If You're Not Outraged, You're Not Paying Attention...

So Gonzales has resigned--good.

Now, will the Senate show that they have the balls/ovaries/etc to stand up to whatever shrivelled fruit from rotten branches the President would appoint in his place?

snowwy suggests reading this political blog entry from Salon, which suggests, in part, writing to one's Senators and encouraging them to have a pair, already.

People of California, in case you were not previously aware, your Senators' reproduction-oriented attack organs are ovaries. Specifically, the ovaries of Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer. The Madame Senators have e-mail forms: Feinstein | Boxer--paper mail counts for more, obviously, but anything beats nothing.

[Alternately, hey, if you want them to confirm whoever Bush would like (CNN was betting on Chertoff), write and say that. I respect strongly-held opinions right up until they state there's no place for mine.]

Once you're done pointing this out to them, write a second, separate message about other issues that come to mind--I'm fond of the environment, but whatever's your fancy, really--however, keep your message short, focussed, and to the point.

People not of California, yet of the Untied States, you may use the Senate's website to find your Senators, and pester them in whatever way suits.

Enjoy!

-- Lorrie

[teal-party] News Round-Up

When Fortune magazine is pointing up The Trouble with the Bees, you know it's bad.

Fortune: Flight of the Honeybees

And, as always when talking about CCD, it's important to mention these guys from Penn State, the least-alarmist clearinghouse of information on CCD, from the people actually doing the research on the problem.

---

There are a lot of reasons not to use anti-bacterial soap and other products:

• It gets into the water, and kills things: SF Chronical Their source: the paper from the Environmental Working Group.


• Regular soap kills bacteria just as well at preventing infection disease and killing bacteria.


• It combines with water and sunlight to make--in brief--Things You Do Not Want. (when I think a paper is serious egghead stuff, it really is)


• It may contribute to breeding resistant bacteria--or may not.

Mostly, though, I'm agin' it because it slides right through the sewage treatment plant and out into the bay and ocean.

---

But speaking of Things the Ocean Does Not Want, here's a few:

• Has this gone far enough around yet? I admit, I'm rather obligated to point out that flushing cat litter kills sea otters--also in a semi-digested version of the same data from TIME magazine. In California, we've passed a law to require a notice on all bags of cat litter to please not flush same, but who reads the kitty litter bag--and I would not be surprised in the least to hear that it's not just sea otters, it's just that they're endangered so we're extra fussy here.


• Let's talk about the North Pacific Gyre. Plastic doesn't break down into its component parts, it breaks into smaller pieces of plastic, which remain inedible until some bright bacterium evolves into eating the (several kinds of) stuff.

---

Well, that was all thoroughly depressing. I shall post something more cheerful forthwith, still in an environmental vein.

-- Lorrie

Total Fluff: HEDGEHOGS! YAY!

Okay, to offset that last platter of bitter enviornmental tidbits, and before I mention what I've been up to in this regard recently...

--I shall now have a moment of wholly undeserved SQUEE! about icklebabyhedgies.

How cute? Devastatingly cute. I was led here by sites that included, but did not start with, CuteOverload.

In short: YOU CANNOT HANDLE THE CUTE! At least, not unprepared. Here, I will give you a taste, that you may steel yourself...



-- Lorrie