I love the island of Kauai, Jules and I got married there and it’s an amazing place. Going scuba diving or snorkeling and encountering green sea turtles is always a treat. These big lumbering creatures that struggle on land, just glide majestically through the water. I stumbled across a cool little video, of some turtles that someone shot off Kauai.

As we pass yet another arbitrary day in time, I don’t want to dwell on what’s done. Let’s focus on now and moving forward. We now a slightly more sane congress that will hopefully gut the military commissions act, prevent an attack on Iran and acknowledge that global heating is real and we need to do something about it now. We have a new mayor in Ypsi who will hopefully articulate some new ideas for moving the city forward. We also have some wonderfully active people in the community who will stay involved and continue to make this a better place to live regardless of what any politicians may do. The traditional corporate media continues to prove it’s irrelevance, as an independent replacement rises up to take over. I intend to stay involved in my community, and continue to provide people with information about what’s going on here and elsewhere. I’ll also continue writing at AutoBlogGreen about cars and alternative fuels. Hopefully all this stuff will make a little bit of a difference, and with any luck I can leave this world a slightly better place than I found it. Now let’s get to work.

We just got this pic from our friend Jennifer in Wisconsin.

From 2006_12_09

Jules was looking out the kitchen window yesterday when she spotted this fat little critter gorging himself at the bird feeder. Click on the image to go see the whole slide show.

I just got this in an e-mail from my friend Mary Delcamp:

Dec 1st, was World AIDS Day.
Bristol Myers Squibb will donate $1 for every person who goes to their web site and lights a candle (simply click the link below) to fight AIDS, up to a max of
$100,000.
Please go here: https://www.lighttounite.org/. It only takes a minute.

Head over light a candle.

I spent a couple of days out in Moneterey recently for the other gig, and saw some really interesting stuff. We had dinner one night at the Monterey Bay aquarium which is truly amazing place. The tables were set up next to a tank that has the world’s first captive kelp forest. The tank was teaming with all kinds fish, including sharks. The aquarium has the world’s only captive great white shark although we couldn’t see it, that night. Also near the hotel on Cannery Row was a wharf that was covered by sea-lions. I took a walk out there and photographed the sea-lions and the smell of hundreds of the animals was rivaled only by the cacophony of their barking. It was definitely cool to see though. If you click on the photo it will take you to an album of more photos.

I hesitate to mention this story because some people might be tempted to sign up for the Canadian Armed Forces as a result, so I’ll start with Gerry stay where you are! It’s not worth it! Having said that, Reuters is reporting that Canadian forces battling the Taliban in Afghanistan are having difficulty dealing with forests of 10ft high marijuana plants. Apparently, the Taliban fighters have been hiding among the cannabis forest and the Canuck troops haven’t been able to spot them. The plants evidently absorb a lot of heat and as a result thermal imaging gear is ineffective. They also tried burning down the plants, but they were so full of moisture they wouldn’t burn. The few dry plants near the edges that did burn apparently caused some unintended consequences for soldiers who were down wind. Gerry! Sit down! You don’t really want to go to Afghanistan!