leads you to unveil her true identity, and eventually track her back to her lair and slay her.

This particular machinima takes place before her unveiling, while she's still firmly entrenched in Stormwind's political elite. Both Horde and Alliance have very strong reasons to kill Onyxia, because of her very nasty manipulation of the two powers in the war-torn world of Azeroth.

I have to say my favorite part of this machinima is when Lady Prestor raises her finger to her lips and says, "shhhhh." Too awesome. When you see it in context, you'll understand. Keep in mind the name of the piece, "Blind"... it's thematic in quite a few ways.

Anyways, this is a superb example of both animation and storytelling, and I'm really looking forward to more work from this artist! Go, percula!


The Craft of War: BLIND from percula on Vimeo.

I've Found my Billionaire

So I was going through Forbes' list of eligible billionaire bachelors and I've identified my favorite: PayPal co-founder and Facebook-early-believer Peter Thiel.  Sure, he's only worth $1.2 billion, but it's a self-made wealth, so you know he's down-to-earth, and he lives in San Francisco, so I wouldn't have to move far to become his live-in mistress.  Plus, he's hot.

Check out his profile here and tell me if you agree... but I'm pretty sure I'd respond positively if he flirted with me, even if I didn't know he was the world's 962nd richest person.

Some ACTUAL exogeology for you!

From the Discovery Channel's website, here's some news on Martian plate tectonics. Apparently Mars had only a single plate, making it more of a shell, which rotated around a liquid interior. Interesting, and it explains why the southern hemisphere is so much higher than the north, as well as why Mars' 3 largest volcanoes (and they're BIG... much much larger than anything on Earth) are all in a straight line. They were formed like Hawaii... a single magma plume beneath the crust that punched holes in the crust and formed mountains as the crust drifted past overhead.... awesome stuff!

Barney Frank is Awesome

Barney Frank is so hilariously real... I love him. Check out his quote today, as referenced at salon.com's War Room:

"At a time of great crisis with mortgage foreclosures and autos, [Obama] says we only have one president at a time. I'm afraid that overstates the number of presidents we have. He's got to remedy that situation."

hahahah.... le sigh. So true.

Prop 8 - The Musical

This has to be the best short film ever made in the history of mankind. And yes, I'm counting "Dick in a Box" and "Lazy Sunday".

See more Jack Black videos at Funny or Die

US Entered Recession in Dec 2007

Wow. According to the National Bureau of Economic Research, the US has been in a recession for a year now, starting in December of 2007. I was not expecting it to have started so early. I wonder why they waited so long to declare it? I thought you only needed a couple of quarters of consecutive contraction, but apparently it's not that simple.

"The current recession, which many economists expect to persist through the middle of next year, is already the third-longest since the Great Depression, behind only the 16-month slumps of the mid-1970s and early 1980s."

Wow. Anyways, Reuters writes about it here.

Yummie

LOL.