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Interesting People Politics Science

Sea Shepherd

If you believe business as usual will work and you don’t need to do much more than pay your bills and drop your kids off to school, you may want to watch this. Human Governments and Big Business have squeezed out pretty much all that Earth can take and keep on giving. From here on out life as usual causes irrevocable damage. If the seas have mass die off and extinctions, what kind of world are we going to leave the children? Human children, it’s not just about the whales and krill and Ocean acidity.

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Interesting People Science

Sam Shepard on requesting to use his horse for a film shoot, a stuntman, and a cactus

Sam Shepard was offered a role in the early 80’s for a film called The Right Stuff. The film was to be shot in the Mojave Desert of California. One of the reasons Shepard was interested in the film was a chase scene on galloping horses, a man (his character) chasing his wife through the cactus and stuff. Having his own horse, a roping horse named Roany which he had a good connection with he asked from the director if it would be okay to use his own horse. The director readily agreed. He is met by the stuntman and head wrangler upon arriving at the set for the first day of shooting. They are not keen on the idea.

Listen to Sam Shepard tell the story (WARNING: someone get’s hurt and it’s funny):

World Science Festival 2008: Toil and Trouble (Excerpt) from World Science Festival on Vimeo.

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Interesting People Politics

Amy Goodman causes Olympic anxiety for Canadian border guard

Canadian border guards give Amy Goodman, host of Democracy Now! a thorough detention and harassment as she attempts to cross the border into Canada to promote her new book.

How is this in Canada’s border guards purview? Harassing a news anchor on a book tour? Over the Winter Olympics? After 90 minutes, when they finally let her in to Canada, it was grudgingly, still treating her as a persona non grata, limiting her stay to two days.

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Interesting People Politics

“People with some of the smallest carbon footprints on earth are being displaced by companies with some of the biggest.” by Mark Schapiro

Corporate solutions seem to lose sight and punish the little guy even without actively willing it. They just can’t help themselves. It’s the nature of the belief system that the world needs leadership and you’re it. The little guy, living in their little world, with their little education just don’t get it.

Didn’t think I would find material to object to in buying up forest to preserve trees to hold carbon and trade those carbon offsets on the open market. But the rights of the indigenous people need to be respected, their use of the surrounding forest factored in to the equation. It complicates the formulas, but as long as their use requirements are sustainable in that environment I believe their rights need to be factored in, not factored out with restrictions, pressure and policing tactics (fines, jail, guns).

Watched it on DN! Mark Schapiro of the Center for Investigative Reporting. After traveling to Brazil, Schapiro writes, “People with some of the smallest carbon footprints on earth are being displaced by companies with some of the biggest.”

But thought he did a bit of a clumsy interview. Seemed to me likes to talk at length, not in short succinct live interview friendly complete thoughts, thus he wasn’t getting to the point in the time allowed. So I went to his Frontline piece and saw him present his argument in the way he is good at. And he makes a good point. Bellow is the first 2 minute video chapter of several chapters.

And here is the Mother Jones article GM’s Money Trees.

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Interesting People Politics

USA President’s official White House family photo

President Barack Obama, First Lady Michelle Obama, and their daughters, Sasha and Malia, sit for a family portrait in the Green Room of the White House, Sept. 1, 2009. (Official White House Photo)

Obamafamily

Actually, The Official White House Photostream has quite a few interesting photos.

bigjet