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Let's get the international news out of the way: Killings in Israel. Killings in Saudi Arabia. Prisoner abuse in Iraq. All the troops killed in Iraq. The return of the Republican Guard.

The politics of catastrophe..

Antonin Scalia:

"When I worked for him, he had a set of principles, and those principles led to principled results, which were sometimes conservative and sometimes liberal," said Lawrence Lessig, a law professor at Stanford who was also a law clerk to Justice Scalia. "I don't understand anymore how his jurisprudence follows from his principles."

It might be worth noting that Lessig recently argued Eldred v. Ashcroft before the Supreme Court, and Scalia was among the seven justices who decided against him.

Five years of drought in the American West may be not an aberration but a return to normal.

The Long Island Power Authority plans to put a few dozen 425-foot windmills off Jones Beach. The paper edition of this article is accompanied by a lovely photo of windmills off the coast of Ireland. Never mind the clean energy, I just think offshore windmills are gorgeous.

Comments

[greyaenigma.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I clicked through the windmill link -- bigger than the Statue of Liberty!

Still, there's a deep cynical part of me that's wondering when they're going to find the downside to windmills. Causes dizziness in flying fish or something. Still, it's a cool idea.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Well, they do kill birds (http://www.mindfully.org/Energy/Windmills-Eat-Birds.htm). But, well, what doesn't?

[randomdreams.livejournal.com]

I also love big windmill installations. There's a fairly large set on the south point of the island of Hawaii -- the southernmost point in the US -- that's gorgeous, and there must have been 500 or more in the new installation I saw in Wyoming on my last trip to Seattle. They make the neatest noise, and the new big monster 200 meter tall ones spin slowly enough that it reduces the bird mortality factor a LOT over the smaller, fast-moving ones.

[(Anonymous)]

Hey kiddo. Speaking as one who used to live near a bunch of windmills, I remember they've been redesigned in a number of ways (not just the speed, but other stuff) so as not to attract (and then kill) birds. Among other things, the windmills are generally designed not to be good nesting spots, a problem with the early ones. Some of them also make a sound that birds dislike, I think. Stuff like that.

[jfb.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I think the article I linked to has some info debunking the "windmills kill birds" myth--at least, they're not a significant factor in bird mortality.