flickering pictures

A California company called LS9 says it has done the impossible: come up with cheap, homegrown, renewable “carbon-negative” oil to satisfy the world’s growing fuel needs. With bug poo.
From the Times:

To be more precise: the genetic alteration of bugs -– very, very small ones –- so that when they feed on agricultural waste such […]

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But it’s hard.
Three days ago, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, which aims to “defeat hunger” around the world, was addressed by Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe, who has singlehandedly turned his country from Africa’s wealthy breadbasket into a violent, starving, terrifying place. He also built Zimbabwe’s infamous “rape camps,” routinely kills, tortures and/or imprisons […]

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Yes, I know the title is cheesy. Has that ever stopped me before?
Found by Asher on divine caroline — a site I’m really starting to like — is a layman’s analysis of some of the chemicals, drugs and other heebie-jeebies in your food, by Brie Cadman:

The other day I was snacking on some bright […]

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The Washington Post reports that protests over Tibet may lead the International Olympic Committee (IOC) to cancel the worldwide torch relay ahead of the Games. As torchbearers jogged through streets in London and Paris, they were met with everything from boos and jeers to pro-Tibet activists who chose a more direct approach, managing to […]

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About a month ago, I wrote about the growing movement to boycott Beijing’s Summer Olympics, on the basis of its support for brutal regimes in Sudan, Myanmar and elsewhere — and its none-too-pretty human rights record at home. I was convinced that a boycott is a bad idea and still am, but pressure is […]

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UPDATE: NPR says this speech has supplanted the usual drunken cats and Star Wars fanvids as Youtube’s most viewed video today.
As a Canadian, I really don’t have a vested interest in how the U.S. election turns out — at least, not any more than the other six billion or so people whose lives are inevitably […]

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It’s not unusual for independence movements to count violence and intimidation among the tools at their disposal. So-called liberation groups from Spain to Sri Lanka, from Northern Ireland to Chechnya, determined at one point or another that it was acceptable to harm innocents and destroy property if it brought them closer to their nationalistic […]

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