Really.  I am not making this up.  

It was very unusual to have a lady barber those days.  

That lady was a pioneer. Like many pioneers, she was a person of strong opinions.

I lied, of course.  I had no intention of becoming a martyr.  

ARENA, n.
   In politics, an imaginary rat-pit in which the statesman wrestles with his record.

ALLEGIANCE, n.

       This thing Allegiance, as I suppose,
       Is a ring fitted in the subject's nose,
       Whereby that organ is kept rightly pointed
       To smell the sweetness of the Lord's anointed.

"We need nukes," shout the wingers.

"So do we," report the terrorists.

"What have you got against me?" asks Mother Earth.

Fri Aug 8, 2008 7:56pm BST

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Interior Department said Friday it raised a record $28.2 million this week from leasing federal lands to companies for developing geothermal energy resources...

The highest bid for a parcel came from Standard Steam Trust LLC, which paid $3.2 million for a 3,560-acre parcel, while Magma Energy US Corp paid $6.9 million for three parcels offered as a block at $585 per acre...

http://uk.reuters.com/...

Magma Energy???  Man oh man, does that bring back memories.  A convoluted history for anybody interested for some odd reason is here.

Aware of the urgent to find more power and the business community's concerns, President Mwai Kibaki [of Kenya] announced in late June a new plan to produce an extra 2,000 megawatts within 10 years, with 85 percent of the surge coming from geothermal plants.

A megawatt of geothermal-produced electricity costs around three million dollars, 30 percent more than what coal-powered plants can offer.

http://afp.google.com/...

Kinda nice though to have the fuel for free.  At least some think so.  Others say the geothermal plants cost less to build than coal- burning plants.

MIT graduate student researches Warm Springs geothermal potential

Since coming online in 2006, Chena's geothermal power plant has provided not only much-needed electricity—which previously came from large-scale diesel generators—but also an increase in tourist dollars.

In addition to reducing the cost of power from 30 cents per kilowatt hour (kWh) to 5 cents, the innovative renewable energy project heats 44 buildings, operates two greenhouses and keeps the Aurora Ice Museum frozen year-round.

See here.

Pictures we took of Fandango Pass in the northeastern corner of California are not yet available so we used some that were much better anyway that can be found here.

  O I met with Napper Tandy, and he took me by the hand
   And he asked 'How's poor old Ireland, and how does she stand?'
   She's the most distressful country this world has yet to see
   For they're hangin' men and women there for wearin' o' the green

   When law can stop the blades of grass from growin' as they grow,
   And when the leaves in summer time, their colours dare not show,
   Then I too will change the colour I wear in my caubeen,
   But 'till that day, praise God, I'll stick to wearin' o' the green.

The law may not stop the blades of grass from growing, but sun-worhiping environmentalists and their corporate allies might.

Nicaragua's 'Children of the Dump'

They walk naked through clouds of flies, their bodies covered with open sores.

They fend for themselves, competing with dogs, cattle and goats for the tastiest morsels of garbage.

They not only seek scraps of food to eat, but trash to sell.

Eight hundred children under the age of 5 scavenge a miserable existence in Chinandega, Nicaragua.

They are the "Children of the Dump."

That and other stories for your enjoyment.

Sapphire’s goal is to be the world’s leading producer of renewable petrochemical products.

"Renewable petrochemical products?"  What new language do you speak, friend?

Mayfield is widely regarded as the world’s leader in the creation of transgenic algae. Briggs, who oversaw the sequencing of the rice genome, is a pioneer in the development of genetically modified crops.

Uh oh!  Dr. Frankenstein raises his loathsome specter on an innocent world.  If that doesn't make organic farmers quake, nothing will.

An excellent blogger in Utah said he had never talked to a Mormon that was not a Republican.  Therefore LaRocco started his campaign for senator from Idaho with a 36% deficit - the percentage of Idahoans who are Mormons.

Meet some, friend.

Frankly I get a queasy feeling visiting a site like MormonDemocrats as if I am intruding on people discussing their affairs and not mine.  Just a feeling but I won't be bookmarking the site and probably won't be back.  

Some items found here might be of general interest and hope.  Have faith. :-)

WWF: Baltic Sea ecosystem is on the verge of destruction

Isn't one Dead Sea sufficient?

The Dead Sea is a landlocked desert sea but the Baltic Sea is only one fragment of the entire system of oceans of our planet.

How exactly does one part die and not affect the whole?

The Lou Dobbsian paradise of St. Kitts and Nevis is doing Lou proud.  The aboriginal Kalinago won't be sneaking back in since they were long ago exterminated.  Not sure Lou would approve of the descendants of African slaves now being the vast majority of the population but humans have limited power - even Lou Dobbs.

The smallest nation in the Americas plans on being real big in energy.

I just posted the following on a message board in answer to dire word on global warming.

Or maybe that should be: "Live Free On Somebody Else's Dime."

Well maybe only Berlin, NH, has a hankering for that motto.  

And some others.

This is a diary about the rather astonishing fact that greens and some not-so-greens in the U.S. talk endlessly about abstruse technologies that may save the planet in the future while the most available and most proficient provider even now of low-tech clean, green energy is generally ignored.

Never forget that the DOE is currently being run by the same environmentalists who have been doing such a bang-up (so to speak) job in Iraq.

Remember when we Americans prided ourselves on being a can-do country?

Now it is mostly can't do - at least when it comes to clean energy.

This is a fascinating look at the rapid growth of geothermal power in a country with minimal resources.

Life has never been easy for Unangans, an indigenous people of the Aleutians.

Recent archaeological investigation in the Unalaska area provides evidence that the Unangan (the People of the passes, according to linguist Moses Dirks) have inhabited the Aleutian Islands for at least nine thousand years.

The last thousand years seem to have been the worst.