"Michael Moore and I actually have a lot in common, we both appreciate living in a country where there's free expression... but, Michael, if you ever show up at my front door with a camera - I'll kill you." a quote from The Man with No Name..

Do you have a low boredom threshold?

I sure do. I was on the Atkins plan for six of the past eight months, and did well with it but got boooorrrredd. So I switched to South Beach, but mostly maintained with that and besides being booorrrreeedd, I am not ready to be in maintenance so the past two months have been kinda "waisted."

So, yesterday I got out my dogeared copy of Jonny Bowden's fabulous Living the Low Carb Life, browsing for something to relieve my dietary boredom.

I should note here that it's not that I get bored with the food I'm eating. I get bored with whatever STRUCTURE of plan I'm following. I succeed best when I can get somewhat obsessed with whatever I'm doing. When my obsessiveness wanes, so does my attention span. This is not necessarily a good thing but it is a character trait I seem to have had my whole life and I figure I might as well use it to my advantage instead of letting it consign me to a life in the Lane Bryant lane, if you know what I mean.

So, I start reading again, and I'm struck both by what a fabulous book this is--my buddy Jimmy Moore has called this a must-read for low carbers and I have to agree--but also by how many little variations there are on low-carbing.

This time, I started zoning in on the GO-Diet, the Goldberg-O'Mara diet plan, which has recently been reformulated as the Four Corners plan. It's a low-carb plan with its own little twist, has the Jonny Bowden seal of approval, and sounds like it might be something to keep me obsessively entertained for a while. I've ordered the book, and will report on it in a few days when it arrives. (Whatever did I do before Amazon Prime came along!?)

About 100 miles from the Fort as the crow flies, but separated from it by the very scary Cook Strait, lies Nelson. Nelson attracts all the best people, so we thought we'd go and see what all the fuss is about.And so it was that two people got up early (but not too early) to catch a 25 minute flight in some dinky little 50-seater aircraft. With propellers. Flying in NZ is an almost pleasurable

One of the perks of being a consultant is traveling to great places. Buenos Aires, NYC, Chicago, Boston, etc. Of course, we also travel to some pretty out of the way locations now and again. This week I'm stuck in Bumblefuck, WI.

Now Bumblefuck wouldn't be so bad. Wisconsin is known for its cheese and beer (yay, beer!). But Bumblefuck has little of either from what I can see so far. I found a few chain restaurants as I drove around looking for a place to grab a meal. I also found a few local places, so I decided to drop in on one of them. The first warning sign that I made a bad choice was that there was no beer served here. Well, that's the only warning sign, but the food was decent and cheap. But no beer? I feel like I'm back in the South, standing in the wine & beer isle at Publix on a Sunday where signs everywhere remind me that someone else's religious beliefs are being pushed upon the rest of us and therefore I can't buy alcohol on "God's" day. Feh.

On another note, I went to Stone Mountain yesterday for some hiking. 3 times up and down for ~7.5 miles (including the walk in/out of the park, since we're all too cheap to pay for admission). Sandy mentioned hiking Kilimanjaro... perhaps when we're done with the fall season we can plan an expedition for a handful of folks... I'm having some serious wanderlust these days. Vacation can't come soon enough.

The RIAA is looking more and more like the Mafia. Not only is it trying to kill Internet radio, but its royalty-collecting subsidiary, SoundExchange, is now claiming the right to collect royalties for ALL artists, even those who want nothing to do with the RIAA and its jackbooted henchmen.read more | digg story

Audio

Komonasmuk & White Boi – The apocalypse – Combat Recordings
Kode9, Benny Ill & the Culprit – Fat Larry's skank – Tempa
Andy Stott – Unknown exception – Modern Love
Cyrus (Random Trio) – Rasta from – Tectonic
Coki – Tortured – Tempa
Deep Chord – The coldest season part 3 – Modern Love
Peverlist – The grind – Punch Drunk
Devon Irons & Dr. Alimantado – Ketch vampire – Trojan
Freddie McGregor – I shall be released – Soul Jazz
Wailing Souls – Who no waan come – Greensleeves
Von Sudenfield - Fledermaus Can't Get It - Domino Recordings
Mr 76IX - Mindworm - Skam
Islands Lost at Sea - The Way we Played It Yesterday - Akoustic anarkhy
Oliver Mtukudzi - Neria - Rough Music
Mari Menari -Ghazal Masri - Rough Music
Oufa - Danse des Tambouins - Air Mail Music
Feedle - Her Brain Goes Global - Illicit Recordings -
Help she can't swim - Pass the Hat Around - fantastic Records
The Last Holy Writer - By False Lights - Elefant Records
Geir Jenssen - Cho Oyu Basecamp - Ash

The 2006 census of mountain gorillas in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park has found that that the population has increased by 6% since 2002. Bwindi is now home to some 340 individuals.

The BBC has a picture to illustrate it, and Animal Domain also has a summary.

There are now 340 individual mountain gorillas in the park, up from 320 in 2002. The numbers of this critically endangered group have been declining precipitously because their habitat is being destroyed and also due to poaching and their lack of resistance to human diseases.
[...]
Mountain gorillas also inhabit the Virunga Volcanoes on the borders of Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. A 2003 census of these gorillas counted 380 individuals.

Currently there are 720 mountain gorillas worldwide.

As this site is all about a book, I imagine there's a few readers drop in from time to time. If anyone's interested, I have a couple of invites available to the fledgling site at www.swaptree.com. I've used it to swap quite a few books, CDs, DVDs and games and its working pretty well. If you're interested, drop me a line by email.

Also, I've recently been reading quite an old hardback edition of George B.Schaller's book "The Year of the Gorilla". It is a very entertaining account of a Mountain Gorilla study expedition in the late 1950s and early 1960s. It's too old to list on SwapTree, but if anyone would like to read it, please drop me a line by email and I'll be happy to send it to you. Perhaps you'd consider a nominal donation to my Save The Rhino fundraiser as a thankyou...?

