The eco-friendly Christmas tree

Slate.com runs a piece on what is the best choice for the environmental-conscious consumer when it comes to Christmas trees. They look mainly at what materials are made in production and the amount of petroleum needed to transport trees. In their view, real trees narrowly edge out artificial trees. Of course, no trees or potted trees would be even better options.

For the last several years, we've gotten "sustainable" trees from the co-op. The trees are grown on a family farm just across the border in Iowa, near Decorah. (A couple hours' drive.) "Sustainable" in this context means no fertilizer and no mowing around the trees. This farm, as well as most tree farms, are sustainable in so much that they are renewable. Cut trees are replaced with newly planted trees.

• Slate's Green Lantern: Should I Buy a Fake Fir?

Also, the article notes that if you live in San Fransisco, you can rent a potted Christmas tree that will be retrieved after the holidays.

Muppet Moment: Beaker

Beaker belts...

Choice quotes

I listened to much of the Democrat Presidential debate yesterday. Two of my favorite remarks...

1. From Sen. Obama, when asked his priorities for his first year in office. The first was to order the Joint Chiefs to draw up a plan for, " in a responsible, careful way" withdrawing troops from Iraq. Number three was for a plan to extend health care coverage to all Americans. My favorite part:

"Number two, I'll call in my new attorney general to review every single executive order that's been issued by George Bush. And any of those that have undermined our Constitution or subverted our civil liberties are going to be reversed."

2. Sen. Clinton answered the same question and mirrored Obama's remarks. But my favorite part is emphasized below:

"I will review every executive order, rescind those that undermine the Constitution and betray the rule of law, and issue some, like, for example, not interfering with science and ending Bush's war on science."

Clinton also said she'd ask Congress to quickly resend her the bills Bush vetoed: stem cell research funding and children's health insurance program.

Community helpers

Meredith has been learning about "community helpers" at school. People like doctors, teachers, firefighters, and police officers.

Today's Star Tribune takes a look at an unnamed community helper who didn't seem to live up to the "helper" part of "community helper." The column, by Nick Coleman, is called Minneapolis cop dug a hole for himself in shovel dustup. I'm generally not a fan of Coleman's writing, but this piece does make you shake your head.

The general story is that a woman was trying to help dig out a bus stuck in the snow, full of people from the casino, at midnight. She spotted a shovel leaning against the police station and asked to borrow it for 15 minutes. The response she got was not so much in the "helpful department." The incident culminates with a citation and court date.

Profiles of offensiveness: ESPN.com

ESPN reportedly placed a readers' poll on their website last week with the following question:

What would you rather see?

• The Steelers beat the Patriots.
• Twins star Johan Santana be traded to a team other than the Red Sox.
• Kevin Garnett blow out his knee.

According to the Star Tribune, arbiters of good taste, the poll was gone by late Friday and ESPN put out a statement apologizing. They acknowledged using "poor judgment" with the question wishing a star athlete to blow out their knee, stating: "Obviously, we wish good health to all athletes."

Well, based on that question, I don't think it is obvious, but more of an open question.

Wishing a painful injury on anyone is twisted, much less someone who relies on their good health for their career. Even if the Packers make it all the way to the Super Bowl, I wouldn't wish Randy Moss of the Patriots an injury. This is despite my loathing of Mr. Moss, the New England Patriots, and the city of Boston.

And speaking of Boston, the above poll didn't give any good choices to fans of the Boston teams (New England Patriots, Boston Red Sox, and Boston Celtics respectively). I guess it was a topical question or something. Maybe it should have been "Which professional sports team in Boston do you loath the most?" As perfectly as they are playing this year, my pick would be the Patriots. But I do wish good health on all their players. I also wish that Tom Brady start throwing some bad interceptions. Hopefully, that's not too mean spirited.

Quote of the moment: Cuban Missile Crisis

Last week White House Press Secretary Dana Perino was asked about a comparison Vladimir Putin made between the current effort towards a European missile shield and the Cuban missile crisis. She did the job of the White House press secretary and stalled and gave a non-answer answer.

Then as a guest on NPR's Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, Dana Perino admitted she stalled because she didn't understand the reference.

"I really know nothing about the Cuban missile crisis. It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I'm pretty sure."

As a history junkie, I often am surprised at what intelligent people don't know about history. But really is it too much to expect the White House press secretary, who has spent a career in politics and journalism to know at least the outlines of the Cuban missile crisis? According to her Wikipedia profile, Perino was born 10 years after this event--but still. At some point in high school history didn't she have a test with a fill in the blank question to the effect of Q. ___________________ (3 words) occurred in 1962 in the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union after spy planes discovered nuclear missiles being built in a Caribbean nation within striking distance of the United States.

(Thanks to Salon.com's War Room blog for this quote.)

"Cute" headlines

It's a long standing tradition for newspapers to be clever with their headlines. I often bristle when they go too far into groaner territory--a frequent occurrance.

The Twin Cities Star Tribune is guilty of this trend as any other. Sometimes, their headlines cross from the lame territory to the offensive. This happens when their tongue-in-cheek headline seems to make light of a horrible situation.

Today's example comes from the disturbing random murders in Colorado of young people at a Christian missionary training campus. One victim was a Minnesota native. So, the illustrious Star Tribune puts the headline of the top lead of its website as Victims didn't have a prayer of a chance.

It appears as I am writing this, that they have changed the headline to 2 Colorado shootings, same gunman? Maybe an editor thought better. We'll see what goes in the hard copy tonight. In any case, I think it's a little sickening that someone at the Star Tribune would publish that headline in the first place.

