oh, larissa

How Will You Die? (via fuckyeahgraphicdesign: newsweek: tanya77)

It would be interesting to see if see if there are any significant differences in the form of cancer.

A charming image to accompany this article in the NYT where, in light of COP15, the Op-Ed editors asked writers from four different continents to give their own report on the climate changes they’ve experienced close to home.

Hanne-Vibeke Holst: Denmark in the Wind

“You’re the ones who will have to live with the effects of climate change,” we caution our youngest as he consumes yet another burger. As a 12-year-old, he has yet to comprehend that at some point he may have to choose between beef and rain forests, plane journeys or glaciers, rationing or perishing. He has no idea that insurance premiums are already rising fast (too fast!), due to the kind of climate-induced flooding that has been filling many a Danish basement. On the other hand, he knows Denmark will have vineyards, and by then he’ll be able to swim with dolphins! Pretty cool, yeah?

I haven’t the heart to mention the plagues of malaria mosquitoes, the risks of contracting West Nile virus and cholera. Neither have I troubled him with forecasts of the cod disappearing from Danish waters, or with the gloomy prospects for growing Christmas trees here. I did, though, (mis)appropriate the climate angle in the course of a discussion about pets. “A medium-sized dog pollutes as much as a 4.6-liter Toyota Land Cruiser clocking more than 6,000 miles a year!” I tell him, reading out of the newspaper. “Yeah, sure,” he says, and rolls his eyes. As if.

…In Denmark, there are more than 100 wind turbine cooperatives, and special exchanges where you can buy shares in them. Our Christmas will be a peaceful one: we’ll talk about the wind and the weather, but in the nice way, so we’ll forget that this year once again Christmas wasn’t white. The snow is going, too.

vaincre:

Saw Lady GaGa yesterday and was positively blown away by her ridiculously wonderful (wonderfully ridiculous?) costumes, eek-don’t-fall-in-those-heels choreography, and of course, her flawless pipes.

Also, the fact that she can play not only piano, but jazz piano made me love her even more than ever before.

Jazz piano!  I missed her Saturday show.  Oh, the darkest depths of Woe.

spaceships:

unburyingthelead:

WOMAN: “I think that she would, um, acknowledge a system of government in the United States, uh, rather than focus an [sic] administration of czars.”

INTERVIEWER: “What are some of your problems with czars?”

WOMAN: “I’m an American, we don’t have czars in America.”

Interviewing Sarah Palin Supporters at a Book Signing

Sometimes I get angry when I think about the country that we could be rather than the country that we are. I forget that people like this actually exist, that these sorts of opinions from the “Average American” are actually revered. Can’t you just feel the anti-intellectualism seeping through? Those who try to understand a bit more are met with a sort of hostility, that sort of “who-do-you-think-you-areness” that keeps most people relatively ignorant of even the most basic social and political issues. It makes sense that the least aware are usually the most abused/manipulated by the system.”

This NYT article about the book-signings is also chock full of amazing quotes:

“He can’t even make a simple decision about what to do in Afghanistan. We’ve got men and women fighting overseas. Either man up and fight the war to win it, or get out.”

At this point, I’m starting to believe that willful ignorance expressed as certainty is a form of stupidity. These people don’t even KNOW they’re being manipulated by their own team.  And yet their votes are as valid as mine and yours. Ugh.

Augh. Indignant opinions with no factual basis.  Besides voicing their conviction that Palin is fantastic, the default answer to questions concerning policy stance or what actions they would like to see is a “I don’t know much about that.” What exactly are they voting on then?

(The use of the term “socialism” here reminds me of the comments left at this Telegraph article.)

= delectable bliss!

November 22, 2009, 6:15pm

NYT: This Just in From the 1890s

“IT’S usually easy to distinguish between clothes and costumes: either you’re Spider-Man, or you’re not.

Drawing the line between polish and pretension is trickier, especially when last year’s costume can be this year’s classic, and next year’s yawn. Just consider the steady infiltration of 19th-century haberdashery into the 21st-century wardrobe. Garment after garment has arrived on the scene that one might think more Gilbert and Sullivan than Bergdorf and Goodman, only to be taken up by the young beards.

Not long ago, big brass-buttoned military coats looked a bit extreme. So did high-button, high-lapel vests and slim tweed trousers. And so did guys who tucked said trousers into high, old-fashioned hunting boots. Now these clothes (along with those ever-present beards and mustaches) look like downtown defaults compared with fall runway looks like cardinal-red tailcoats at Ralph Lauren, capes and bowlers at Alexander McQueen and knee breeches at Robert Geller.

As with home design, where curio cases, taxidermy and other stylish clutter of the Victorian era have been taken up by young hipsters, many of today’s popular men’s styles have their roots in the late 19th century. There are the three-piece suits once favored by mustachioed Gilded Age bankers; the military greatcoats and boots of Union officers; and the henley undershirts, suspenders, plaid flannel shirts and stout drill trousers worn by plain, honest farmers…

“We’ve already seen the comeback of the butcher and the baker,” he said. “Next thing is going to be a hipster candlestick maker.””

“Peaty wetlands emit about 1.3 billion tonnes of CO2 a year as a result of human activity that drains them and thus exposes them to the oxidative effect of the atmosphere. This figure does not include the effect of fire on dried-up bogs, which can double the amount. That, at least, is the conclusion of a report published by Wetlands International, a lobby group, this week. Drained peat occupies 0.3% of the world’s land surface, but is responsible for 6% of man-made CO2 emissions. Indonesia is the biggest emitter, but richer countries are guilty too. However, the report’s findings contrast with the conclusions of a paper on deforestation also published this week in Nature Geoscience. The conventional figure is that tree-felling causes 20% of man-made CO2 emissions, but the new paper puts that figure at closer to 12%. Together, both studies suggest a change of emphasis may be needed, and that efforts should be made to preserve not just forests, but also bogs. (source)”

I love the asymmetrical Rick Owens men’s leather jacket. (via)

Whenever Norway’s extensive social welfare system and high standard of living is discussed, conservatives like to say that they can only afford it because they are sitting on so much oil.

If that’s the case, then why does Sweden have a nearly identical system and standard of living, without much oil at all?

(click to enlarge; via axinomancy)

Why Cutting Carbon Emissions is not Enough

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UN Environment Program Executive Director, on lessons from the Montreal Protocol on chlorofluorocarbons in relation to COP15’s focus on carbon emissions and climate mitigation.

I really like the contrast here.