Greil Marcus on his book "The Shape of Things to Come"

Best interview ever by Mark Molero. And that is saying a lot!! Watch this!

McDonalds in China: "McDonalds was a more formal place than for Americans"

This Brave Nation Video: Anthony Romero and Ava Lowery

Mark Molero's Alcove Interview with Greil Marcus on his new book "The Shape of Things to Come" How does prophecy affect us? How does it affect the way we live our lives?

Foreign Policy Mag: The World's Top Twenty Intellectuals: How many do you know of?

Arianna Huffington interview on The Alcove with Mark Molaro

Tom Hayden and Naomi Klein in This Brave Nation

Pharyngula: Evolutionary Biologist and the scourge of Young Earthers, PZ Myers has Carnival of the Liberals: Take 67 and other links in Catching up on Old News

At Largely: Seymour Hersh on Covert Action in Iran

Leadville 100 Training weekend

Today John Courtney and I ran from Twin Lakes to Winfield and back over Hope Pass, about 20 miles. The "official" Leadville Training Weekend ran from Winfield to Hope Pass and returned to Winfield because there was "too much snow" on the north slopes of Hope Pass. We say it wasn't so bad....


John Courtney and last year's winner of the Leadville Trail 100, Anton Krupicka. Anton was returning from the Twin Lakes side for his second ascent of Hope Pass as we came down Hope Pass for the second time....

George Carlin at the Tonight Show (1966)

Transitional Fossils II

Transitional Fossils I - NEW

Transitional Fossils I

Ran to the summit of Pikes Peak this morning before work. Saw five bighorn sheep. 18 miles running starting at 3 A.M.

14 June, Hatfield-McCoy Marathon

Getting from Colorado to the race start in Williamson, WV was at least as tiring as the actual running of the race. With plane tickets into Charleston, WV @ $650 I finally settled on spending 50,000 of my Skymiles to get there. When I arrived at the COS airport Friday morning at 0700 I learned the first leg to Chicago (ORD) was delayed four hours and had to change to a flight to DED then ORD. In ORD the next flight kept getting delayed until finally it loaded up five hours after my arrival, after which we sat on the tarmac for a couple more hours due to thunderstorms all up and down the east coast. I finally arrived at Charleston at 7:30 PM, picked up a rental car (which I had mistakenly reserved for the day before--which cost me $65 for the extra day -- I'll never use Hotwire again), and drove frantically to Williamson to make the 9 PM deadline for packet pickup. Made it with five minutes to spare and they still gave me a wonderful pasta dinner that was included with the entry fee.

Next morning the forecast was for thunderstorms, but they didn't materialize and I only got rained on for the last two miles and by that time it was a welcome relief from the humidity.

The course was on lush green back country roads with minimal traffic. The crux of the race was an 850' hill that climbed from mile 7.5 to mile 8.5 after which we promptly lost all the elevation we had gained in about a mile and a half. At the half-way point we crossed the river and ran into a small village and turned around and came back over the river and continued the course along the Kentucky side of the river. Here I was able to see everyone from the race leader to those as far as four minutes behind me. I was in fifth at this point. I ran alone all the way to about mile 24 when I heard what I thought was a wild boar snorting in the woods. When I looked back it turned out to be a middle-aged runner. I talked myself into thinking he was in his mid-40's as he trotted past me. Later I found out he was 55! I won my age group (50-54) though. 6th overall.

Big Oil Fuels John McCain's Straight Talk Express

Economist.com: Its Mine I Tell You: Mankind’s inner chimpanzee refuses to let go. This matters to everything from economics to law

Spencer Ackerman: Nixonland: Oh My, He's so Gangster

WaPost: Bill McKibben: End of the Open Road: The Land of the Perpetual Frontier Meets $4-a-Gallon Gas

Alternet: Eat Shit and Die: Contaminated Veggies Are the Meat Industry’s Fault

Google Video: The Fourth World War

My brother Doug blogs on HuffPo: Gardasil or Guard your Girls

New World Order - BLACKWATER : military industrial complex

The Cost of War

Some Links from your browsing pleasure...

