Matt Damon wants to know some things about Sarah Palin.

1. Does Sarah Palin think there were dinosaurs here 4,000 years ago?

2. Can Sarah Palin use her folksy charm to face down Vladmir Putin?

3. Does Sarah Palin know how absurd she sounds? (look who’s talking)

4. Can Sarah Palin handle the nuclear codes?

5. Does Sarah Palin know he is afraid of her becoming president?

6. Sarah Palin realizes he thinks she might be the president pretty soon?

Wait a sec. The guy knows something about John McCain’s intentions that the rest of us don’t?

Does he know that Sarah Palin couldn’t give a hoot or a holler about what Matt Damon wants to know? When the Hollywood knuckleheads have to weigh in to help out the Democrats, you know the Dems are hurting. Obama? Is that the best you can do?

What I want to know, is what does Sarah Palin think about the environment? Not what she thinks about 4,000 years ago. I want to know what Obama thinks about the environment. The best we can get out of him is, “What do you want me to think?” Or “What does Sarah Palin think? I’ll think differently.”

Damon … your movies are good, but your opinions on politics are meaningless.

Images courtesy of NewsHour and Siebbi

Sarah Palin is likely to be our next Vice President of the United States … president, too if McCain kicks the bucket in office. If so, the environmentalists will have a “killa from Wasilla” on their hands. Characterized as “cut, kill, dig and drill”…

1. Sarah Palin is against classifying the polar bear as a threatened species.

2. Sarah Palin argues the Bush administration doesn’t use the best science.

3. Sarah Palin doesn’t agree with federal marine scientists who say under the Endangered Species act that the Cook Inlet beluga whale needs protection.

4. Sarah Palin doesn’t have a problem with shooting wolves from the air to boost caribou and moose herds for hunters.

5. Sarah Palin is not convinced that global warming is the result of human activity.

6. Sarah Palin opposes increased protection of salmon streams from mining operations.

7. Sarah Palin is a hockey mom who can handle a gun, dress a moose and do commercial fishing.

8. Sarah Palin says those in the 48 States don’t understand the North Country.

CA Rep Miller “doesn’t understand rural Alaska, doesn’t comprehend wildlife management in the North, and doesn’t appreciate the Tenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution that gives states the right to manage their own affairs,” Palin said in a press release a year ago.

Let’s see … who do we listen to? Someone who lives there or someone from CA who is far removed?

Images courtesy of geerlingguy and Celeste Van Kirk

From January 1, 2009, China will begin recycling by a law that will promote a circular economy. The law was passed at the 11th Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress (NPC). It took three readings to get it right.

China is riding on the heels of a very successful Olympics. The new push – boost sustainable development through:

1. energy saving
2. pollution reduction

No mystery here. If China can get on track, one fifth of the world will be on track and the world’s worst polluter will have been reeled in. Generally speaking, however, it would be much better for people to want to save the world than to be afraid of punishment if they did not.

In the same category with the recent PETA protesters that tried to make a statement , we have someone that got better ideas. He’s really on the next level.

To oppose against building the third runway at Heathrow, Dan Glass of London’s climate group Plane Stupid, unsuccessfully tried to superglue himself to the British Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s jacket, when they shook hands.

“Do not worry - this is a non-violent protest. We cannot shake away climate change like you can just shake away my arm. We can beat climate change, but this is not going to happen by planning the world’s largest international airport at Heathrow” he said.

Apparently Gordon Brown didn’t seem to take the poor protester serious and laughed off of his way of making a point.

Though he was allowed 40 more minutes after the trick (he was forgiven?) Mr. Glass tried it once again, this time at the gates of Downing Street. No luck again, because of a police officer.

Is this a good way to protest or maybe he tried to get shot by one of the MI6 guys?

Though we’re not really fans of an expanding Heathrow, he was either brave or stupid. We’re still debating on that matter.

This story may not need any more words other than the title to make you laugh out loud, but we’ll try. Apparently there are standards for the length of the cucumber and for the curvature of bananas and the European Union won’t leave it alone. They want to make sure these things are and will be properly regulated.

Original image by skycaptaintwo

Europe (the European Union) is paying too much attention to an absolutely worthless issues like how are the tractor seats positioned, how to reduce the vibration of paving breakers, the circularity of apples, colors and looks of the eschalot, leek, cauliflower or melons. They have even dedicated some 36 paragraphs of adequate instructions for all these things.

Anyone interested in coming up with some regulations for how we should dress from now on? How long a tie should be, how big buttons should be, and don’t let the collar get too long or the zipper be too wide. It’s just as stupid!

Looks like we’re not the only ones to blame for bureaucratic absurdity of their actions because European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso, acknowledged that other countries laugh at European cucumber standards. Trust me Mr. Barroso, there’s a good reason they are laughing. And they are not laughing because it’s funny.

As a European citizen, I’d be happier to know that these people who work for Europe (that’s what they do, isn’t it?) would rather plant a tree, than being concerned about ridiculous issues just to justify their paychecks.

Europe is losing credibility.

President Bush has the Terminator after him now. California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is accusing Bush of not believing in global warming because the White House has decided to delay a decision of regulating greenhouse gases. Bush is in a no win situation.

