not a red letter day - not a day to remember - rather, an embarrassment

An Open Letter to Al Gore
Al, you are a hypocrite

I believed in you, I voted for you, and I made excuses for you. I cringed but forgave you your “I invented the internet” gaff. It might have been a slip of the tongue. You were never glib.But, this goes to the heart of the matter. If you can’t walk the walk then shut up. Don’t try to bullshit me about your purchase of “carbon offsets”. I wasn’t born yesterday, I didn’t just get off the boat…you sir are no shining example of what you preach. You are not even a dull example of what you preach. You are a disgrace to the environmental movement. If you have any dignity, any belief in what you espouse, then crawl back into your hidey-hole and don’t come out until you have looked within and found that which you ask of others.

Hot Damn - I love to end the Day on a Positive Note!

The people and the wolves of Wyoming have a victory. Not every Western state governor will be allowed to reverse the wolf recovery program. For a change a sound science decision didn't end up side-tracked by politicians...

Instead... By BEN NEARY, Associated Press Writer : Feds reject Wyoming's wolf kill plan

Well we have Da Woid O’ De Dey; now the Oxymoron of the day!

“Partial Zero”?

The expression caught me by surprise - in the closing lines of a radio commercial - what the fuck did she just say? I couldn’t have heard that right, partial zero?
But that’s what I heard. Enter the PZEV, a Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle.

As one who likes clarity in communication and abhors obfuscation, so the environmentalist in me finds such “obfus-speak” insulting. And I didn’t jump to any conclusions. I was careful not to prejudge. The pragmatist in me could understand the logic of compromise to move forward on a important issue. But Partial Zero, was that a joke? Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle; at first I was moved to agree with the idea if not the term.

Quoting from Wikipedia:

This vehicle category was created as part of a bargain with the California
Air Resources Board (CARB), so that the automobile manufacturers could avoid producing mandated zero emission
vehicles (ZEVs), which would have required the production of electric vehicles, under the theory that a large number of low pollution vehicles would produce the equivalent pollution reduction of a lesser number of zero-emissions vehicles.

However, a little research convinced me that the compromise category was pretty much a sell out. I followed a link to A listing of PZEV compliant cars. At the top of the list is 3 liter 6 cylinder BMW! Or how about the Mercedes-Benz E-Class vehicles?
I can only conclude that someone in a powerful position in California took the boxing equivalent of a dive.
The official California DRIVECLEAN web site’s provided “vehicle web site link” was a dead end so I just searched for Mercedes-Benz.com and followed links to the E-Class Overview. Somehow a Partial Zero Emissions Vehicle seems to be the last thing they are selling.

Partial Zero my ass!

The Turista Attraction from Hell Maybe...

By PATRICK O’GILFOIL HEALY
Published: February 4, 2007

CLAD in black clothes and moonlight, our guide Poncho adjusted his ski mask and faced us to speak. The desert has claimed many lives, he said, but tonight we would make it across the border...

a make-believe trip illegally crossing the Rio Grande from Mexico into the United States

Cold February Day at the Beach

Ocean Grove, New Jersey, USA

Eric Clapton Live at Montreux 1986

A little music from the past. Montreux is in Switzerland on Lake Geneva.
The song which first came out in 1970 was inspired by Clapton's love for Patty Boyd who he later married. By 1986 they had already separated. The title, Layla, was inspired by the love story of Layla / Layla and Majnun.
There are many live versions of Clapton playing Layla and probably most of them are on YouTube.

Here it is: Layla

Hmmm...Lake Geneva...Geneva...Going Down Geneva (Van Morrison)...Later