[...] the lawyers who helped draft NAFTA inserted language making it possible for companies to also seek compensation when government regulations cause a dip in their future bottom line. [...]
Just how business-friendly is the provision? “They could be putting liquid plutonium in children’s food,” says [Bill] Moyers, quoting a trade lawyer’s advice to the Canadian [...]
Yes, SF Gate has a “weird news” section. I should probably stop reading it, but this story was too amusing not to comment on:
A man dashing across a lake on a customized personal watercraft at about 55 mph was killed in an apparent collision with a flying duck.
Words to live (or not) by: “Hey, watch this!”
Well, I don’t know about you, but after reading reports of George II’s pronouncementizings last night, I’m feeling sick again. I mean really — Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an “Axis Of Evil?” I’m with Joan Walsh on this one:
Watching the actual State of the Union speech Tuesday night, it was tempting [...]
Okay, that lasted for a few minutes. Now for some more heroes. Salon interviewed Frederick Wiseman, a filmmaker who has made a movie about domestic violence. He’s not the hero, although he does deserve credit for taking the subject on. The heroes, as I see it, are the women in shelter [...]
Today’s heroes are the band Chumbawumba, who sold the rights to one of their songs to General Motors for $100,000 — then turned around and gave the money to IndyMedia and CorpWatch. Excellent job, guys. Now if I could just get that damned refrain of “I get knocked down” out of my head.
After dinner, I sat down at the computer to check my email. My sweetie came in a few minutes later, fists on her hips. “Hey!” she said indignantly. “I turned that computer on! …that you purchased… and maintain!”
Well, what could *you* say to such an argument? I had some assigned reading [...]
Today’s weather forecast blithely states:
Hi 41° F, 5° C
Lo 34° F, 1° C
Cloudy
The astute reader will notice the complete lack of the word “snow.” It is, however, snowing. It was snowing a little bit when I got on my bike and rode half a mile down the street to lunch. It was [...]
Greg Knauss apparently has a spiritual weblog twin in dooce.com. Just the titles alone are worth a visit to the archive page:
Drunken Underpants Remodeling Again
A List of Lists I Need to Make And Three Possible Examples From Each To Make a Point
Things I Plan to Cook With My Newly Obtained Kitchen Aid That I’m [...]
On my work computer, Internet Explorer always refuses to display the source code for a page. I’ve tried to fix this before and hadn’t had any luck, but I remembered seeing something on their support site about it. So I searched for “view source” and got a lovely error message. Classic.
During intake, my doctor called me “medically uninteresting.” I think he just wasn’t paying enough attention.
As I parked the car, I saw a pair of black leather sneakers sitting on the curb. I got out and walked to the front door. There was a pair of black leather gloves on the second stair from the bottom. I looked up, expecting to see a naked cat-burglar on the [...]
Well, we did have snow, and while the stuff that fell in the middle of the day didn’t stick, it *did* start to stick as soon as the sun went down. My sweetie and I got all snazzed up for a party (seriously — I put on my kilt and her hair displayed evidence [...]
The stuff falling from the sky right now can’t decide whether to be light hail or heavy snow. I just hope it doesn’t stick to the ground.
So You’re An Environmentalist… Why Are You Still Eating Meat?
Tons of interesting factoids in this article (in most cases, I’ve simply copied and pasted here):
for each pound of beef produced by a cow, 4.8 pounds of grain, and 300 to 720 gallons of water (1 gallon=8.337 lbs) went into that cow.
According to the British group [...]
I’m going through a lot of old emails this evening, and I ran across the following thing I wrote back in September 1999:
Realising that I’m a big fat dopey-head has had a strange effect. There’s suddenly a great freedom in understanding that I am a fool. Fools are unafraid to speak what they see. They’re [...]
When Justin and I moved down to the Bay Area, we very nearly moved in next door to a friend of his who’s a dominatrix. (The funny thing is, when they’re not in persona, she and her boy are absolutely the cutest humans on the planet.) I remember her saying once that she’d [...]
Man, this is disappointing — I’d love to go on the Worst Day Of The Year Ride, but we’re going to see jugglers instead. It’s a hard life, I know.
Today I became a member of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance. Then, for good measure, I attended Mass on the way home. Man, that was FUN!
Poo. According to this,
A new study indicates that daily moderate consumption of alcohol, which has already been shown to help prevent heart disease and strokes, may also ward off Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia.
It’s too bad I don’t enjoy the effects of alcohol, or for that matter like the way most of [...]