April's edition of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund Field News has been online for a while now. It tells of a coming together of two mountain gorilla groups in which three gorillas switched groups, one went back, and two stayed with their new group.

The welcome in Beetsme’s group followed a pattern we have observed in recent transfers among the gorilla groups we monitor. The subordinate males in the group all made efforts to display their dominance to the new females, following their movements and sometimes exhibiting aggressive behaviors. The females tried to avoid these approaches, yet remain submissive at the same time. They were often observed all resting together.

Update May 2nd: Though the sentiment in the summary below is right, one correction needs to be made. The Conservative plan is not legislative but rather regulatory in nature. What does this mean? Essentially that it is not a Bill and does not have to be passed or ratified by government, and that it becomes very easy for government to simply not enforce it. The opinion below would hold if they would legislate the same provisions in law.

On Thursday, the Conservatives unveiled their new climate change plan. It's a weak plan. It does promise results, but far behind those of the rest of the world. Under the Tory plan, Canada would still be 30% short of its Kyoto commitments by the year 2020.

The facts of the situation are as follows; this plan will not meet Canada's Kyoto commitments; industry, which is responsible for 50% of Canada's emissions, is only being asked to shoulder 40% of the burden; intensity based targets will not reduce emissions if production increases at a significant rate; and there is no firm incentive for reductions by industry until 2010 when a proposed carbon tax of $15 per tonne kicks in.

So what should the opposition do? That part is easy. Pass it - with one strict condition.

With less than 5 years remaining under the current Kyoto treaty, it's time to let pragmatics take the lead over ideals. Canada has been a complete laggard in addressing climate change - thanks to both the Liberals AND the Conservatives - and we will continue to do so until some firm policy is in place. If the opposition forces an election over this issue, the result will likely be another minority government and another year of political wrangling before there is any hope of action being taken.

Canada needs to begin taking action now. And the one condition opposition parties need to insist on in passing this plan is that the $15 per tonne carbon tax needs to go into effect in 2008, not 2010 as the Conservatives are proposing.

This would provide genuine incentive for reducing greenhouse gases next year, but more importantly, it provides a policy foundation that Canada can build on. Subsequent governments will then have the tools and the regulatory framework in place to be more aggressive on emissions. Being more aggressive is also going to get a lot easier, once Canadian industry and the economy as a whole, takes the first steps along this road. To date, we've been standing at the starting line watching other nations sprint towards the finish line.

It has become clear that, on this issue, Canada will need to learn to walk before it can run. Passing this bill will start us walking. The next government can work towards getting us running by adding new measures to it.

I am a wholesaler in old men.

Earlier this week, I posted a tongue-in-cheek article about certain people's ignorance about global warming. Given the results of this year's Political Knowledge Survey conducted by the Pew Research Center, that article should not have surprised anyone.

Pew has been using this survey to evaluate the political savvy of the American population for almost twenty years now. Questions include such doozies as "Can you name the current vice president?"

The results?....not good.

Despite the proliferation of news media and internet access, the average American is less likely to be able to name the VP, their state's governor or the President of Russia than they were in 1989 - by 5%, 8% and 11% respectively.

Other key info includes a breakdown of the educational value of different news sources. If you watch the Daily Show with Jon Stewart, the Colbert Report or read major newspaper websites, you probably know what you're talking about. If you like Fox News, or your various local/morning news shows, you'd be better served by turning off the tube and having a political discussion with your morning bagel.

On a positive note, this has given me an idea for a new anti-troll policy. Anyone wanting to post comments would first need to reach a minimum score on this survey. U.S. readers would be required to score above 50% to comment on global warming and other environmental political issues. Given that the survey is strictly American in subject matter, Canadian readers would only need to score 55%.

You can try your hand at the survey here.

Always, and I mean ALWAYS take these kinds of stories with a grain of salt, but it's always interesting to see what people are writing about when you see a screaming headline like The top five cancer-causing foods.

In this case, it's actually quite interesting from a low-carb standpoint.

The "worst foods" list was based on the following "worst-offenders" in terms of links to cancer:

#1 SUGAR. And with it, refined simple carbs such as refined grains. Sugars feed tumors. And man oh man is it addictive.

#2 PARTIALLY HYDROGENATED OILS, aka Trans Fats. I thought this list made an interesting comment about food labels and trans fats. Ever wonder at how quickly companies were able to comply with the "no trans fat" rules? The good old FDA deigns that anything .5 g or less is the same as 0 as far as labeling is concerned. So food manufacturers are simply changing portion sizes to be .5 so they can claim to be "trans fat free."

#3 ACRYLAMIDES, cancer-causing agents produced when starchy foods are grilled or fried.

#4 NITRITE AND NITRATES, carcinogens added to processed meats such as hot dogs or bacon that acts as a preservative and gives food that "fresh" reddish color.

Given those four elements, then, the site lists these as the worst offenders in cancer-causing foods:

1. Hot dogs. The Cancer Prevention Coalition recommends that children not eat more than 12 hots dogs a month....I'm sorry but that's a LOT of hot dogs. Do kids eat that many hot dogs? Anyway, look for hot dogs without sodium nitrate in the list of ingredients.

2. Processed deli meats and bacon. You can also find uncured bacon now; again, look for sodium nitrate and if you see it, walk away.

3. Doughnuts. Trans fat, white flour, sugar, acrylamides. Need I say more?

4. French fries. Sigh. Trans fat, simple carb, acrylamides.

5. Chips/crackers/cookies. Trans fat, white flour, sugar. See the note above about serving size. Apparently, that's how Girl Scout cookies got around the trans fat problem this year.

Interesting stuff!

A Komodo Dragon on the prowl at San Diego Zoo.

Stylized 3D illustration for an article about the expansion drive of the Dutch KPN telecom company.

More imagery at Sevensheaven.nl

A series of ultra-small illustrations concerning various sicknesses that may happen to you on your holidays abroad.

Thanks to Karl Lindgren for giving The Conscious Earth the nod for the Thinking Blogger Award.


