Hmmmm... this was so scary that I scared you all away??? Lol!!! :0)

If anyone is brave enough, read today's installment on plastics. Very, very creepy stuff.

This set of articles is really making me think about my habits, purchasing choices and recycling habits. I haven't been so shocked about oceanic debris since I read last year that scientists have found toilet paper fibers in Antartica.

-Mimi

There was a really good article in last month's National Geographic about our oceans and their condition. The worst part is the masses of people who are expected to move to the east coast within the next decade or so. Can't remember the exact numbers but they are expected to worsen the sorry state of our oceans exponentially. If I recall correctly, maybe 15+ years ago, I read that 70% of the US population already lived in the corridor between Boston and DC. Extend that to Atlanta or Miami and well... and the Geographic article was referring to people moving to the coast, as opposed to the eastern seaboard states.

I admit there are lots and lots of advantages to living on the east coast, and I wouldn't live anywhere else. In that respect, I can't blame people for moving east but there is only so much coast line. Due to the development of extremely expensive, high end homes, a lot of the beaches aren't accessible if you don't have a beach front home or aren't within walking distance. Naturally public parking and access are restricted or nonexistent on some beaches and islands. This really pisses me off as a taxpayer. I pay for those beaches and have access to few and fewer every year.

Mimi

I would love to read it, but when I click on your link I have to download a plugin in order to do so. Sorry, ain't doing that.

Kev

Yeah, the main page is some sort of multimedia thing that has a link to video, pictures, sound, etc. It is really pretty but I wish they would have just printed the whole thing in text with links to the goodies.

Here is a link to the text of part one. If it doesn't ask you to download and you want to be scared some more, let me know and I'll get the links to the other text articles.

-Mimi

Here is a link that might be useful: Altered Oceans, pt1

Kev,

What was it wanting to download?

There are some very valid plug-ins around that will greatly enhance your Internet experience, especially if you are on broadband. Don't be too scared to download things from valid companies. For example: Adobe Reader, Realtime, Macromedia Flash, etc.. Without these 'safe' plug-ins, the Internet doesn't provide the 'rich' experience the developers are expecting to deliver.

It really depends on the website, the plug-in company, how well your anti-virus is set-up and your comfort level with downloading plug-ins.

If you have questions about a specific plug-in/download, let us know and I'm sure you'll get plenty of advise as far as validity and safety of the plug-in.

Bob (An IS dude)

I'll probably read it later when I have more time, but right at the moment the phrase "evolution running in reverse" is stuck in my craw and making me doubt the competence of the writer. *heavy sigh* I'm going to go walk it off ;)

Bob - Flash 7. I know it was no big deal, but I just didn't want to do it.

OK back to the article. Thanks Mimi for doing that. That is fricking scary. Wasn't it all that long ago that the oceans were supposed to be mankindÂs salvation? They were going to provide us with all the food we need to feed billions and billions of people as well as tons of other things to make our lives carefree and wonderful? Do you mean we've totally screwed that idea to hell as well?

I need to stop reading this kind of stuff and go into a comotose state of denial. I just read the "omnivore's dilemna" by Michael Pollan. After that book and these articles, I am almost ready to become a breatharian, lol!!

Each part gets progressively more disturbing. Here is the link to part 2 (if Kevin dares...). This one is about toxic algae

Here is a link that might be useful: Altered Oceans Pt2

Ooooooo! Eerie synchronicity: I just picked up the Pollan book from the liberry. His other books rock so I just assume this one will too.

Shady,
Watch out. This book will have you questioning everything you eat. You will start thinking about how many thousands of miles every thing you consume travels!

It's funny. I am the daugher of a heath food nut and I have been an organic food/gardening fan for a long time. That being said, I grocery shop in stores that provide sustainable options. After reading this book, I was buying some meat at my local health/gourmet food store. There was a desperate looking woman questioning the butchers and lamenting the fact that my boyfriend got the last free range turkey breast. We started to chat and she had just read the omnivores dilemna and she was trying to seek out free range locally grown meat. I started to wonder if this book was going to start a hysteria. Anyway... my own normal state of hysteria aside, this woman helped me find out that we have grass fed beef, lamb and goat at one of our farmer's markets now so I can assuage myself of the guilt of buying grass fed beef from New Zealand.

The book is good. It will make you aware of how much oil is used to provide us with everything we like to have. Not just food. It will make you appreciate growing your own food stuffs even if it is just herbs. You'll feel proud you are a gardener.

