Last Action Hero ?

Scharzie ... saving the world again... Are the USA finally starting to wake up, and realizing the desastrous effect of their energy politics ?

• Al Gore is travelling the world with his presentation about Global Warming, and a movie "An inconvenient truth" relates it. Former Vice President Al Gore called the 19th Septmber 2006, for a popular movement in the United States to seek an “immediate freeze” inheat-trapping smokestack and tailpipe gases linked by most scientists to global warming.
  See official website of the film.
  Basically the message, is we need to do (stop) something now and massively, because it's just in term of month/week you can count, until we reach a non return point in the quantity of CO2 emmitted in the atmosphere.
  
• As written by Daniel AKST in the New York Times (17th September 2006), any drop in the oil prices are not a good news, it's definitely a bad news as it does not force people to change the way they use their car.
  I quote: "[...] You figure cheaper oil would boost economic growth while slashing the income of such lovable oil exporters as Iran? Don’t kid yourself. Anything that reinforces the role of fossil fuels — particularly oil — as the industrial world’s primary energy source is bad, not good. Anything that prolongs the life of the internal combustion engine is a negative, not a positive. Anything that makes it cheaper to pump greenhouse gases into the atmosphere is cause for mourning rather than celebration.
  What we need is not lower oil prices but higher ones — significantly higher, enough to deter consumption and make us look seriously at alternatives."
• California is suing 5 major automakers, for their contribution to the Global Warming (announced this 21st September 2006). It's a very capitalistic and american view, suing a company to inforce measures that will benefit the society, I hope it will turn better than the case against the tobacco (It has been revealed that cigarettes makers have increased in the USA, the level of nicotine in their products).
• And still in the NY Times, THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN, realized that as "dumb as it can be", USA would rather power anti-Americans with its energy purchases than promote antipoverty.
  
• California which already the state which the most active in term of energy economy [see NYT article], will be the first state to inforce a law which follow Kyoto. Already 42% of the electricity produced by California (via Nuclear and Hydro plants) does not produce greenhouse gases, compared to the 71% of the USA. Unless the rest of the USA, which has seen a more than 50% increase in the annual electricity use by person since the 70s, California, has pretty much the same consumption per inhabitant.
  So Mr Universe/Terminator has signed which imposed a control on carbon dioxide emission... basically the Kyoto protocol, DoubleU has refused to sign...
  

Sounds good news, I must admit the capitalism has a very flexible approach to problem, by simplifying them, in term of cost (aka money)...
On the other hand, people still drive big SUV and the Top Gear presenter R.Hammond crashed a car at more than 300mph during the recording of the show. And here in Limerick, the city did not take part in the car free day like many european cities.
More worrying these doomsday seeker, holy bible fervent lovers, who judges that polluting is good because it make closer the divine doomsday. I've seen this very frightening documentary by Tony Robinson, (yes Baldrick in Black Adder, but also he presented an interesting documentary about the DaVinci Code). So in the documentary called "Doomsday code", Tony followed the american fundamentalist catholics, and the way they are influencing (Bush administration) politics in the goal to bring nearer the end of the world. For example, they are financing the israel occupation of some Palestinian lands, so all jews can be re-installed in Israel, and this will allow the christ to ressurect.

Here 10 things you can do to improve your impact on global warming [PDF] :
- Replace your light with fluorescent carbon bulb (reduce by 60% the electricity consumed)
- Drive less (walk, use a bicycle instead)
- Recycle more
- Check your tyres (if your tyres are not at the correct pressure, you increase your gasoline consumption).
- Use less hot water
- Avoid products withe lots of packaging (reduce garbage). And consume more bio products.
- Adjust your thermostat in winter and summer.
- Plant a Tree
- Turn off electrical/electronic devices when not in used.

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In the meantime, the list of movies I won't able to see in Limerick is becoming bigger and bigger:
- Volver (Pedro Almodovar)
- Inland Empire (D.Lynch)
- Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola)
- Avida (B.Delepine/Gustave DeKervern)
- Nausicae (H.Miyazaki, Ghibli studios) [Fan Website: nausica.net]
- An unconenient truth

But Good surprise, "Scanner Darkly" [French critic] will be displayed at the Omniplex thursday 28th September 2006. And I've just seen "Clerks 2" [official website ] almost 10 years after I've seen the brilliant first movie by Kevin Smith, in the amphitheater of the University of Lettres of Clermont-Ferrand. Nice movie, loads of laugh, with less discussion about Star Wars ( the only trilogy) and a bit more about the sexuality of the hobbits...

