PETA – opportunists and scum

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Via an email from Patrick:

The makers of Pedigree Dogs Exposed, the BBC documentary film that led to the BBC withdrawing from televising Crufts Dog Show in the UK are furious with PETA for jumping on the film’s bandwagon. *

Why?

“I am horrified that PETA is using the film to further its own, warped agenda,” says Jemima Harrison, of Passionate Productions, which made the film for the BBC. “Our film is about animal welfare, not animal rights.

“PETA’s animal welfare record is appalling. It kills 97 per cent of the dogs that come to its shelters and admits its ultimate aim is to rid the world of what it calls the “domestic enslavement” of dogs as either pets or working dogs.

“In stark contrast, and the reason we made the film, is that we believe pedigree dogs are of tremendous value to society and that something needs to be done to arrest the damage caused by decades of inbreeding and selection for ‘beauty’. The film is a passionate call for urgent reform to save them before it is too late. To do that, there needs to be urgent reform of breeding practices and dog shows. *

[emphasis mine]

Sorry PETA – you have a track record. Pretending to care about animal welfare? That dog won’t hunt.

If you haven’t seen it already, Pedigree Dogs Exposed is worth checking out, as are Patrick’s posts on the subject.

Smart Grids

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It was this article that got me started thinking about it – the money graf:

Around the corner at Madigan Lane, John Sweeney, a member of the town’s conservation-minded Heat Advisory Committee, took a characteristically green approach to powering his home during the storm. He reported his achievement in an e-mail, saying it was no big deal, but that his wife thought it an impressive tale worth sharing: Sweeney ran his refrigerator, freezer, TV, woodstove fan, and several lights through his Prius, for three days, on roughly five gallons of gas.

Up here in New England we just got through a short duration disaster (the ice storm). As a country (and globally), we in the beginning of a longer term disaster – the current recession/depression. One of the factors that kicked the recession into high gear (IMHO) was the spike in oil prices last summer and fall – the spike affected consumer spending directly – less money spent on other things – and indirectly, as people tightened their belts. Like it or not, it’s consumer spending (particularly American consumer spending) that has driven the global economy for decades. Oil prices have dropped recently (in large part because of the global economic contraction) – I don’t think that relying on energy costs staying low is a good bet. Kunstler’s take:

Many were stunned this year to witness the parabolic rise and fall of oil prices up to nearly $150 and then back around $36 by Christmas time. Quite a ride. I said in The Long Emergency that volatility would be the hallmark of post peak oil because it was obvious that advanced economies could not absorb super high prices and would crash in response; that at some point after crashing, these economies would respond to the new lower oil price, resume their cheap oil habits, and build to another price rise. . . and crash again. . . in a declension of ever-lower industrial activity.
What I probably didn’t realize at the time was how destructive this cycling between low-high-and-low oil prices would actually be in the first instance of it, and what a toll it would take right off the bat. We can see now that our first journey through the cycle took out the most fragile of the complex systems we depend on: capital finance. As a result, a huge amount of capital (say $14 trillion) has evaporated out of the system, never to be seen again (and never to be deployed for productive purposes). It will be harder for the USA to rebound from the grievous injury to this crucial part of the overall system, and Europe has foundered similarly — though the European nations are not burdened to the same degree by the awful liabilities of suburbia. *

JHK may be too pessimistic, but to put things in context – last spring (I think) a friend put Nouriel Roubini (aka Dr. Doom) in context by describing him as the James Howard Kunstler of economics. On December 3, 2008, Nassem Taleb – author of The Black Swan – suggested that Roubini is an optimist. What’s that saying – hope for the best, plan for the worst?

So – three things – severe weather (say what you will about climate change, but from a risk/reward perspective, the chances of climate change being real need to be down near zero if you want to justify staying the course), volatile energy costs and a recession that militates heavily for big government spending – if I could do a 3 circle venn diagram a la Indexed, one of the things in the climate/energy/spending intersection would be smart grids. I was a little surprised to find – as the result of a lunchtime rantlet – that some folks haven’t been exposed to the notion. A smart grid is not a thing – it’s a bunch of desired outcomes and technologies to achieve those results.