-Mimi

I think about it already but I don't agonize. Maybe I'll start. I'm fortunate to live in an agricultural region that's pretty enlightened so there's no shortage of sustainably and humanely produced meat and produce. That doesn't mean we solely purchase locally--for example we like seafood; not so accessible in Wisconsin. But we get a kick out of seeing how much of our meal we can say came from within an hour's drive of our house. Given my shady environs there's not much I can grow foodwise, but maybe that will be the consolation if I ever lose one of my major trees.

On a tangential note and much to my pleasure, the boutique cheese industry is taking off here like crazy.

Mmmmmmm. Cheese. You are lucky in that respect. We have one cheesemaker who comes to our farmer's market but the cheese isn't anything spectacular. I would love to have someone nearby who makes amazing aged cheese.

-Mimi

P.S. Arthur should be on later tonight rolling his eyes at how this thread went from ecological collapse to food in just a few hours.

Hi Kevin,
Here are the rest of the URLs:

Pt. 3:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean1aug01,0,2672160.story

Pt. 4:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean2aug02,0,3130914.story

Pt. 5:
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/oceans/la-me-ocean3aug03,0,3589668.story

-Mimi

Thanks Mimi - I read them all. What can you say? It's depressing beyond belief.

Then you have the opinion of Bjorn Lomborg from the Copenhagen Consensus. Ever heard of this dude? He's saying global warming shouldn't be one of our top ten issues. It's too expensive to try to fix and won't be as bad as everyone is saying. Of course he's getting a lot of attention.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lomborg

He's getting attention of both kinds, fortunately. I haven't had time to read this all, but I'd be curious to see who is funding him.

Here is a link that might be useful: Lomborg Errors

He is part of the reason the government says that there is controversy over global warming. The scientific community is pretty much in agreement that we have problems.

I am trying an experiment today. I left my car at home, caught a ride into work and am going to walk home. It has been hot out, I am overweight and don't exercise and the walk is by my estimate at least 3 miles. If you don't hear from me tomorrow.. the experiment was a failure, lol!!

-Mimi

Wow, Mimi. Mightn't you wait until the weather's a little cooler? I see people out exercising in the heatwave we're just getting over and I think they're insane in the membrane!

Actually, the heatwave broke for us this week. It is hot in the afternoon but we have relief due to marine layer in the mornings now.

I think I'll be fine. If not, I'll wimp out and call my boyfriend to pick me up from whatever air conditioned store I stopped at along the way.

-Mimi

Right on Mimi. I could start a post here on any subject and sooner or later it would drift over to food, glorious food.
Cheryl, who played Mimi in La Boheme was on the cuddly side but that is how ladies should be. Think i read somewhere that slightly cuddily ladies live longer than hatracks.
I loved the evolution running in reverse. LOL
Didn't bother reading all that depressing stuff in the links. Just returned from the UK where they are paying A$2.50 per litre for petrol. Needless to say didn't see many great big gas gusslers on the roads. More diesel powered cars than here where petrol is now A$1.35 per litre.
The crunch is coming.
Back to food. Think i've asked this question before, but how far do you have to walk to burn off a chocolate Bar. In an average week i walk at least 20K round the golf course trying to hit the ball and i'm still slightly over weight.

Arthur,
Although the evolution running in reverse scared the heck out of me, there was something literary about the concept of it.

It is amazing how economics shapes our habits. Petrol is cheap here when you compare the price per liter that other countries pay. Thus, we have big cars because it doesn't hurt the wallet as much as it could. Now that the prices are beginning to go up and up, I am noticing a lot more economy cars on the roads.

Walking at 3 miles per hour (sorry you'll have to convert it to km. since I am a lazy american) burns 200-300 calories per hour depending on how heavy you are. To lose 1 lb. of fat you have to burn 3500 calories. You would need to walk at least one hour to burn off your chocolate bar, maybe a few minutes over. I survived my walk home from work which is about 3 miles and took me 55 minutes including time avoiding being run over by large sports utility vehicles driven by lazy californians with lots of money to literally burn.

-Mimi

Mimi, go have a Hershey Bar...oh heck, get yourself a Godiva!

Here's an article by Bill Moyers you all might find interesting.

Mimi, good for you that you are trying to walk. I work at home so I only go out once or twice a week. Currently, my car isn't working, so I'm hitching rides with neighbors. I'd walk too, usually, as the nearest grocery store is only a mile away, but right now I seem to have to go to Timbuktu and back and with the heat index well over 100...

I think, on average, people walk about 3 miles an hour so even though you say you are overweight and not in shape, you held your own well.

Is there anyone who doesn't think they are overweight?