The Governator also said that Bush would be insincere if his administration took action in the last six months of his presidency. Gee, thanks Arnold for telling Bush what he isn’t doing and telling him what he can’t do, too. Consolation – Bush doesn’t care what Arnold thinks, or what the rest of the world thinks about global warming as well.

Arnie said – “Well, to be honest with you, if they would have done something this year, I would have thought it was bogus anyway… because you don’t change global warming and you don’t really have an effect by doing something six months before you leave office.”

The body builder signed a historic bill in 2006 that made California the first US state to impose limits on global warming gases. Schwarzie ramble on – “I think that the way they have done it is much better, because it just really means basically this administration did not believe in global warming, or they did not believe that they should do anything about it since China is not doing anything about it and since India is not willing to do the same thing, so why should we do the same thing.”

Bush will go out of office with his fierce opposition to “any imposition of binding emissions limits on the nation’s industry and has refused to ratify the Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gas blamed for global warming.” You can’t blame the man for being consistent.

Well, the G-8 has a vision, but do they have a plan?

Japan’s PM Fukuda was able to save face – “The G8 nations came to a mutual recognition that this target — cutting global emissions by at least 50 percent by 2050 — should be a global target.”

The United States got heard. Emerging economies, India, China, Brazil are included – “It has always been the case that a long-term goal is one that must be shared. So the G-8 has offered today is a G-8 view of what that goal could be and should be but that can only occur with the agreement of all the other parties.”

Environmentalists criticized the statement – “So little progress after a whole year of Minister meetings and negotiations is not only a wasted opportunity, it falls dangerously short of what is needed to protect people and nature from climate change.”

The EU thinks – “new, shared vision by the major economies” that would support the UN-led effort on a new global warming accord. This is a strong signal to citizens around the world.”

In the end, it will be up to individual countries, says Fukuda, “The G8 will implement aggressive midterm total emission reduction targets on a country by country basis.”

My bet, a lot of money was wasted at the G-8 Summit if anybody thought the purpose was to come away with a workable and enforceable plan to get the world to be better stewards of our home.

I am not sure how many musketeers there were, but, there are at least eight G-8 Summiteers who are acting like their Disney counterparts. The group
just started meeting today and have already all but concluded that they won’t reach a deal on fighting global warming.

Here’s why:

1. Global inflation resulting from soaring food and fuel prices are too much.

2. African poverty is too big

3. Japan’s PM Fukuda can’t get everyone on the same page.

4. Can you say Copenhagen 2009 instead of making a decision now?

5. The Canadian Environment Minister – “I don’t think we’re expecting a deal. That will come under the UN auspices in Copenhagen next year.”

6. President Bush wants emerging economies, China, India and Brazil to sign on. That’s not happening.

7. France says that they are not optimistic.

8. Nobody is.

The end result expected – a ‘fuzzy agreement on long term goals.’ In that event, Fukuda will save face and everyone else can wait for the new U. S. president to take office in January 2009.

What? No leadership without the U.S.? Come on guys!

The Junior Eight Summit group handed the senior group a proposal -

1.  ”put forth a treaty that includes all nations and has strict but reasonable guidelines for meeting greenhouse gas emission targets.”

2.  “have progressive short- and long-term goals and a revised framework which ensures that promises are kept.”

3.  “promote the rights of children, especially girls”

4. “boost investment in Africa”

5. “tackle education and health problems”

6. “further gain a young person’s perspective on global issues.”

7. ”Let’s turn young people’s ideas into actions, and not just words.”

The J-8 Summit started in Britain in 2005 and has met annually since. The declaration was adopted by 39 young people aged 14-17 who are representing the G-8 and other countries – Japan, Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United States, Iraq, Mongolia, Nepal and South Africa.

The Bible says “a little child shall lead them” (Is. 11:6). When will we old goats begin to follow?

Tokyo Tells Large Buildings to Cut CO2 Emissions. Now, Beijing is banning high-emission vehicles. For whatever reason these kinds of things remind me of a ceasefire in a war. If they can stop now, or for a while, why can’t they stop for good? Yellow vehicles are those with, surprise, a yellow sticker on them for not being able to meet Euro I emission standards.

“All yellow-labeled vehicles, most of which are freight trucks, will be banned from roads in Beijing from July 1 to Sept 20,” says Beijing’s environmental protection bureau.

Yesterday Beijing announced that government vehicle usage must be halved…all of this in the run up to the Olympics. So, are the Olympics more important than the planet’s long term livelihood? Seriously, if these kinds of measures can be taken temporarily, why not permanently? Beijing was able to meet its goal of 246 blue-sky days last year. I think we had about 365 such days here in the Valley. (Eating your heart out Beijing?) Seriously, Beijing is to be credited for taking action.

Most yellow-tagged vehicles run through Beijing at night. Think freight trucks. Not surprisingly, Beijing measures 20% more pollutants in the air at night than in the daytime. From 9pm to 4am to be precise. In order to catch the perpetrators, Beijing will patrol 22 laser remote sensing cars to check emissions. How cool is that? It takes about 0.7 seconds to determine emission levels of vehicles. Go Beijing!

Now, where can I get me one of those laser thingees?