Nearly three decades after PCB's were discovered in the upper Hudson River, General Electric made a binding agreement yesterday to dredge the dangerous chemicals from the river in one of the largest and most expensive industrial cleanups in history.

Whoa! I wonder how many bodies they'll find!

-janelane, pro-fish

G.E. Commits to Dredging 43 Miles of Hudson River - New York Times

flynn23 wrote:

Excellent article on controlling your own reality.

A must read is this article from the NYT that talks about happiness as a better measure of a country's wealth than GDP. Bhutan is seeking to avoid the pitfalls of the race for production/consumption evident in capitalist societies by creating a metric by which to measure happiness as a complement to GDP. This metric is expected to have a profound effect on local and global policies, and similar metrics are already being examined around the world. Perhaps in the future "scientist" will be synonymous with "social scientist"?

-janelane, socially-conscious

RE: So what do you have to do to find happiness?

WITH the confirmation last week of John G. Roberts Jr. as chief justice of the United States, eyes turned to President Bush's next judicial nominee, who, on a closely divided court, may determine the fate of Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision that recognized a woman's right to an abortion. But such speculation overlooks a paradox in the abortion wars: while combatants focus on the law, technology is already changing the future of abortion, with or without the Supreme Court.

Even if the court restricts or eliminates the right to an abortion, the often-raised specter of a return to back-alley abortions is not likely to be realized, said Dr. Beverly Winikoff, president of Gynuity Health Services, a nonprofit group that supports access to abortion. "The conditions that existed before 1973 were much different than what they are in 2005," she said. "We have better antibiotics now and better surgical treatments."

But no change is bigger than the advent of an inexpensive drug called misoprostol, which the federal Food and Drug Administration approved for treatment of ulcers in 1988, but which has been used in millions of self-administered abortions worldwide. If the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, freeing states to ban abortion, this common prescription drug, often known by the brand name Cytotec, could emerge as a cheap, relatively safe alternative to the practices that proliferated before Roe.

"We won't go back to the days of coat hangers and knitting needles," said Dr. Jerry Edwards, an abortion provider in Little Rock, Ark. "Rich women will fly to California; poor women will use Cytotec."

Because it was never intended for use in abortions, it has not been widely tested for safety and effectiveness.

Really interested NYT article on the fate of abortions after Roe V Wade. Abortions might not switch back to alleys and coathangers, but using untested drugs is just as dangerous. The whole subject cries out for government regulation, oversight and consideration of children under 18.

-janelane, pro-bodies

Abortion Might Outgrow Its Need for Roe v. Wade - New York Times

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A Texas grand jury on Wednesday charged Rep. Tom DeLay and two political associates with conspiracy in a campaign finance scheme, forcing the House majority leader to temporarily relinquish his post.

DeLay, 58, was accused of a criminal conspiracy along with two associates, John Colyandro, former executive director of a Texas political action committee formed by DeLay, and Jim Ellis, who heads DeLay's national political committee.

CNN actually has the 4-page indictment posted on their webpage. Its pretty staggering to see all of the companies that could get hell for being part of the scandal. I hope that C-SPAN broadcasts a roast of DeLay similar to Brown's yesterday. If you haven't, GET THE TRANSCRIPT...its fucking hilarious to watch Republicans pick apart Brown on the stand.

Grr...lack of a memestreams bookmarklet is compelling me to include the link here instead of the title.

-janelane, damning Texas Republicans since 2000.

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) -- A new Colombian law would allow married couples to untie the knot in as little as one hour and for a mere $15, bypassing costly lawyer fees, legal hurdles and the prolonged delays most unhappy couples can expect before a divorce.

Sanctity of marriage THIS, G.W.!

-janelane, sanctified

CNN.com - Colombia to offer one-hour divorces - Sep 27, 2005

The bio-diesel today is being sold for approximately four dollars and fifty cents per gallon.

This would have a much more staggering impact right now if we drove more diesel cars (which can take either regular diesel or biodiesel).

This is also an old figure (1996) but it certainly indicates that biodiesel isn't too far out of reach given today's gas prices. Maybe soon we'll be panning the importance of all that gulfshore refining capability we were so worried about with Rita.

-janelane, bio-friendly

BIO-DIESEL: A Sensible Alternative?

In my "Engineering Design" class, we have to figure out what the world of 2020 will be like. Specifically, we are figuring out design processes for globally distributed design and marketing environments. I am curious what you all think of how 2020 will turn out, and the professor encourages us to ask people with opinions varying from our own. I can think of no greater variety than the Memestreams readership. What do you think? What issues (either same or different) are we likely to face? What will drive the above environments?

Some of the ones I have so far include:
communication
information availability
geographic location
government structure
language
outsourcing

I am interested to know what you have to say.

-janelane, obliged

Why is it when I search for "k" to add to my friends circle that it doesn't bring up k? It brings up all other names with a k in them, yet none with just k.

This is the first time I've tried to use this feature since joining memestreams and it's broken. D'oh!

-janelane, exterminator

Update: As of 9/18, this bug is history!

peekay wrote:
Caption: "Question: How geeky is a sword stand made of Lego? Answer: Very."

I can't believe he did this. I want one for my Conan sword now. -Pk

Christmas has come early for Kerry, too, I'm sure.

-janelane, lego-master

RE: Lego Katanakake (Sword Stand).

The storm hit Breton Sound with the fury of a nuclear warhead, pushing a deadly storm surge into Lake Pontchartrain. The water crept to the top of the massive berm that holds back the lake and then spilled over. Nearly 80 percent of New Orleans lies below sea level—more than eight feet below in places—so the water poured in. A liquid brown wall washed over the brick ranch homes of Gentilly, over the clapboard houses of the Ninth Ward, over the white-columned porches of the Garden District, until it raced through the bars and strip joints on Bourbon Street like the pale rider of the Apocalypse. As it reached 25 feet (eight meters) over parts of the city, people climbed onto roofs to escape it.

Thousands drowned in the murky brew that was soon contaminated by sewage and industrial waste. Thousands more who survived the flood later perished from dehydration and disease as they waited to be rescued. It took two months to pump the city dry, and by then the Big Easy was buried under a blanket of putrid sediment, a million people were homeless, and 50,000 were dead. It was the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States.

When did this calamity happen? It hasn't—yet. But the doomsday scenario is not far-fetched. The Federal Emergency Management Agency lists a hurricane strike on New Orleans as one of the most dire threats to the nation, up there with a large earthquake in California or a terrorist attack on New York City. Even the Red Cross no longer opens hurricane shelters in the city, claiming the risk to its workers is too great.

"The killer for Louisiana is a Category Three storm at 72 hours before landfall that becomes a Category Four at 48 hours and a Category Five at 24 hours—coming from the worst direction," says Joe Suhayda, a retired coastal engineer at Louisiana State University who has spent 30 years studying the coast. Suhayda is sitting in a lakefront restaurant on an actual August afternoon sipping lemonade and talking about the chinks in the city's hurricane armor. "I don't think people realize how precarious we are,"
Suhayda says, watching sailboats glide by. "Our technology is great when it works. But when it fails, it's going to make things much worse."

Yet another prediction about LA, this one from National Geographic published in October of 2004. Not really enough time before it actually happened to do much, but no one knew that then.

-janelane, discouraged

Louisiana's Wetlands @ National Geographic Magazine