Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization | Video on TED.com

Marcin Jakubowski: Open-sourced blueprints for civilization | Video on TED.com

This guy is fantastic. The idea of making needed machines that are built for a lifetime and not built for obsolesces is AN INCREDIBLY GOOD IDEA.

Imagine buying a car when you were 17 and having it for 20 or 30 years. Maybe longer! Of course things would break, but the repairs would be cheap and simple because the car itself was cheap and simple. Ideas like this meet a lot of resistance with corporations that are always making bigger and better for the consumers that demand nothing less than bigger and better, but I ask you to explain the sense in that.

Climate change to have negative effect on south western US water supplies.

Source article from BBC

Summary:
Climate change is expected to short the amount of water flowing in several rivers across south western states by between 8-20%. The area in question is from Texas to California, and includes the Rio Grande, San Joaquine and Colorado rivers. Compounding this issue, is the fact that many of these areas are also the most rapidly growing in the US.
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Without access to usable water, human society is fundamentally impossible. It seems unlikely that we can do much to stop climate change any time soon, but ignoring it would simply be a disaster.

Also, I know there are many people that don't think humans are causing climate change, but in the end, does that really matter? We still need to move away from fossil fuels, and we still need to deal with shifting weather patterns, man made or not.

Possible Gasoline Price Gouging.

Here is an article from CNN about an investigation into high gas prices:
http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/04/21/holder.gas.prices/

TL;DR
Gas prices keep going up as though there were a supply issue, when there isn't an actual supply issue.  It seems the oil industry is doing this in the face of unrest in the Middle East as a way to pad themselves against a possible crisis that actually DOES cause a supply issue. So authorities are investigating it, because it sounds a lot like price gouging.

It is important to point out in all matters involving fossil fuels, that they are bad. I think in the long term it is better to have the prices stay high, because it will force people to really think about how we should be moving away from this industry all together.

Funny how the CNN picture shows a school bus in the background, as if to say "HOW ARE THE KIDS GOING TO GET TO SCHOOL NOW!?"  I think it would have been much better to show people who recently bought SUV's crying.

Libertarian Candidate for 2012, Gary Johnson.

It is very important that we in the U.S.A. start supporting parties other than Democrats and Republicans.  The Libertarian party has made a fair amount of progress, and in general, has a lot of good ideas.

Here is an interview with former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who will be running in the 2012 race as a Libertarian.
Gary Johnson interviewed by Judge Napolitano

Mr. Johnson's personal campaign site:
http://www.garyjohnson2012.com/

I'm not saying all his answers and ideas are perfect (his site disturbingly has a lack on info about environmental issues), but the Libertarian Party itself could offer a helpful change of pace for American Politics.

For more on Libertarianism, try these links:
http://www.theihs.org/what-libertarian
http://www.libertarianism.com/

Antidote to Apathy

I think this is fitting as a first post.
It's time to actually do something about this mess.



http://www.ted.com/talks/dave_meslin_the_antidote_to_apathy.html