The award kicked off a couple months ago as a peer driven effort to weed through the fat of the blogosphere and deliver to readers the highest quality and most thought provoking content available. The winners, in turn, nominate five blogs that make them think, thus passing the torch throughout the online community and giving us all something to think about.

With heartfelt thanks to all of The CE's readers throughout the past 11 months, here are my own nominations for the Thinking Blogger Award. As the first rule of thinking is independence of thought, sharp readers will notice that not all of these are, strictly speaking, 'blogs'. My priority was in offering choices that genuinely made me think, regardless of the nature of the site.

Enjoy!

Desmogblog - Clearing the PR pollution that clouds the science of climate change. Begun here in my home town by local public relations professional Jim Hoggan, Desmogblog's mission is to counter the spin of global warming deniers with the facts about this critical issue. Included on the site is a database supplying background information on the top deniers, as well as critical resources outlining the genuine scientific consensus about the dangers of global warming.

Fireraven Tarot - A compatriot from down under, Fireraven is an environmentalist and Tarot card reader who, on every full moon, gives a reading for our planet Earth. Insightful and thought provoking, the site is a great reminder about the limits of scientific/rational thought, and how far we as westerners have been led away from the wisdom of the Earth.

Planetfesto - Simple and visionary, Planetfesto's mission is to build a virtual ribbon around the Earth, six inches at a time. Each visitor can add their own photo to the ribbon, alongside their words about the importance and beauty of the natural world.

The Alan Watts Library - Regular listening of mine, the wisdom of the late Alan Watts is as accessible and relevant today as it was throughout the 1950s, '60s and '70s. A host of books and lectures are available for order, as is a free weekly podcast.

Satan's Laundromat - A picture is worth a thousand thoughts. The Laundromat is a photolog of New York, with an emphasis on urban decay, strange signage, and general weirdness. There is nothing more thought provoking that the random expression of our fellow people.

In the background is a Polaroid Collage finished this year. Its made up of 70 Polaroids. Titled: Tomorrows GuideBook 2 America.

-Fantastically unsettling, beautiful and disturbing video.... "a visual account of desires misplaced and identities fractured by our technological extension into the future."read more | digg story

Now here's a story that'll make you want to give up bread. Seems imported grain products (wheat gluten, corn gluten, corn meal, soy protein, rice bran and rice protein) have been found to be contaminated with the same melamine thought to be poisoning our pets. Melamine--as in cool colored plastic plates from the '50s or these snazzy dishes from Pier 1. Said grain is being used in everything from bread to baby formula, according to the Reuters story.

One of my favorite phrases that stuck after the Katrina debacle here in New Orleans was Gen. Russell Honore's contention that reporters who kept asking the same questions were "stuck on stupid."

So here's another stuck on stupid moment. According to the Reuters report, the tainted pet food wasn't all destroyed--it was sold to pig farms as food for porkers in North and South Carolina, California, New York, Utah and possibly Ohio. That pork chop you're eating might not just be on a plastic plate--it could be a plastic plate. The FDA recommended we not eat melamine-tainted pork, but said the "health risk is minimal."

Easy for them to say. Bet you won't see any pork on the FDA officials' plates, at least not from the affected farms. And why, if the food is poisonous to cats and dogs, would it occur to anyone to put it into the human food chain?

And not only that, but the FDA appears to be protecting the names of companies who have imported the tainted grain products.

Stuck on stupid.

Interesting story in today's LA Times about singing--specifically, how the act of singing can cause our body to release feel-good oxytocins, similar to sex or, I imagine, a big pile of Popeye's Chicken.

Now, there's good news and bad news here. I love music--I mean REALLY love music, but I can't sing. Well, not in tune, at least. Kind of a wavering warble, if truth be told. And if I'm standing next to someone who's singing even more off-key, I unconsciously follow the leader and sing even worse.

But if singing relieves stress and causes us to handle stuff better, then we are less prone to stress eating, yes?

The only time I'm alone--ever, these days, which is why I'm so nuts--is in my car. So I'll become one of those wildly gesticulating, ridiculous looking drivers as I sing my way to work and back.

Shuffling my iPod, here's today's 10 tracks at random.

1. Graham Parker--You Can't Be Too Strong
2. Célédé--Road to Lizdonvarna
3. Aaron Neville--Louisiana 1927
4. The Band--The Weight
5. Dave Dudley--Six Days on the Road
6. Dave Carter & Tracy Grammer--41 Thunderer
7. Jethro Tull--A Small Cigar
8. Bob Dylan--Ain't Talkin'
9. Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros--At the Border, Guy
10. 4Him--Be Thou My Vision

Looking at my shuffle list, all I can say is, you gotta admit I'm versatile.

If you saw the original, you'll immediately want to watch this. Original soundtrack with full orchestra recorded in a professional studio, fantastic visual effects, professional pyrotechnics, shot in HD, I think someone got some funding. Probably the best lightsaber fight ever filmed, and yes, that includes Lucas. Watch it now!read more | digg story

The sale of inefficient incandescent light bulbs will be banned in Canada by 2012.

Natural Resources Minister Gary Lunn made the announcement earlier today, stating that the move would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than six million tonnes a year and save homeowners about $60 annually in electricity costs.

The news was also welcomed by Canada's largest light bulb retailer - Home Depot. The home renovation giant is boasting a 350% increase in sales of compact fluorescents since 2004, and they are working with Phillips Lighting to launch a national recycling program for the high efficiency bulbs by 2008.

Recognizing Canadians need a convenient and simple way to recycle CFLs properly, The Home Depot Canada in partnership with Phillips Lighting announced today it will test an in-store CFL recycling program this summer, with the expectation of making the program available nationally by 2008.

Great news.

Yesterday, the British Columbia government announced that it is joining 5 western states in an international carbon trading market designed to tackle global warming and aggressively reduce greenhouse gases.

