i guess this is a serious environmental disaster, but i have to say i think the river looks much better.

just in time for football season!

emilube's lunch break (new blog featch)

she doesn't read this blog or anything, but emilube always be sending me really long articles while she's at lunch that i don't have the time attention span for, so i put them in my pocket and read them on the train.

today's installment is an incredible article in the guardian about beijing's extreme air quality problem. READ IT.

"the line"

Spanish photographer Palíndromo Mészáros took the eerie images in his series "The Line" in western Hungary, where a retaining wall around a reservoir holding an aluminum company's toxic waste burst in October 2010, sending a million cubic meters of deadly sludge into surrounding towns and countryside.

via

officially uncool : fireplaces.

“A wood-burning fire in the city is a ridiculous luxury — we would never have put it in ourselves,” said Mr. Arpels, grandson of one of the founders of Van Cleef & Arpels and the former managing partner of Netto Collection, a baby furniture company bought by Maclaren. “In the city, it doesn’t make sense to burn fires, because it’s inefficient and it’s polluting.”

Hard as it may be to believe, the fireplace — long considered a trophy, particularly in a city like New York — is acquiring a social stigma. Among those who aspire to be environmentally responsible, it is joining the ranks of bottled water and big houses. (via)

good thing i just ditched mine! thx g!

tornado in new jersey!

just kidding. it's a funnel cloud, alright. but this one is just some sort of refinery in new jersey reverse-funneling toxins into our atmosphere. the clouds are pretty low this morning, and a different color than that pollution, so you could really see it just hanging out up there. isn't that appalling?

come on, new jersey. have some self-respect.

no more hummers

the vehicle... what did you think i was talking about?

tales from new jersey.

each morning, as i walk through the breath-taking new jersey landscape on my way to work, the highlight is almost always a pack of feral kitty kats that living around one of the buildings down the street. i usually see a woman that works there who feeds them. the kitties generally keep to themselves, hiding on the steps and peeking out at me through the railing and the bushes.

however, things took a frightening turn this morning when they swarmed in from all directions, and CHASED me down the street. by "chased", of course, i mean followed warily and inquisitively. but they did take turns dashing up ahead of me so i was continuously surrounded. their mommy needs to come back from her christmas vacation soon, because they are clearly blood-thirsty.

there are four kitties in that b-berry pic. see if you can spot them all.

what's that you say?

what's that you say, president obama? it wont take 20+ years for the US to be able to adopt / enforce new emissions and mileage standards? we can just go ahead and get started now? you're going to approve an emissions standards bill for california that president bush rejected? and develop a similar national standard?

“This is a very big deal,” said Daniel Becker of the Safe Climate Campaign, a group that has pushed for tougher mileage and emissions standards with the goal of curbing the heat-trapping gases that have been linked to global warming. “This is the single biggest step the American government has ever taken to cut greenhouse-gas emissions.” (nytimes)

that's fantastic news! thx new better president!