Chris Floyd says: Torturegate: Truth, but no Consequences

Raw Story: Bush "War Crimes Conference" to convene in Mass., plan prosecution of administration officials

Sanity from Time Mag: Will more Oil Drilling Mean Cheaper Gas? short answer, no

DailyKos: Sacrificing ANWR for 3.5 cents a gallon, and Too Little, Too Late


UK's The Herald: Are we Ready for this Financial Storm?
Is Peak Oil already affecting the Market?

Robert Hirsch, author of 2005 Pentagon Report on Peak Oil, says: Energy Future: A Period of Significant Discomfort

Tonight I watched a bit of C-Span testimony on the ignominious torture hearings by the House Judicial Committee. The honorable Lawrence Wilkerson, a true patriot, testified. One statement he gave resonated to the highest mountaintop by the name of Pikes behind my humble dwelling and thence assuredly reverberated across the plains from eastern Colorado all the way to the den of iniquity in D.C. That is, America is only an idea. If we as a nation countenance torture and strip away our rights in the name of "fighting terrorism" then the terrorist have won. America as an idea. It is assuredly not the buildings and the concrete and wheat fields. America is an ideal. The "terrorists" achieve victory when they extinguish the idea that was America. I fear they have already succeeded....

The Impossible Dream -- Man of La Mancha

Democracy Now!: Citing Iraq War, Renowned Attorney Vincent Bugliosi Seeks “The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder”

General Taguba, who probed Abu Ghraib says Bush officials committed war crimes... And then there is this 148-page report from Physicians for Human Rights: Broken Laws, Broken Lives: Medical Evidence of Torture by US Personnel and Its Impact. Shame, shame Amerika. Shame, shame Bush enablers and Bush sycophants. The lowest rung of Hell is what you deserve.

Mexico City Protest (naked)

Rollingstone: Matt Taibbi: McCain's Playbook: Hate, Fear and Caveman Politics

IMPEACH

Faux Christians

Institute for Critical Animal Studies Be sure and check out the on-line Journal for elegant essays like this one: Prairie Wolf

The Atlantic: Is Google making us Stupid?

Mark Lynas writes for the Guardian: Climate Chaos is Inevitable: We can only avert Oblivion. Mark Lynas wrote "6 Degrees Warmer" which was made into a compelling National Geographic documentary. Mark blogs here.

Tom Paine's Corner: Evolve or Die: Can we shed our Moral Primitivism before it's too late?

The Big Picture (on Capital Markets and market meltdowns)

The Independent: Nature Laid Waste: The Destruction of Africa The massive scale of environmental devastation across the continent has been fully revealed for the first time in an atlas compiled by UN geographers.

EXPLOSIVE: CIA Insider: CIA Blackmailed Officials So "Bush Family" Could Profit From War

Orion Mag: From the Faraway Nearby: Revolutions per Minute: Radical transformation is all around us

by Rebecca Solnit

Youtube: Mark Molero interviews Byron Hurt on his film, "Hip Hop: Beyond Beats and Rhymes"

Very refreshing interview of a complex film maker by the always sensitive Mark Molero

Nassim Nicholas Taleb: the prophet of boom and doom

Larisa Alexandrovna on HuffPo speaks out on the 35 articles of Impeachment read last night on the House floor by one of the only patriots left standing in this sorry excuse for a nation: The Truth Gagged and Hidden

Very important book is available as a free PDF document:

Plan B Version 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization by Lester R. Brown

I bought a copy of the paperback and also put it on my Kindle where I'm currently reading it. Lots of facts I was not aware of. Highly recommended. Knowledge is power.

Dennis Kucinich is reading 35 articles of Impeachment of George W. Bush live on C-Span into the Congressional Record. It is very edifying. This is living history. Go Dennis!