BC joins California, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Arizona in a growing partnership that now includes close to 60 million people. In the next few days, several Australian states are also expected to join, and Governor Schwarzenegger hopes to recruit at least four or five more Canadian provinces in the coming months.

Critics of the plan note that BC has promised to join such efforts in the past, but has failed to follow through because there were no hard caps on greenhouse gas emissions. To date, California has legislated hard caps under law. BC has not.

Mark Jaccard, Simon Fraser University's internationally respected global-warming expert, noted that B.C. politicians declared their support for a similar carbon trading system about 15 years ago. It quickly foundered because the New Democratic Party government never took the tough step of actually capping greenhouse gas emissions, meaning there was never a real incentive to buy carbon credits.

"We've already had governments make these announcements, but then they never come through with the greenhouse gas caps," said Jaccard. "In the absence of the government setting caps that are serious, an announcement of a trading system is meaningless.

BC's announcement follows up February's crown speech which stated that the province would reduce greenhouse gas emissions 33% by the year 2020.

Stylized 3D illustration regarding the many extra exhaust gases (CO2) that get into the atmosphere caused by people who drive in their cars to get stuff bought on online marketplaces (consumer to consumer).

Thanks to Charlie Arehart and the guys behind Cf.Objective(), I'll be presenting a 30 minute mini-talk on Friday entitled "Security and the SDLC: Threat Modeling". This will be the first online user group presentation I'll be doing and I'm pretty excited!

"In this 30 minute preview of his CFObjective seminar, Dean will examine how threat modeling can be used as a baseline activity to ensure the security of web applications. Threat modeling is a structured approach for identifying, evaluating and mitigating risks to system security. By modeling a system as an attacker would, development organizations can prioritize the usage of a development/security budget, manage risks to system security and find vulnerabilities earlier than technical testing or code reviews. Applied early in the development lifecycle, threat modeling can be used to drive further secure SDLC activities, such as code reviews and penetration testing to ensure the security of your software throughout its lifetime."

While this is billed as a preview of my Cf.Objective() talk, its more of a parallel track. In this talk I'll be hitting on one of the three high ROI activities that can be added to the SDLC in order to begin addressing the problem of software insecurity. Of course at Cf.Objective() I'll be spending more time on the baseline activities, including code reviews and penetration testing, and how they fit into the overall development lifecycle.

I hope people will RSVP for this online meet-up and then come see me in Minneapolis next week!

With apologies to the fine blog of that name. But if you read a lot of reports from new studies being done in weight loss and nutrition--and how often they contradict each other--you learn to take everything with a grain of salt. No, wait. I think this week salt's really bad for you again. Regina, over at Weight of the Evidence has been doing some deconstruction of conflicting science.

I do no deconstruction here, just a roundup of recent headlines, for whatever they're worth...

• ANOTHER FAT GENE: Scientists at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center have found a "relative" of the anti-aging gene "Klotho" that works to help lower glood glucose levels in the fat cells of mice, making it a "novel target for developing drugs to treat human obesity and dibetes." Sounds like another magic pill in the works. Oh boy.

• A recent report in the Archives of Internal Medicine suggests that high levels of symptoms of depression -- such as irritability and sleep problems -- are associated with an increased risk of development of type 2 diabetes. Gee, Einstein. Depressed people can be stress eaters, and stress eaters rarely binge on broccoli (okay, I know, I do have a reader who binged on brussels sprouts, and she is my hero!).

• Duke Medical Center researchers have concluded that obesity increases employers' workers compensation costs. Seems obese employees are more likely to file workers' comp claims. Hmmmm...I haven't taken a sick day in more than three years. Maybe I should throw myself down the stairs and take some time off.

• Researchers at the University of Calgary have found that consuming a single high-fat meal makes a person "more prone to suffer the physical consequences of stress" than those who eat a low-fat meal. They found "shocking" the difference between the stress responses of a group of students eating a McDonald's breakfast as opposed to students who had dry cereal with skim milk, cereal bars and nonfat yogurt. “It’s been well documented that a high-fat diet leads to artherosclerosis and high blood pressure, and that exaggerated and prolonged cardiovascular responses to stress are associated with high blood pressure in the future," said researcher Tavis Campbell. "So when we learn that even a single, high-fat meal can make you more reactive to stress, it’s cause for concern because it suggests a new and damaging way that a high-fat diet affects cardiovascular function.” So, were these students all of exactly equal health and genetic background to begin with? Did the "shocking" results persist beyond 30 minutes past the given meal? How many students participated--400 or 4? Yawn.

• New baby foods are being developed in England that contain supplements of hunger-suppressing leptin, so feeding your baby the new foods will ensure that he doesn't grow up to be a big fat slob. Since such early exposure and prolonged exposure to leptin supplements is untested, however, he might turn out to be a very thin guy with three horns. But he won't be fat.

In a move that has stunned the House of Commons, the Conservatives have supported of a Bloc Quebecois motion calling for "absolute limits on greenhouse gas emissions to meet the objectives of the Kyoto Protocol".

The Bloc motion calls for the government to urgently set absolute targets for cutting greenhouse emissions so as to achieve the objectives of Kyoto, and as a preliminary condition for establishing a carbon exchange market in Montreal.

The Canadian Press is reporting that the motion was passed unanimously earlier this afternoon in the nation's capital - a move that appears to be a complete flip-flop in Tory policy. As early as last week, Environment Minister John Baird had stated that meeting Kyoto would ruin the Canadian economy, and the Conservatives have consistently opposed hard caps on greenhouse gas emissions.

However, more controversy is afoot. There are rumblings out of Conservative corners that they voted in favour of the Bloc motion because it was presented in French and they never understood it.

Incredulous opposition MPs initially attributed the government's support for the Bloc motion to a translation error, which translated "absolute" targets as "fixed" targets. But after the error was corrected, the government voted in favour.

Given the strange nature of these events, it remains to be seen what this means for Canada's stance on Kyoto and for the country's global warming policy. In the mean time, the Conservative's are scheduled to unveil their plans to address greenhouse gas emissions in the oil sands on Thursday.

