But WHY?

I just happened upon this little tidbit:
PIZZA HUT:
The regular pizza sauce contains beef base, whey, cheese solids (which is made with animal enzymes), buttermilk powder, nonfat milk solids, and MSG. The Cavatini, meatless, and bread stick sauces contains beef base, beef flavor, meat type flavor, natural flavor, and MSG. No further information was available on these ingredients. The Zesty pizza sauce contains chicken fat and two types of cheeses (made with enzymes). The sauce, which is served with the spaghetti marinara with meat, contains precooked sausage (composed of pork and beef), beef, chicken stock, chicken fat, and nonfat dry milk. All the pasta at Pizza Hut is vegan.

Not that I have been there lately, but geeeeeez! Boo, Pizza Hut!

Yikes.

If we're lucky, we might survive global warming. Hooray!

Birthday Idea Alert!

http://www.carbonfund.org/

I am turning 33, and like the song says, that could be a full third of all of the time I'm gonna get - time to do right by my greenhouse gases. To that end...

A non-profit selling carbon credits. Great idea! More info here.

Torture is Un-American

From the ACLU:

If you agree with me that torture, indefinite detention and secret government kidnapping are un-American, I think you’ll be interested in a petition that I just signed.

These practices should not represent the United States of America. But today, two years after the truth was exposed about government-sponsored torture and abuse, the U.S. has failed to reverse the policies that led to this abuse -- and has yet to hold a single high-ranking official responsible.

After the horrors of World War II, our leaders helped draft universal principles that prohibit torture and protect human rights. I hope you join me in defending that legacy by signing the petition and speaking out against torture.

Please join with thousands of others and sign the petition today: http://action.aclu.org/tortureisunamerican

Protect Arizona's Environment here

For anybody not on Sandy's e-mail list, you can keep track of the latest evils (and very occasional environmental good deed) of the state legislature here. Tell a friend!

Building a better light bulb

Something that stayed with me from my trip to Montreal (11/00) was the Bombardier ad, oops I mean "exhibit" at their science museum - in particular, LED traffic lights. They are crazy efficient and they last forever, and LED bulbs are finally making their way into stuff we use, like party lights and track lighting bulbs. Gee, with - what's that called - leadership - we could actually be energy efficient.

A Smart Car, or Five of Them

And speaking of super cool cars, Smart Car has come to Phoenix. On Bell Road I caught these scenes of five of them going...somewhere....

Happy (Belated) Earth Day

We commemorated Earth Day by, well, buying a car. Greg's Scion xB gets 35 MPG, so he about doubled his mileage, so that isn't too shabby. Now I just need to get my hybrid and we will have doubled our household fleet economy. ;-)


We also watched "Too Hot Not to Handle" on HBO. Everyone needs to see it. We all should be a lot more freaked out about global warming than we are, period.

Happy Earth Day! Love your mother.

Would you get married here?

Marnie is looking at places to get hitched. James' sister Molly (and James also pretty much) work here. It looks even better for weddings. Am I crazy? Was there any reason to even look elsewhere? So glad she's not getting married here in Phoenix, anyway. :) Love you, Marnie!!

Gore '08?

I always like having an excuse to post this photo. Is the Gore machine gearing up?

Though we really could have used him in '04, at least the new, improved Al. How about Gore/Clinton?

Back after a week with this happy item...

Starving walrus babies adrift in the sea beacuse their ice homes melted.

Good Friday.

When can we start using the I-word?

Bush OK'd intelligence leaks to justify the war - who knows about Valerie Plame?

You know traffic is bad when....

I feel for everyone trapped on the 51 this morning. I was there. Here is a creative solution - on the left side the line of traffic is exiting using an express bus entry ramp that only runs at peak hours.

That's Hot! A Solar Oven

How easy is this - a solar oven from a reflective car shade? EVERY Phoenician has one. Weekend project! Just wish I had more time/inclination to bake.

Interesting Read for Those Feeling the Heat

http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/04/04/hope/

Is there hope? This was interesting but I am not overflowing with optimism. We're looking at hybrids but it's such a drop in a ginormous bucket. It's like recycling - I do it, as always, but, then what? We need leadership. Like ten years ago.

Did anyone else's hand go up when they read the part about keeping a crap job because of health care? Anyone?

Why be optimistic, wallowing in despair is such fun! When the world is running down, you make the best of what's still around.