Souvenir

I've just uploaded some old photos to Flickr, it's been a long time since I've done some serious hill walking like when these photos has been taken (2004, Vercors, France)

And even in France you can be lost in fog:

I remember also, the grenoble nights....

What about a Rhum, in the Barberousse (3 rue Bayard) ? A pint of guiness in the O'Callaghan ? Or a bit of latin dance in the Loco Mosquito. ? Or just a simple picon in some traditional atmosphere like de St Christophe.

And finally, congratulations to Laure for her big news.

Back to...

Parents gone, I am back to my old routine...including pub ... does not really mean I've stopped going during their stay, as it's a bit of a nonsense to visit Ireland without spending some time to the pub... (should I've said in the pub ?... only French can understand that question if they think haircut ...).

And it's also back to school, not that I am concerned, except for the heavy traffic in Limerick.

Few notes, after reading a dutch story in the New York Times [In the Netherlands, Life Runs on 2 Wheels (Sometimes 3)], I've been more and more interested in the past week into: Recumbent bicycle (horizontal bicycle), and Velomobile.
And very interesting story, about how in 1934, the UCI ruled that these kind of vehicule were not bicycle and therefore forbidden in any cycle competition.
The amazing fact is the world speed record is: 130.36 km/h , set by Sam Whittingham of Canada on a recumbent bicycle (in 2006, officialised by International Human Powered Vehicle Association ) , and the hour record (same guy) with this bike is: 85.4 km.
In order to compare, the records recognized by UCI (upright bicycle) are: speed = 82.53 km/h (1986), and hour record = 49.700 km.
It's more likely, that without this decision of the UCI, the recumbent bicycle would have been widespread... and you can even seen them on water.

I especially like the trikes by Greenspeed. And I should really start using my bike again for my journeys to work.

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Others news, Limerick has a new low has shown in the RTE program PRIME TIME [you can watch the program on the web].
I've read what happen in a article called Petrol Bomb Outrage, the Limerick Post : 2 children (4 and 6) have been severly burned during the arson attack of youngs against Garda police car in the Moyross area... Very sad and frigthening story.
An horrific recent petrol bombing of a car with two young children inside, violence flared on the 8th & 9th of September when Gardai were ambushed by a group of at least 30 youths in the Delmege Park/Pineview gardens area. Petrol bombs had been prepared in advance of the Gardai arriving and 2 squad cars were damaged.

___

If after watching Prime Time, you still want to come live in Ireland, here two very useful sites:

• Maison des Francais a l'Etranger (mfe), the forums are full of informations.
• http://assistanatenirlande.hautetfort.com/[French]

And fortunatley there is also nice pubs in Limerick.

___

And in the rest of the world:

• Sarko has a new friend W (NYTimes, Blog Big Picture [Fr])
• Jospin reviens (Arte Radio [Fr])
• the number of muslims immigrating in the USA is rising (NY Times), after 9/11, I quote the article: "In 2005, more people from Muslim countries became legal permanent United States residents — nearly 96,000 — than in any year in the previous two decades."
• the website FaceBook touch the limit of the personal data sharing and blogging (NYTimes article, BBC article). The latest functionality of this personal webpage website, (you can read the apologizes of FaceBook on his blog), was feeding and redistributing to your contact community any change on webpage/blog/list of friend ... etc ... resulting in user complaint about respect of privacy.
• Some sympathetic feminist blogs: Bad Feminist, Pseudo-Adrienne, F-Words....
• And in the Irish news, a survey found that 1 in 8 women mistakenly believe it's not possible to get pregnant the first time they have sex. The TNS MRBI survey also found that 6%of women wrongly assume the pill offers some protection against sexually transmitted diseases.

___

Politic...

• The US commission on the reason of the IRAQ war has published the phase 2 of it's report.

From page 52:

Conclusion1: Postwar finding do not support the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) judgement that Iraq was reconstituing its nuclear weapons program.

Idem for the Bilogical Weapons, and chemical weapons (no evidence). And I let you read about the relationship between Iraq and terrorist...
Remind some movie by Mikael Moore.... Fahrenheit 9/11 (2004)

• China (from NY-Times), decided to restrict a "bit" more the diffusion of foreign news in the country. [article in NY Times]

• In France, people start racing for the next presidential election. Same in Ireland and GB.
  Everything in order.
  

Aran Island [2]

Friday.