More to come as the situation develops.

We all know how the saying in the title finishes. Our next generation may not.

For the past year, scientists have been following one of the most baffling and alarming situations yet seen in nature - the abrupt collapse of bee colonies throughout the world.

Termed Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD), it occurs when a hive's inhabitants suddenly disappear, leaving only queens, eggs and a few immature workers.

Concerns were first raised last fall in the US, and to date the American West Coast is thought to have lost 60% of its commercial bee population and a further 70% on the East Coast. CCD has since spread to Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Greece, and most recently the UK, where one of London's largest bee-keepers has recently announced that 23 of 40 hives have been abruptly abandoned.

The cause has not been identified with certainty. Deceased bees are being found with massive amounts of pathogens and widespread disease, leading some to blame pollution and environmental toxins. Others are finding evidence that the navigation systems of bees are being disrupted by radiation from the growing number of mobile phones going into use.

Either way, the situation is alarming and represents a huge risk to the environment and our food supply. Most of the pollination for US food crops is accomplished through honey bees, at an annual value of $14 billion.

No. Not even close. This week, I am incensed by what Simon did to Hayley. How to objectify and embarrass a person, in two easy steps: imply (none to subtly) that you enjoyed her strutting around in fewer clothes and that she's not going to win the singing competition by singing. Watch her take the advice seriously, as you knew she would, and then pull the rug out from under her the following

There's a good video over on the US News & World Report called "Rwanda Reborn" featuring some remarkably intimate encounters with the Mountain Gorillas.

Thanks to Senior Writer, Kevin Whitelaw for the tip.

The John Hopkins Newsletter has late coverage of the 100 endangered animals on the "Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered" (EDGE) list. The list, available at www.edgeofexistence.org was published last month by a team of scientists led by the Zoological Society of London.

Terms such as "threatened," "endangered" and "critically endangered" are used to describe increasingly dire situations for populations in the wild.

The EDGE list takes into account two additional factors that make the compilation unique.

First, the rankings give preference to species that are evolutionarily distinct, or the most biologically different from other living species. Although the loss of any species is a tragedy, the scientists at the EDGE project argue that some species are more unique than others.
[...]
The other criterion for EDGE species is the degree to which conservationists are already concerned with the animals. The researchers want conservationists to pay more attention to these underrepresented animals.

Writing about environmental issues is an enormous communications challenge. The biggest part of that challenge is ensuring that people understand the problems we face and have the right information about how to solve them. Some days it feels like that battle is being won. Then, on other days......

A magazine illustration for an article about helpdesks.

As Clogwork is an ideal place for some shameless self-promotion, exhibitionism and self-glorification I thought to mention this interview. :)

I'm fighting the serious blahs these days. My job has become almost unbearable at times, filled with a plethora of chores I abhor (most of which could be completed by a trained monkey), and home is about as bad, with my live-in senior adult having a lumbar fracture and needing more help than usual. I feel as if someone has their hand out to me 24/7, wanting something and wanting it now--and while I'm at it why don't I do x, y and z too. And when am I going to get ABC done?

So life really sucks right now.

No wonder my evil twin Bingy is fighting to get out.

From the hip, a super fun way of shooting. You never know what your going to get. This was taken in Winter Park, Florida. Didn't get much that day but I like whats going on in this image.

The current issue of Doctor Who Magazine (#381) features an interview with novelist Jacqueline Rayner about her Tenth Doctor novel "The Last Dodo". She said that the idea of an "I-Spy book of extinct animals" tickled her, something that would be, on the face of it, impossible... Unless you were a Time Lord.

Doctor Who Magazine asked the question:

DWM: Was your interest perhaps piqued by [former Doctor Who Script Editor] Douglas Adams' Last Chance To See? You've referred to a few of the same very endangered species as he did - the aye-aye, the kakapo and so on...
No, I've been interested as long as I can remember - I was a passionate member of the then-World Wildlife Fund. But both the radio series and book of Last Chance To See are heartrending pieces of work, which I deliberately didn't reread while doing my research - I didn't want to risk subconsciously plagiarising anything. But anyone who's not experienced Last Chance To See, please go out and get it now!

Here's a video clip of Dr. Thomas Hildenbrandt at work. Thomas is part of the team working to save the Northern White Rhino, using similar techniques to those seen here with a male elephant.

There are only thirteen northern white rhinos left in the world. The species is hovering on the brink of extinction. But three men are pushing forward the frontiers of science to try to save them.

Thomas Hildebrandt and his team, from the Berlin Institute of Zoo and Wildlife Research, are world leaders in using artificial reproduction to breed rare elephants, rhinos and even komodo dragons.

Video is not for the faint of heart, so be warned...

My wonderful editor Ellen de Bruin wrote a book about Dutch women. She had me draw one for the newspaper. To see the page, click.

Audio

Sip A Cup Meets Negus Roots – Conductor of Dub – Gussie P
Greg Isaacs – Dealing – Observer
White Mice – Nothing never done before the time – Intelitec Muzik
Mikey Dread & King Tubby – Dread all the way – Dread At The Controls
King Tubby – Something going to happen version – Big Nail
Junior Ross & the Spears – Liberty version – Stars
Joe Gibbs & the Professionals – The great escape – Crazy Joe
Reggie Stepper - Kimbo king – Stepper Music
Big Youth – Jim Screechy – Blood & Fire
King Kong – Step pon mi corn – Firehouse
President Shorty & Keith Hudson – Barbican Heights
Keith Hudson – Rasta took the blame – Pressure Sounds
Scorcher – Put on me Clarks – Greensleeves
Ninjaman & Flourgon – Zig it up – Trojan
Nightingales – Taking away the stigma of free school dinners – Iron Man
Field Music – She can do what she wants – Memphis Industries
Charlie Gracie – Just lookin' Universal
Lightning Hopkins – Lightnin' boogie – Fuel
King Tubby – King at the controls – Hot Pot
The Fall - Insult song - Sanctuary
M.J. HIbbett and the validators- Never going Back to Aldi - Artists against success
Blonde Redhead - 23 - XL Records
The Primary 5 - Off Course - Reaction
Jack Penate - Split At Stars - XL Records
Tinariwen - Matadjem Yinmixan - Independiente
Jeannie sterns - Pieces of My Heart - jeanniesterns.com
Astor Piazzolla - Milonga for Three - Manteca