James Howard Kunstler interviewed on his new book, "A World Made by Hand", about a post-peak oil world.

Looks like a good web site to keep checking back on: Political Attack Truth-O-Meter

The Dog that Didn't Bark

Despite every Western media outlet which has mentioned PM Nour al-Maliki's two day trip to Tehran including a claim that he would confront Iran over alleged meddling in Iraq, public statements from Maliki's office at the close of the visit are utterly devoid of any mention of the issue. Instead, Maliki has gone out of his way to assure the Iranians that his country won't be used for an attack on theirs and the Iranians for their part have said that they consider a peaceful Iraq to be essential to their own security.

That's really not all that surprising, although you wouldn't think so from reading Bush administration pronouncements or mainstream media stenographic repetition of the administration's talking points. When push comes to shove, the real story is that the Iraqi faction most backed by Iran is the Iraqi government - and that Sadr is a looser cannon who is far less under Iran's control.

And despite the US "suspecting" that every captured Shiite arms dealer or insurgent is part of those "Iranian-backed special groups", often purely on the circular argument that they're Shiite, there's evidence to suggest that a more of the weaponry washing around Iraq was "mislaid" from US-provided stockpiles than came from Iran. In neither case. of course, does the presence of black market entrepreneurs selling that country's weaponry to insurgents prove that the country's government is deliberately arming insurgents.

Death and Salvation on the Salton Sea

Asimov's Science Fiction Magazine: Robert Silverberg: Reflections: The Death of Gallanium (We are running out of more than oil)

DailyKos: Global Warming 101: A Short Reading list (This will give you a good grounding in facts for all the global deniers in your life)

You really need to read this piece from the London Review of Books concerning the state of affairs in the Gaza Strip.

It's Solar Power's time to shine

John McCain (aka McSame) is the Lime Green Monster

Burma's Secret War

NPR: Paul Polak, founder of International Development Enterprises, a non-profit organization that aids poor communities in the developing world is Fighting Poverty in his own way

More Good News!

U.S. Housing Industry: A Monument to Futility

Crude Oil Prices set to Double and Double Again!

U.S. Economy in Deflationary Death Spiral

Larisa Alexandrovna in a Buzzflash interview on Siegelman, Minor, Diaz... READ IT. It is a Attorneygate in a nutshell. If you haven't understood the Don Siegelman witch hunt this is your opportunity to get the skinny.

At-Largely reports on Blackwater's purchase of a fighter-bomber from Brazil, that will set them up with a no-bid contract to train Iraqis who are being herded into purchasing eight of them.

retired Lt Gen William Odom, passionate and eloquent critic of Bushevism, is dead. Here is a testimony on his legacy from NPR.

Winter Soldiers on the Hill

Veterans of the Iraq War have finally testified before Congress about the violence against civilians, torture, and lax rules of engagement. But their larger campaign -- convincing other soldiers to oppose this war -- is ongoing.

Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of the Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable ... a book I just finished listening to on audio CD, in a wide-ranging interview has a harsh assessment of Bankers, Economists, and the Fed.

Kevin Phillips, author of American Theocracy and now Bad Money (a book I am currently reading) lays into the Fed with this HuffPo piece: Bernanke Panky

The Oil Drum has a review of Dmitry Orlov's Book--Reinventing Collapse: The Soviet Example and American Prospects. This review is the one that convinced me to go ahead and buy a copy though.

Frontline documentary, Sick Around the World goes a long way to exposing the shortcomings of the U.S. healthcare system. (You can watch it on line)

Dr. Housing Bubble: How I learned to love SoCal and forget the Housing Bubble

New sacreligious Manga out of Japan: Let's Bible!

Barr Trail in Winter Part II

The second part of my "documentary" on running the Barr Trail in winter. This one takes us from no-name creek to Barr Camp at 10,200' elevation.