Before examining particular technologies, a proposal can be understood in terms of what it is being required to do. The governments and utilities funding development of grid modernization have defined the functions required for smart grids. According to the United States United States Department of Energy‘s Modern Grid Initiative report,[11] a modern smart grid must:

  1. Be able to heal itself
  2. Motivate consumers to actively participate in operations of the grid
  3. Resist attack
  4. Provide higher quality power that will save money wasted
  5. Accommodate all generation and storage options
  6. Enable electricity markets to flourish
  7. Run more efficiently *

Bullets 3, 5 and 7 are of particular interest to me. Efficiency – wasting less – is one of the most important ways to go after climate change and energy costs. There is no free lunch – there are costs associated with any kind of power generation – but improvements in efficiency are as close to a free lunch as we’re going to find. Bullet 5 touches on the Prius example I started the post with. A lot of non-fossil energy options are intermittent – wind is probably the classic example. Being able to do some curve-smoothing by storing/releasing energy in a fleet of plugged in hybrids? Interesting. Bullet 3 ties back to climate from the other side – as weather gets more severe, being able to resist disruption is a very good thing. Bullet 3 also links nicely to John Robb’s concept of resilient communities. There are tension here as well – at least for the purposes of this post. I’m arguing that the Federal government ought to spend some money on implementing (not just designing/armwaving) a smart grid – Robb argues that resilient communities must be bottoms-up and self organizing. Given that my chances of affecting prez-elect Obama’s decisions on anything are virtually nil, I’ll kick that objection under the rug. I do think there’s an example where we meet in the middle, though – you’re soaking in it (the Internet).

I’m sitting by the phone, waiting for the call from Washington that let’s me know I’ve been tapped to be an Special Presidential Advisor on technology, foraging and comics (I plan to telecommute) – while we all wait for an announcement, keep your eye on the grid and on resilient communities.

Update – I swear I did not know about this when I posted:

At a committee briefing Boxer held Wednesday in Washington, green tech evangelist John Doerr called for stimulus money to be used to update the nation’s electrical grid. He said a modern grid that could better handle wind and solar power would enable a green technology boom. A venture capitalist who backed Google and Amazon in their early days, Doerr says the green revolution has much greater potential for job creation than the Internet did. *

There go my Presidential Advisor chances…

Another bit of brilliance

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I discovered Anonymous Postcard via a tweet from @MarsPhoenix. What does AP do? From the FAQ:

Anyone who wants to express feedback to any third party submits a claim. Claims can take the form of praise, suggestions or criticism. We process the most compelling claims by turning them into postcards and then figure out the best person to send them to. We post images of what we sent along with the original claim in the gallery.

What does it look like in practice?

To: His Excellency Mr Robert Mugabe, Harare

Claim:

Congratulations on ending the cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe! Let’s toast the occasion together with a glass of local tap water!

(By the way, we’re glad to see the new house has been completed.)

Resulting postcard:

*

*

To: The City of London

Claim:

I counted 36 cranes on your skyline on October 17, 2008. That’s too many.

Result:

*

Three completely unrelated links

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First – an excellent post – Hunting and Fishing Like Adults – over at Patrick’s place. Coincidentally, I recently watched the No Reservations ep where Frances Mallman talks about patience – an underrated virtue in today’s world.

*

Second – S. Clay Wilson bashed his head (badly), got pneumonia and spent a bunch of time in ICU in November (via BB). He’s out now and there are some benefit concerts coming up for those on the west coast. If you don’t know his work already, Wilson is one of the greats of underground comix – his stuff is not for everyone – the amount of sex and violence is way high, but he’s a favorite of mine.

*

Third – this map:

has been getting a lot of notice on the web (here, here and here). I find myself firmly in the pointing and laughing camp – New Hampshire and South Carolina? That’s beyond “he’s smoking something” and well into industrial strength CIA hallucinogen testing protocols. Georgia goes to Mexico? *shakes head*

Wordly Wise

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pibloktoq (piblokto) – Arctic hysteria.

Symptoms can include intense hysteria (screaming, uncontrolled wild behavior), depression, coprophagia, insensitivity to extreme cold (such as running around in the snow naked), echolalia (senseless repetition of overheard words) and more. This condition is most often seen in Eskimo women. This culture-bound syndrome is possibly linked to vitamin A toxicity (hypervitaminosis A).*

It also refers to a disease in dogs (where I first encountered it, courtesy of A Dog’s History of America). Peary says:

Aside from rheumatism and bronchial troubles, the Eskimos are fairly healthy; but the adults are subject to a peculiar nervous affection which they call piblokto–a form of hysteria. I have never known a child to have piblokto; but some one among the adult Eskimos would have an attack every day or two, and one day there were five cases. The immediate cause of this affection is hard to trace, though sometimes it seems to be the result of a brooding over absent or dead relatives, or a fear of the future. The manifestations of this disorder are somewhat startling.

