This blog is in the process of being moved to: blog.changeyourreality.com

The feed has changed to accommodate that. I’ll do my best to keep most links unbroken with redirects.

Some posts will not be moved and/or deleted.

Greek entrepreneur turned activist Theodore Tenezos has been on hunger strike for 148 days protesting against unfair business practices by the steel cartel in Greece. Here’s a BBC News video that summarizes his situation:

For more information go to: http://www.stopcartel.org/

His blog can be found here (in Greek).

Take action: Send an email to the Hellenic Competition Commission expressing your support to Mr. Tenezos and urge them to respond to his claims.

Don’t forget to tweet about it too. Here’s the short link to this post: http://bit.ly/r3Ac7

I recently watched Katie Couric interview Sarah Palin. I believe the notable visceral pain I felt during the interview is probably a general phenomenon that makes its unique appearance when you realize that matters of great importance may befall hands of great incompetence. It was as if my brain felt it necessary to cause nauseous discontent throughout my whole body to send a strong clear warning for what may happen should this person become the Vice President of the United States (the possibility of her being President, was probably not consciously considered at the time out of the instinct of self-preservation).

I submit the videos with a warning. If you are intelligent with a faint-heart, Republican or Democrat, you might be better off, for health reasons, reading the transcript instead, or Fareed Zakaria’s obvious conclusion.

Part 1

Part 2

For the good of the United States and the world, this person should step down from the Vice Presidency, and leave it to someone more qualified. Running a world power is not like running the state of Alaska or a small town in it. It takes a lot more and she doesn’t have it. And NO, being close to Russia DOES NOT MAKE YOU AN EXPERT IN FOREIGN POLICY. Such things are not gained by osmosis. That’s like saying I have experience in physics because my neighbor is Stephen Hawking. So do the Republican party a favor and step down. This would constitute a bipartisan act of compassion by reducing the agonizing pain both Democrats and Republicans feel when watching her interviews, but it would also be religiously considerate: It would keep God less busy by reducing the number of believers who ask God what the Hell was McCain thinking when in times of severe economic crisis Palin was preferred over someone like Mitt Romney. And because people are going to be asking such questions, I think McCain will lose a lot of credibility over his VP choice, as time goes by and people realize just how unsuitable Sarah Palin really is. If McCain did not know she wasn’t qualified for the job – it casts doubt on the quality of his judgment. If he did, then it casts doubt on his motives because it seems he did it out of political expediency in the hopes of providing a surrogate Hillary Clinton (though it’s insulting for Clinton to be compared with Palin) that would woo Clinton voters who don’t want to vote for Obama and in order to excite the Evangelicals who were not that enthusiastic by his relatively tepid religiosity and disagreement on certain issues they consider sacrosanct.

Jack Cafferty said it as it is:

Sarah Palin, be a maverick. Step down…before you’re kicked out.

Only a couple of days ago, I discovered some alarming news. The state of California is going to spray pesticides on urban populations including San Francisco & Bay Area in less than 50 days. They already did it at Santa Cruz and Monterey with reported adverse health effects to 600 and 200 people respectively. You can read about it on the SF Chronicle though the best summary of the issue is found on the Wikipedia entry for it.

Here’s a great video about it:

This is real and it’s happening unless we do something about it.

What is the problem?

A species of non-native moth called the Light Brown Apple Moth (LBAM) has been discovered in California. The moth is potentially harmful to all sort of fruit crops, so people in the agricultural business are afraid the moth is going to damage their business big time citing potentially losses of up to 640 million dollars a per year.

However

“Though the first Light Brown Apple Moth confirmed in California by DNA analysis was found in February 2007, scientists like James Carey, a professor of entomology at the University of California-Davis and associate editor on several journals, believes, based on his previous experience with the Gypsy Moth program, that the Light Brown Apple Moth has likely lived in California for years and possibly decades (in part because it is so widespread, from Los Angeles to north of San Francisco).[1][2] The debate over how long the moth has been in the state has not yet been resolved. Questions about the rationale for the timing of the spray program suggest that it appears be more closely related to agricultural quarantines from Mexico and Canada than other factors.” Source here

In fact there haven’t been any reported damages from the LBAM. Nothing. Zero dollars. Read the enlightening Myth vs Fact sheet by the Hope organization.

So what did they do?

They lobbied the US Department of Agriculture (USDA) and obtained an “emergency exemption from registration” from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) that allows the USDA to bypass all state rules, such as the production of a state-required environmental impact report, and use the pesticide in aerial sprays over California cities. Because of that exemption, the spraying program isn’t subject to state approval, according to representatives of the state Department of Pesticide Regulation.

The pesticide maker has also been a generous political donor to Gov. Schwarzenegger, having given nearly 150,000$ as reported by another SF Chronicle article.

The efficacy of the plan is highly dubious and the adverse health effects real. Read what Richard Fagerlund a pest management specialist has to say about it here.

We who are part of the Web 2.0 community and know so much about viral marketing, this is the time to put it to good use. Let’s show them what we can do by harnessing our knowledge of Web 2.0 technologies and using them to inform public opinion and stop the spraying.

It is absolutely preposterous and morally repugnant to let this outrageous plan to go on. Remember, they are not just going to spray you once, the EPA has authorized the aerial spraying of the Checkmate pesticide every 30 days until 2010.

Act now. Sign the petition. Blog about it. Send it to your friends. Digg and Reddit it too.

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing. – Edmund Burke.