Sunset on Lahinch Beach (Co Clare)

Finish the day in a pub... (Lahinch Co Clare)

Saturday Aran Island biking all day

Finding some treasure...

And finally seeing some Galway's Hooker ... racing

I think my parents have been happy with this trip to Inis Mor...

France 3 - Italy 1

Good start fro France in their qualification for the Euro 2008, not only they won, but with style !

Random surfing, causing random babbling....

• [FR] Anyway, interesting post yesterday in Transnets, about the fact that comanies uctually use the creativity, the brain of internet users to create contents, to sort data (yourtube, tags on flickr). There is a real work done, manual indexation, real creation (lego movie) by all internet user.
  And all this work, is it an intellectul property ? How is it protected, used ?
  
  The writer has an interesting blog: humains-associes.org , promoting some Netiquette on the web.
• [FR] Arte Radio, at a time where everybody's going back to school, offers a great insight on all the hesitation, question a teenager faces when it comes to orientation, choose a path in school.
• Gordon Ramsay [TV: Hell's Kitchen, Ramsay's kitchen Nightmare, the F World], in the New York Times, [article] talks about his experience in France and it's dream of coming back there to install a restaurant. I had to say I quite agree about the french arrogance, I would love to see that restaurant. Here's the quote:
  

  “I’d love to go back to Paris, to be honest,” he said. “You know how arrogant the French are — extraordinary. They make us all look so normal. I got such abuse there, I was like a tortured child. So the idea is to go back to Paris, staff the restaurant all with English and call it Roast Beef!”

• As published in Nature, the plancton in the seas does not seem to absorb as much CO2 as initially thought [article ; pdf ]... bad for our future, you can also learn what some scientist wants to fertilize the plancton, increase its growth so it can absorb all the CO2 created by human activities. Unfortunately at the same time, it seems that the global warning, is favorising the natural release of the CO2 trapped in european grounds [peat].
• According to an european study, Ireland is the country were adult are drunk more often (drinking more than 5 pint in one night more than once a month), and the young are not better 32% of the teenager get drunk more than three times a month (33% for the boys and 31% for the girls). Ireland is the third in Europe, by Alcohol consumption (15 pure alcohol consumed per adult each year in average). No wonder, why unlike the rest of Europe were alcohol consumption decline, here it has progressed by 25% between 1995 and 2005.
  

• Last monday, my parents, came for the first time in Ireland, landing in Dublin, they arrived in Bunratty tuesday.

Then we headed to their accomodation in Lahinch (Co Clare), with its wonderful beach.

There is nothing like finishing, the day in the Lahinch beach under the falling sun, (may be adding a guinness).

• Quotation of the day:

"Reality is what remains, when you stop believing in it."
Philip. Kindred. Dick

Crocodile Hunter

Crocodile Hunter (Steve Irwin) is dead as announced by the BBC, killed by one of the least dangerous creature he used to deal with...badly tasted fun. As a result, the article about Stingray in wikipedia, has received numerous edits upon the death, leading the edition of page to be disabled (due to vandalism).

If you look the discussion pages, you'll see the bad (subjectivity, ego... ) and the good (reactivity) of the wiki concept.

He'll be sadly and badly missed, as he was great to present and teach worldwide how to respect and protect wildlife.

Is it possible for a community, to create a content, meaningful and objective as a whole group, it's also the question asked by Pisani on his blog [French], he talks about a tentative of journalistic collective writting.

In the meantime, you can always try to build a Potato Gun as described in this article in the Whasington Post.
Here the principle of the gun on the How Stuff Work website: Spud gun Technology.
Interesting, I've seen that used in MythBusters (brilliant tv show on discovery channel), and also for some battle in ScrapHeap Challenge.

And so simple, you just need a PVC tube, some fuel ( any exploding gas ).... and a potato...
Science can be so fun :-P

And while american rednecks play with their potato gun, French policeman are being equiped with Taser, according to the french newspaper Le Monde, in an article called "the gun which electrify the police" ( i love tthe wordplay on the title), the taser gun has been successfully used on an old French legionnary threatening to use a gun, one mad man on the rooth of a railway station and a 13 year girl trying to kill herself with a kitchen knife ( all in France, near Lyon). For your information, in the USA, the taser gun is suspected to have already killed more than 150 people (152 to this date since 2001, according to Amnesty International).

For the news in Ireland... Cork did not manage to conquer their third All hurling Crown in a row, has they have been stopped by a fantastic Kilkenny. And I am still wondering after seeing the movie "Les Poupees Russes", how many dolls I'll have to open ......

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