Show 1 - Recorded - 9th April 2000

Audio

Unknown DJ -I smell a rat -(White Label)
The Hurricanes -You can run -(Punch)
Reggie Lewis -Natty natty -(Upsetter)
I Roy -Monkey fashion -(Tamoki)
Junior Delgado -"Lying Lips" -acapella fragment -
Time Unilimited -Rastaman is trodding down Rome -(Upsetter)
Leo Graham -Greedy girl -(Blue Jay)
Bradsetter Allstars -Vital drums -(Clocktower)
Bob Marley and the Wailers -Smile Jamaica Pt.1 -(Smile Jamaica)
Bob Marley and the Wailers -Smile Jamaica Pt.2 -(Smile Jamaica)
Rupie Edwards -Three pon one, murder -(Pink Elephant)
The Interns -Freedom (Version) -(Impact)
Ronnie Davis -You are the fool (Version) -(On Top)
Fudge Brother and Super 8 -Hard Time (Hard Version) -Half Moon
(Interview w/Lee Perry excerpt -Tony Williams -(BBC Radio London 1984)
The Cimarons -Paul Bogle -Cimask

Show 2 - Recorded - 7th April 2001

Audio

Gladdy, Val & the Upsetters -Prove it -(Motion)
Stranger & Gladdy -Conqueror -
Lee Perry & the Upsetters -Enter the dragon -
Lee Perry -Bury the razor -
The Upsetters -Cheat Weston head -
Congoes -Children crying -(Black Art)
Lloyd Parkes -Professor Ironside -(Justice League)
Pat Francis -King of kings -(Wizdom)
Edmond Brooks -Earth is the fullness -(Harvest)
King Tubby -Close to Jah -(Motion)
Melodians -Don't get weary -(Skynote)
Winston Heywood & the Hombres -Long long time -(Mango)
Lion Zion -Buffalo dub -(House of Natty)
Kiddu -Crying wolf -(Shepherd)
Watty Burnett -Too late -(Rhtyhm Force)
Lee Perry -Chase them -(White Label)
Ras Michael & the Sons of Negus -Do you know -(Jah Life)
Pipecock Jackson -Who stole the chickens -(White Label)

Seeing a new Ninja Turtle-movie advertised brings back unwanted memories .
In the early nineties I was asked by some ad-guy to make 4 wraparound-designs to be put on plastic milk-mugs, depicting the then popular Ninja Turtles. All major supermarkets in Holland would be selling them. Having small, hungry children I consented.
Each mug was to have a screw-on lid with a turtle-head on top. While I started studying turtology and looking for ways to play with the fact that each drawing would 'bite' it's own tail, my wife and a friend painted hundreds of turtle-head-dummies green , with 4 differently coloured masks. When I was done drawing I spray-glued my color-xeroxes on hundreds of mug-dummies (finding out how hard it is to perfectly glue a rectangle around a cilinder) . Our life was turtle-green from dusk till dawn.
It was to be the only green we got to see. The ad-guy turned out to be a fraud.

A work from my Série Noir, featuring Edgeman. More imagery from the Série Noir can be found here.

I apologize from the get-go--this has nothing to do with health, diet or weight loss, except for a very tenuous tie to exercise at the end. But it's a facet of life in New Orleans that I feel I must share.

You know, most people have four weather seasons (spring, summer, fall, winter) and a number of holiday seasons (Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc.).

But we in New Orleans have four weather seasons (early summer, summer, hellacious late summer, and winter), a couple of extra holiday seasons (Mardi Gras, Jazzfest) and are fortunate enough to have a number of critter seasons as well, and we're in the middle of one right now.

No, it's not termite-swarming season. That starts in about a month, during which time all exterior -- and, if you're smart, most interior -- lights must be doused in order to prevent the huge hordes of madly swarming termites looking for new homes to visit yours.

What we're currently enjoying is Buckmoth Caterpillar Season. If you aren't lucky enough to live in a place with lots of oak trees where these critters like to live, let me tell you about them. They're big--about the size of a finger--and are covered with poisonous spikes. Even the slightest touch will cause you, the toucher, to have your affected body part puff up like a blowfish, turn red, and burn for hours. Some years, they are so bad that people walking down the sidewalks carry umbrellas because, yes, they fall out of the trees on your head and, believe me, this is not something you want to experience. My eldest furchild, Irish Terrier Shane, stepped on one last year and I thought she was dying. I know she stepped on it because I grabbed her up to see why she was crying and latched onto the darned thing myself. I also cried. We cried together. It was a bonding moment.

Buckmoth caterpillars do provide a great source of exercise, however, as they are very noisy and colorful when stepped on. There's an audible POP and then orange goop oozes out of their bodies while bright neon green seeps out of their heads. I believe my personal-best buckmoth-stomping record is 10 squishes in 30 seconds.

Think of it as a sub-genre of Buck dancing. With color.

A nice post over at the Gorilla Protection Blog includes an exclusive, albeit brief, video of 2-day old Mountain Gorilla which has yet to be named.

Check out more of Wildlife Direct's YouTube Videos including a contribution from Dr. Richard Leakey.

Stylized 3D illustration regarding the so-called reflection principle (literally translated from a Dutch term), that is employed in case of a collective dismissal.

Ironic that since chocolate has proven to be so good for us, now the FDA is about to cave to demands from the Grocery Manufacturers of America trade group that the definition of what qualifies as chocolate be changed.

Currently, in order for chocolate to be, well, chocolate, it must meet certain FDA criteria, namely that it be derived from cocoa beans and use cocoa butter.