Okay, Arthur 20k in this country means 20,000. So is that 20,000 mm, cm, inches, feet, yards, miles, kilometers?

Here is a link that might be useful: bill moyers article

Yup, delusion knows no boundaries.

Thanks Laura, that article has really cheered me up! I do not want to be blown up just because A thinks his god is better than B's god.
I've said it before, but what do these nut cases think they are going are do once they get to heaven. A trillion, trillion years of niceness is going to be rather boring.
There are science fiction plots written about the awfulness of living for eternity.
Hmmm. 20K is 20000 Metres and a metre is about 39 inches. At least you haven't invented an American inch. Gallons are so confusing. Is an American gallon bigger that an Imperial Gallon?

Laura,
Thanks for the article. I think that beat out my article for scare factor.

IMHO, I don't think god is going to give anyone brownie points for helping to facilitate the end of the world. I think I remember hearing somewhere that we were supposed to protect god's creation.

I have a coworker who the article describes to a tee. She has been sending me apocalypse emails. It is really amazing to see what some people believe in. It makes me very sad for her. I can't imagine spending my time on earth hoping for the end of the world. I'm too busy loving life, and all of the pretty things that the earth holds.

-Mimi

Yup, that was a good article. I watch him on the tube every now and then. Smart guy.

It's hard for me to believe so many people like that exist, but I know they do. Some of my friends are borerline that way. They may not be my friends for long.

I'm not overweight. Haven't been since I was a kid. Back then I was a porker.

K

Brownies? Did I hear someone making brownies?

Ah. Kev. Until I was 37 I was svelte. Really skinny as a kid....now I found your weight. :) I still have great, non-fat legs...I guess it is all the digging in the garden and walking I do!

Now we are talking about legs. Strange, but i've looked and i've looked and never seen a decent pair of legs on a guy. They are either knobbley and naked or hairy and horrible. YUK.

Convert 20K to Miles? Approx
20000 x 39 inches =780000 inches
inches to feet.divide by 12 = 65000 feet
Divide by 5280 to get miles 12.31
Not very far.

You are lucky that i can do these old time maths. Just proves how old time i am. But we (the dragon woman and i) had trouble with road signs in the UK. The sign said 3 miles to Little Wopping on Toad and our strine brains could never come to grips with how far 3 miles is. So we would drive on thinking we must be there by now and then thinking (horror) we must have taken the wrong turn. Lost again.

Arthur..

We need the hatracks to wear the fabulous dresses on our design shows. For some reason, I don't think any of the forms they have on Project Runway will expand beyond a size 8. (This is by no means my endorsement of the anorexic lifestyle. There is such a thing as too skinny i. e. Nicole Ritchie.) 20 years of a fast food diet will not squeeze into a Gaulthier cup.

There is nothing wrong with a hairy guy. In fact, I find them masculine and appealing. My straight girlfriends think they are gross (I think that we condition women that hair is ugly by giving them a razor when they hit 9.)

I wonder if most of the older women in Australia shave their pits?

Back hair is yucky. I mean the kind where you can't tell if he's coming or going is not right.

My DH has wonderful legs! I'm guessing that's years of basketball, but I remember thinking when we were dating "his knees are the size of dinner plates" no knobby knees here. :)

I am a slight woman. I have tried on designer dresses that were so long they dragged on the ground with my highest heels on. No one that tall should weigh what I weigh. Ick.

I think it's terrible Kate Moss is on the cover of magazines again. Everyone knows she is on a nose candy diet and no one cares because she looks 'fabulous'. Great message.

Back hair comes with the chest hair. I've never seen a hairy guy with hair limited to just one side of his body.

Claire..have a few Banana splits and buy petite cut dresses ;)

*gasp* Petite is the kiss of death!

Now I know that I've been on GW for too long. The project runway thread somehow invaded the apocalypse thread. We went from stinging bacteria to back hair. Amazing!!
-Mimi

I vote for the stinging bacteria.

K

Stinging bacteria is the new black.

I dated a guy a couple of times, then found out his back resembled a rug. That was the end of that. Okay, maybe that's really swallow but isn't dating all about being swallow? I am so glad I didn't find this out in bed, I would have freaked. Really freaked.

Claire, you and I just have to hope that when we are 90 we don't look ridiculous wearing junior sizes/styles. Petite woman look ridiculous in ankle length dresses and skirts, etc., it's just a sorry fact of life. On the other hand, we can save a ton of money on those clothes that we can buy in kids sizes, like coats. And we have cute feet.

Arthur, no one knows how far 3 miles is, or 1 mile, or 10 miles. It's all relative to how far you don't feel like walking.