The patient, usually a woman, begins to scream and tear off and destroy her clothing. If on the ship, she will walk up and down the deck, screaming and gesticulating, and generally in a state of nudity, though the thermometer may be in the minus forties. As the intensity of the attack increases, she will sometimes leap over the rail upon the ice, running perhaps half a mile. The attack may last a few minutes, an hour, or even more, and some sufferers become so wild that they would continue running about on the ice perfectly naked until they froze to death, if they were not forcibly brought back.

When an Eskimo is attacked with piblokto indoors, nobody pays much attention, unless the sufferer should reach for a knife or attempt to injure some one. The attack usually ends in a fit of weeping, and when the patient quiets down, the eyes are bloodshot, the pulse high, and the whole body trembles for an hour or so afterward.

The well-known madness among the Eskimo dogs is also called piblokto. Though it does not seem to be infectious, its manifestations are similar to those of hydrophobia. Dogs suffering from piblokto are usually shot, but they are often eaten by the Eskimos.*

Postgranioglacial thoughts

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  • Living off the grid is a fine thing if you are set up for it. In a house designed for steady electrical input? High stress situation. ~7000W generator, here I come.
  • Generator placement – garage or basement? Neither! With today’s quieter engines, locating the generator in one’s bedroom is now feasible! The other obvious location – the kitchen – is already tight because you’ve brought the gas BBQ in (haven’t you?).
  • Why was this storm so much worse in terms of outages than the ice storm of 1998? Did NH just get hit harder this time? I’ll never forget the pictures of high-tension towers in Quebec and upstate New York crumpled and folded – the next summer, the Design Student and I took a trip to Montreal and the tree damage was apparent everywhere. This time, the ice accumulation was lighter – here on the coast – but the numbers of houses w/o power was up by a factor of four. I’m going to keep an eye on post mortems and not rely too much on anecdote.

Ice storm

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I (and many others) am dealing with the aftermath of our recent ice storm. Power is still out – lines are down in at least 3 places along the road I live on. The wood stove has been keeping the house in the mid-50’s, and I’ve been doing a lot of reading by wind-up flashlight. It’s impossible to get any sense of when or in what order service will be restored from Public Service of NH; across the river, Central Maine Power has a goal of all customers back on by midnight tomorrow. I’d love to hear a similar county by county set of goals from PSNH…

Three links

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From E, a link to Bungalow in a Box – nice little cottages suitable for a variety of things. I’m thinking on a ridge overlooking salt marsh up in Pembroke (ME).

-*-

Via Bruce Sterling, some marvelous haecking.

Rhinoceros was used to create 3D interpretations of the sketches of Ernst Haeckel, a prominent German biologist, naturalist, and philosopher. The articulation of micro-surfaces related to the biological function of the organism was of particular importance in my work.

*

My favorite part about the piece is that a viewers understanding changes dramatically based on distance.  From 10′ away, ones perceptual resolution is relatively low, thus the object appears as a chaotic mass.  From 5′ away, directional variations and a density patterns emerge.  From 2′ away, one can identify continuous lines tracing through the geometry and order becomes increasingly apparent.

-*-

Finally (and saving best for last), this post on BB clued me to a new book by Klea McKenna.

The late psychedelic pioneer and ethnobotanist Terence McKenna was also an avid naturalist. His favorite specimens were his butterflies, more than two thousand of them netted in Indonesia and Columbia while McKenna was running from the law after a hashish bust forty years ago. Now, McKenna’s daughter Klea has photographed the collection and created an interactive gallery and limited edition artist book with the material.

More info about the book here – it looks fascinating. From McKenna’s web site:

Mangrove and tadpole update

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The mangrove project has a brief update here.

The A. bassleri tadpoles continue to grow. They are eating well (understatement); I’m feeding Frogbites and Cyclopeeze. My hope is that the Cyclopeeze will provide enough xanthins to allow good coloration – fingers crossed. The older ones have yellow moustaches, but no sign of hind legs yet.