According to the folks at the Guittard Chocolate website, the grocers trade group has petitioned the FDA to allow chocolatiers to change the way chocolate is made, substituting cheaper vegetable oils for cocoa butter and using milk substitutes rather than milk--and still call it chocolate.

I rather imagine the result will be that most chocolate will begin to taste like those nasty wax chocolate rabbits that, of course, none of us ate this past Easter. But you know the ones.

It doesn't mean quality chocolatiers like Guittard will begin making shoddy chocolate, only that the standards of the industry will be diminished and the market flooded with cheap, nasty-tasting faux chocolate.

See's Candies and Guittard are asking people to protest to the FDA and tell you how to do so here. The deadline for public comments to the FDA is April 25--next Wednesday.

There are some pretty fine sugar-free chocolates out there, even some (thank you Chocoperfection) not made with evil, nasty maltitol.

Help save chocolate!

I've been thinking, recently, about what living in London for 18 out of 29 years of a life can do to a person. I don't think about this in terms of negatives or positives, more by way of observations which cause my brain to hum slightly in protest at all the self-analysing going on around here of late.One of the major differences between Cowboy, who was brought up in the most stagnant,

Whenever I think I'm becoming too food-obsessed I only have to read something like this story about a young "normal-sized" woman who decides to try and become a size 0. She actually doesn't lose that much weight but descends quickly into bulemia and a warped body image. Makes me wonder if volunteering for such an assignment didn't mean she had a warped self-image to begin with. Scary stuff, though!

Because we know our way around a dinner plate--as this map shows.

But this is not going to be a funny blog entry about redeye gravy and chitlins. Because I'm on a soapbox this morning.

The folks over at CalorieLab report that the State of Mississippi is considering funding weight-loss surgery for its obese citizens.

Turns out, as the above graphic from CalorieLab shows, that Mississippi leads the nation in the number of its citizens deemed morbidly obese and they are calculating the cost of obesity to the state's overburdened healthcare system.

Whoa there, Nellie.

I have no doubts that obesity, diabetes and other "co-morbidities" contributes to a state's healthcare costs.

But in my mind, there's a bigger culprit out there that should be addressed. At the risk of sounding like a socialist--because I'm not one--I firmly believe poverty is the biggest factor impacting healthcare costs.

Now, there's some overlap here, because many studies such as this one have shown a link between poverty and obesity. Face it--what are the cheapest foods at your grocery store? Let's see. Noodles. Potatoes. A virtual plethora of ultra-cheap cookies.

But which came first, the poverty or the obesity? Or can you separate the two?

I think you can. I live in the poorest state in the country. I live in a city with the largest percentage of citizens living in poverty in this state--it is a situation that has been exacerbated by Hurricane Katrina, where our poor and disenfranchised people were satellite-beamed around the world for everyone to see. And a lot of them were obese, yes, and a lot of them were not.

But the majority of them were poor, and they do not have health insurance. Right now, with our charity no-insurance-needed healthcare system still in ruins, providing healthcare to folks who can't afford it--fat and thin--is breaking us.

If Mississippi's healthcare costs are onerous, they should look first not at how many fat people are waddling around their state but at how many poor people are eating what they can afford and then burdening the healthcare system.

I don't have any solutions here--I'm sure there are those of you out there with socialized medicine who could tell us the problems fraught with that system.

But let's identify the real problem here and not the easy target. Buying a lot of people weight-loss surgery thinking it will relieve poverty-induced stress on the healthcare system is just nuts.

Okay. Off my soapbox now.

Not sure how many people know about this. Trying to download patches, movies, or demos for EA Games titles can be a pain in the neck unless you pay for/subscribe to FilePlanet or other services. Well, now you can bypass all that with this FTP server. No annoying graphic click-throughs, and good transfer rates. Happy downloading!read more | digg story

I'm behind on posting about HFD again due to work... I've been on the road the past two weeks from Sunday to Friday, so it has definitely slowed me down.

Last week I was in Madison, WI for the final blast of winter weather. We got more than 6" of snow in a day, more snow than I have seen in many, many years. Thankfully, Madison doesn't just shut down when it snows.

I returned home to much warmer weather on Friday, just in time to hike at Amicalola Falls on Saturday. We were expecting severe thunderstorms, so it was decided that we'd do a short hike of 10 miles to the Len Foote Hike Inn and back. This is a pretty easy trail with no difficult climbs or descents, so we knocked out the 10 miles and a short break at the Hike Inn in about 3.5 hours. After sharing some homebrew with the team, we all headed back to town and took shelter from the storms which never materialized... Sure, it rained, but it wasn't the downpour that was expected.

This week I'm in Nashville, TN, home of bad bouffant hairdos and some really questionable "western" clothing. I feel like I've been transported back in time... I really can't wait to leave.

The next few weeks will be light on posting since I'm going to be traveling a lot. Sunday morning I'll be hiking on the Benton MacKaye Trail with the team before running back to ATL for a flight to Memphis. I'm going to be presenting a seminar on software security in Memphis and meet with some potential customers for a few days before returning home. The following week I'll be back to the cold, white north — hopefully a lot less cold and white this time — to teach a class and present at Cf.Objective(). This trip is going to involve a LOT of driving. I fly into Green Bay, WI on Sunday, drive to central WI that afternoon and spend the next 4 days teaching a software security class. Then I'm driving 200+ miles to Minneapolis to catch the first day of Cf.Objective() where I will be presenting a talk entitled Security and the SDLC: A Strategic Approach to Software Security. But I won't be spending a lot of time at the conference since I need to be in NYC that night. So I'll be making a mad dash to the airport after my talk to catch a flight.

Damn... its going to be a busy few weeks. Hopefully things will calm down as we get into May... but I doubt it. Work hard... play harder!

I apologize for my absence. You will notice a new link to the right. You will also notice that I no longer live in San Francisco. These two facts are heavily related to the severe delay in posting. I have been busy to the point of being unable to reflect on the things from Coach that I don't entirely remember.