Google supports alternative energy development

It seems like once a week we learn another way that Google is going to revolutionize the world. Whether it's making grants for the development of private space travel or supposedly taking over the cell phone market, their ambition is unconstrained.

One of the latest bits from Google is their goal to develop mass-scale alternative energy production that is cheaper than coal. Google's press release quotes Larry Page, Google co-founder and President of Products:

"Our goal is to produce one gigawatt of renewable energy capacity that is cheaper than coal. We are optimistic this can be done in years, not decades." (One gigawatt can power a city the size of San Francisco.)

Google will initially focus on solar thermal, wind power, and geothermal energy technologies. They will not be going at it alone, but hope to work with many partners. They are simply going to set the goal, pour "tens of millions" of dollars a year, and take some credit should they succeed.

I'm no expert on alternative energy technologies, but it sounds like a difficult goal in a short timeframe. A worthy goal all the same, I suppose. Imagine if they were able to develop one or a combination of the alternative energy sources into a large scale system that was cheaper than coal? Their focus is on technologies that can be replicated around the world. I was under the impression that geothermal energy is not a great possibility except for a small number of locals around the world. Then again, I'm not an expert on this stuff.

Last week, Bill Weihl, Google's "alternative energy czar," was interviewed on NPR's Science Friday

• Listen to Science Friday segment

Update II on Tuesday's quote

Again, the War Room blog at Salon.com posts the journalistic follow-up with a portion of today's press conference transcript.

Quote of the moment: Hillary Clinton

This quote about Hillary comes from Matt Taibbi, in his current Rollingstone article "The Battle for Iowa:"

"In person, Hillary sometimes comes across as a caricature of the modern career woman who's had to go too far to prove that she's tough enough to hang."

What do you think; fair or not?

Quote of the day: I hope he's lying

Update: It looks like I'm not the only one to find Bush's insistence of being ignorant on an important matter troubling. Salon.com's War Room blog asks:

What's worse -- the idea that George W. Bush continued to ratchet up his rhetoric on Iran after he was told in August or September that Iran may have halted its nuclear weapon program, or the idea that Bush was told then only that there was some kind of "new information" on Iran and didn't bother asking what that information might be?

The top story in the news today is the Bush administration's acknowledgment that Iran is not actively putting together nuclear weapons and Bush's press conference this morning. The national intelligence estimate (NIE) on Iran had been long delayed, presumably due to internal arguments over it's conclusions.

At the press conference this morning, Bush was asked why he was continuing the war-mongering remarks at Iran just weeks ago, as the NIE was being finalized. His response was he didn't know about the conclusion regarding Iran's not actively seeking nuclear weapons until last week. Another reporter followed up:

Q Mr. President, thank you. Just to follow, I understand what you're saying about when you were informed about the NIE. Are you saying at no point while the rhetoric was escalating, as "World War III" was making it into conversation, at no point nobody from your intelligence team or your administration was saying, maybe you want to back it down a little bit?

THE PRESIDENT: No, nobody ever told me that. Having said -- having laid that out, I still feel strongly that Iran is a danger. Nothing has changed in this NIE that says, okay, why don't we just stop worrying about it. Quite the contrary. I think the NIE makes it clear that Iran needs to be taken seriously as a threat to peace. My opinion hasn't changed.

This is a spectacular remark on so many fronts. The continuing insistence in light of evidence from his own administration shouldn't surprise anyone, but troubling all the same.

But what I think is most spectacular is the "No, nobody ever told me that." Huh? I hope and believe that he is lying here. As the intelligence community has been undoubtedly debating the conclusion regarding Iran's lack of a nuclear weapons program for many months, if not years. This isn't some random country we're talking about. This has been one of the big diplomatic focuses of this administration. And he just heard of this conclusion last week?

Certainly, it's not hard to believe that this president would lie to cover up another lie. "No, I really didn't know that the intelligence community is confident Iran hasn't been seeking nuclear weapons for four years when I was saying we were going to get into World War III." It kind of looks bad.

But, couldn't one say it looks worse that our president (and the rest of the administration) was pursuing a key foreign policy track based on incredibly false assumptions? (Hmmm, sounds familiar...) Oh wait, this incredible reversal from the intelligence community doesn't change a thing. He tells us right away, "My opinion hasn't changed." We can't let pesky facts get in our way. Especially when they may interfere with war and the threat of war.

Totalitarianism Today

Today, in the totalitarianism versus democracy match, we have a tie with single victories each.

• Chavez Loses Constitutional Vote - Washington Post, Dec 3, 2007

From the article:

President Hugo Chavez suffered a stinging defeat in a vote on constitutional changes that would have let him run for re-election indefinitely, the chief of National Electoral Council said Monday.

• Russian Voters Turn Out for Putin - Washington Post, Dec 3, 2007

From the article:

"Our result shows that voters gave their support not only to United Russia, but also to the course set by Vladimir Putin," Boris Gryzlov, speaker of the outgoing Duma and the head of United Russia, said on Russian television. "The elections were a referendum on Putin, and we can say he has won the first round."

Although 60 percent represents a major victory, it was still less than some in United Russia had expected and may leave the party with only marginally more seats in the next 450-seat parliament, according to early projections. But that would still be enough to change the constitution at will.

The presidential election will be held March 2, and the candidate Putin endorses is expected to sweep to victory. But the winner's power is likely to be constrained by Putin's enduring influence. Putin is constitutionally barred from serving three consecutive terms, but he could return in 2012, or sooner if the next president were to resign early. He has not said what role he will assume next year or whether he will seek to return to the presidency.