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Cory Doctorow

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Saturday, April 18, 2009

. . . what are we throwing away?

Earth day is this coming Wednesday.  Courtesy of tvnewslies.org, here's what looks like a sci-fi story regarding an orbiting solar farm which will "beam" electricity to California.  Far more hours per day of sunlight with an orbiting farm and, it appears, the start up company designing/building the array says the electricity coming from the array would be "too diffuse" to harm anything coming between the array and the ground station.

The U.S. Government has an official Earth Day site and I have already been seeing businesses getting involved (Fresh and Easy is also giving away canvas bags with a $10 purchase on Wednesday.  I'm there usually 2 or 3 times a week and I can pick up easy to fix, not frozen dinners for two at about $6 a person -- saves the day for me after the very long work days to which I am trying to adjust).

On the other end of the spectrum, I think I finally have enough space to write about this and not throw something across the room.  As you might have figured from the "tile ad" on the left, I support a full, official, "sunshine as disinfectant" investigation of the Bush Administration and their support of torture of detainees.  While the ICRC report itself is seemingly as hidden away as some detainees, the Washington Post wrote a good summary piece on the allegations mentioned in the ICRC report.

President Obama's response was what really set my blood to boil.  After having a few days to digest, I have managed to hold two opposing thoughts at the same time.  My head is thinking that perhaps Obama has a larger plan in the works to address this and his comments on prosecution are just the first step.  My gut, however, keeps howling at all of the inactivity.

Finally, I'm viewing the latest segment in Glenn Greenwalt's series "Rethink Afghanistan" regarding the costs of continuing whatever it is the U.S. is doing in Afghanistan.  Sadly, there's as much opinion (if not more) than facts presented, but even the facts are enough to get my head swinging left and right.  It seems we are, once again, missing opportunities to present the best of the U.S. to the rest of the world.  We have an opportunity to make new friends in that part of the world who would, as a result of the relationships formed, see it as being in their best interest to help us rid the world of terrorism.

That is the true waste here.

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