In other news, The Coach Blog is now one year old. And so, with this post, we begin a new season of The Coach Blog; one in which the memories get fuzzier, the posts become fewer, and the readership dwindles back to its original size.

I feel like whenever a new season started on Coach, Coach and Luther and Dauber would come back in to the office and briefly summarize whatever the hell they had been doing for the past month(s). This usually consisted of Coach berating Luther for some mistake he had made. I think the castigation was formed with some sort of ambiguous sentence structure so as to allow Luther to protest before it was revealed what had actually happened. Like maybe Coach would be all "That was some trip. I can't believe you [did something embarrassing]." And Luther would be like "come on, Hayden, it was just [something less embarrassing]." And then Coach would counter with "Yeah, [something WAY more embarrassing]." For example, it could be that Luther had spilled his wine on someone and then told Coach that the old woman didn't seem to mind and then maybe the old woman turned out to be the Queen of England or something. This probably got a big laugh and then Luther would sheepishly say something after everyone was done laughing. Then I think some other character would come in to the office and the plot of the show would start.

After that, no one ever mentioned whatever had happened, I think.

Thanks, everyone, for the great comments on yesterday's post about my all-or-nothing mentality (crack that whip, Calianna!).

It sounds really stupid, I know, but it really hadn't occurred to me to find my "carb comfort level." I bounce between Atkins Induction, Kimkins (induction on steroids) and Oyster Po-Boys. Never do anything halfway, that's my motto!

Well, and look where that's gotten me. So here's my new motto: find what I can live with comfortably and get on with life. Otherwise, it's going to pass me by while I wait to be perfect.

The NS (Dutch Railways) have an on-board freebie magazine called "Rails." I just finished two illustrations for it, accompanying a rather sappy, romantic short story called "Return to Abbey Road". I tried experimenting a bit, differing the color schemes I would normally use. I kinda like the way they turned out....

Whenever I find myself at a lull (my favorite word in english. Ask anyone who speaks dutch to explain) professionally, I tend to oblige fans and admirers of my work in doing them a favor. In this case these two are getting married and wanted me to draw them an invitation. The guy's surname is "Kohnen", so it inspired me to make them this piece.

Friends of mine play in a cool band. For their new CD they wanted me to do the cover art. Naturally I was happy to oblige ...

And the next one, now you are up to date. Remind me to do this again on Saturday, when my next piece will be in the NRC. More about Louis Paul Boon here.

I am so sorry, I have been neglecting Clogwork a little. I tell myself I am too busy, but that is nonsense, it only takes a couple of minutes to upload something. More about Vonne van der Meer here.

It's a joy making a coverillustration, knowing it will be everywhere for a day. And will be forgotten tomorrow.
This one's about new Dutch Inventions. Check out my Windmillboat! The more front wind, the harder you will go.

Not only will you find birds from around the world, you will find Sheep at my parents house. Not really sure why we have them. My sister keeps care of them. She needs something to keep her distracted from Myspace. She has had so many animales. Lets see....turtles, hedgehogs, hamsters, goats, goldfish, iguanas, doves, and dogs. I'm sure there are a few i'm leaving out.....

The head of the US Environmental Protection Agency is claiming a victory in the fight against global warming, and crediting the visionary climate change policies of George Bush for the results.

On Monday, EPA Administrator Dave Johnson announced that US greenhouse gas emissions grew by only 1% in 2005.

"The Bush administration's unparalleled financial, international and domestic commitment to reducing greenhouse gas emissions is delivering real results," Johnson proclaimed in a statement.

Back in the real world, calling a growth in greenhouse gases a climate change victory is a bit like shooting a hockey puck into your own goal. More to the point, Mr. Johnson's counterparts in other US government departments had a more sober perspective on the situation. The people responsible for tracking US energy usage credit 2005's slower rise in greenhouse emissions to market factors and oil supply disruptions along the storm battered Gulf Coast - storms that may well grow more frequent, as global temperatures rise.

The slow growth in emissions from 2004 to 2005 can be attributed mainly to higher energy prices that suppressed demand, low or negative growth in several energy-intensive industries, and weather-related disruptions in the energy infrastructure along the Gulf Coast. As a result, while the economy grew by 3.2 percent, energy consumption fell by 0.3 percent.

More perspective on the US emissions can be found in the graph below:

I was reading an article last night in one of those embarrassing girly magazines I pick up now and then but never admit to. It was about perfectionism, and how it gets us into trouble.

Since childhood, my attitude has been "do it best, or don't do it." If I don't think I have a reasonable shot at not just being competitive but excelling, I tend not to try. I never enjoyed organized sports because I learned early on I couldn't be the best player on the team. Once that was established I had no desire--even an aversion--to even trying. I wonder how many things I've passed up in life because I didn't want to risk not just failure but failure to excel?

Now, apply that to food and I think I can see why a ketogenic diet works so well for me when I stay on it, and why it's so darned hard to make myself go back on it once I've strayed.

First, I've strayed, therefore I'm not excelling at it. Strike one.

Second, I know that once I get back on it, there's no wiggle room. The ketogenic diet feeds on the all-or-nothing mentality (no pun intended), at least for me. One little "oops" on a ketogenic diet and I've set myself back at least a week. In putting myself into a known all-or-nothing eating plan, I risk straying, which leads to failure, which is the opposite of perfection. Strike two.

Third, since I try to avoid situations where I see myself as having a low chance of being "the best," I am avoiding a return to a ketogenic diet. Strike three.

Looking at it that way, competitive type-A perfectionist that I am, it's easy to see how my own fear of failure has actually led me to fail quite spectacularly, at least in terms of food and weight.

Obviously, something's gotta give here.

I've received word that the Iostar Last Chance To See website has been taken down. It was apparently a little premature for that page to make an appearance, and the poster was actually just a mock-up for the MIPTV fair in Cannes, France, which is going on between the 16th and 20th of April.

We'll keep a close eye on the development of this project in the coming months.