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Shuts and Failures

by Michael Maiello

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Donal is now posting on a wordpress blog called simply, Donal.

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Boys and Girls Together

by Donal 11/21/2011 - 2:32 pm   |

In high school swimming at a boy's school, I only remember one girl on an opponent's team—probably Sidwell Friends. She swam one race, then got out of the pool and ran to the locker room with her hand over her mouth. In college, men and women swam separate events, except for diving. In masters, men and women swim in the same heats all the time, and meet managers publish the results in separate lists by gender and age category. I've finished behind enough tiny but fast women that I don't even think about it anymore. [Read more]

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Occupy the Highway Reaches Baltimore

by Donal 11/20/2011 - 3:41 am   |



My wife is staying with her mother, and I had thought about visiting Occupy DC this weekend, but I decided to work instead. On weekends the office is quiet enough that I can fully concentrate on my cad draughting chores. A fellow called Weasel used to deejay for WHFS, 102.3 FM in Bethesda, when it was a progressive rock station in the 1970s and 80s, and is now doing a Saturday show for WTMD, a public alt rock station broadcast from Towson University. So I grooved and got quite a bit done. 

Over lunch I checked out Occupy Baltimore's website. They were planning to support a SleepOut in front of City Hall, and planned a solidarity march to welcome fifty Occupy the Highway (OtH) marchers, shown in the video above, who had been interviewed en route by WBAL, as shown in this video.  [Read more]

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Natural Gas Looks Green

by Donal 11/18/2011 - 8:59 pm   |

The greenest car in America still runs on fossil fuel: Compressed Natural Gas (CNG).
 
Honda Civic Natural Gas Named 2012 Green Car of the Year [Read more]


The all-new 2012 Honda Civic Natural Gas – the only factory-built, CNG-powered car produced in America – was named 2012 Green Car of the Year® at the Los Angeles Auto Show today. The award was presented to Honda by the editors of Green Car Journal representing a diverse panel of environmental experts and automotive enthusiasts who annually select a single vehicle for its outstanding environmental performance.
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Tennis: The Low Gluten Finals

by Donal 11/18/2011 - 12:12 am   |

In two days the top eight male tennis professionals will play in the Barclay's ATP World Tour Finals in London. The tournament is organized much like the WTA Championship in Istanbul. There are two groups of four players, who play each other. Whoever has the best record and second best record in each group are seeded into the single-elimination semifinals. Number and percentages of matches, sets and games won all count towards breaking ties - which is supposed to discourage less than stellar efforts by making no match entirely meaningless. [Read more]

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Green Stuff

by Donal 11/16/2011 - 11:38 pm   |


 
I found a blog called Triple Pundit - People, Planet, Profit - which purports to discuss sustainable business practices. As a reflection of the difficulty of practicing both sustainability and profitability, some articles impress me and some depress me.
 
After attending a presentation by BMW’s Manuel Sattig at Opportunity Green 2011, a guest author rethinks some reservations TriplePundit has expressed about other EVs in The BMW i3: Advancing Automotive Sustainability:  [Read more]

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Fuel me twice

by Donal 11/14/2011 - 11:06 pm   |

 
In 2007, Time Magazine dubbed the Prius design team, Heroes of the Environment. By contrast, I recently posted a Mother Jones news item about the dirty secret that making hybrids, EVs and a lot of other gizmos requires rare earths that are about as nasty to refine as tar sands. 
 
Over at TTAC, Bertel Schmitt first interviewed the leader of that team, Toyota Chief Engineer Ogiso Satoshi (in the center, above) about the effort that led to the Prius: 
 
“Look, when we started the Prius project in 1993, we did not even think of a hybrid system for the Prius. We did not set out to build a hybrid. We studied what was needed for the 21st century, and two things were certain: The need to protect the environment, and the need to bring consumption down. That’s all we knew, and you did not need to be a clairvoyant to know it.”
 [Read more]
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In Loco Parentis

by Donal 11/11/2011 - 11:23 am   |

When it rains, it pours. I attended and graduated from GP in the 1970s:

Former priest put on probation for fondling two Georgetown Prep students [Read more]

A former priest was sentenced to five years of supervised probation Thursday for fondling two students at Georgetown Preparatory School, where he taught from 1989 to 2003, as prosecutors compared the school’s initial response in the case to the scandal unfolding at Penn State University.
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SCI FI submissions

by Donal 11/10/2011 - 3:08 pm

I only read one story so far, but here is a list of links to submissions to Greer's scifi contest.

 

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OWS Anoints "Spokes" Persons

by Donal 11/10/2011 - 10:32 am   |


After one month or so of existence, Occupy Wall Street has finally added a layer of management.

Occupy Wall Street Debuts the New Spokes Council [Read more]

Occupy Wall Street premiered their new governing apparatus last night in a sweaty high school cafeteria in Lower Manhattan. The Spokes Council, which passed with a large majority at a General Assembly in late October, met for the first time last night with the purpose of setting up what the SC will look like in future and who will be a part of it.

In contrast with the General Assembly, the Spokes Council uses actual microphones, meets indoors and operates on a "spokes" system: working groups that take part sit together and groups are arranged in a circle, like spokes on a wheel. Each working group is represented by an individual, or "spoke," who rotates every meeting.
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Peak Fuhgeddaboutit

by Donal 11/8/2011 - 12:14 pm   |

The Post Carbon Institute's Energy Bulletin has reposted an Oil Drum wrapup of ASPO Day One, my ASPO article and a reassuring article from PRNewsWire:

Ricardo Study Suggests Global Oil Demand May Peak Before 2020

Ricardo today announced the results of a landmark multi-client research study conducted by Ricardo Strategic Consulting in association with Kevin J. Lindemer LLC, and involved participation of some of the world's leading energy and technology companies and organizations. The research challenged the concept that "Peak Oil" will be a supply side phenomenon and predicts that the demand for oil may well peak before 2020 and then fall back to levels significantly below 2010 demand by 2035.

IOW, we needn't worry about fuel prices because we're going to need and want less and less of the nasty stuff anyway. If why that will be true isn't obvious to you, read on. [Read more]

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