What a movie! I could not find a single negative review. Everyone thinks this is a fantastic film in every regard.
I don’t.
Avatar—no doubt about it— takes filmmaking to new heights. The visuals are without parallel, and it is worth the ticket for the unprecendented, 3-D eye experience alone. But the story…
Since July, I have been studying and following the progress of a technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) as it has been tested by Sausalito-based AltaRock Energy at The Geysers, an active geothermal field just 12 air miles from my home in Northern California.
A week ago, New York Times reporter James Glanz wrote that Altarock Energy “has removed its drill rig and informed federal officials that the government project will be abandoned.” 
Only one day before this report, the controversial Basel, Switzerland, project that was supposed to lead the EGS technology parade was also abandoned.
Obama’s Department of Energy was a financial sponsor of the AltaRock venture. Google and others had invested. Yet AltaRock’s website makes no mention of this major corporate setback.
There will be more news, I suspect.
My earlier posts are:
Enhanced Geothermal Energy and Man-Made Earthquakes—7/2/09
Enhanced Geothermal Energy and Man-Made Earthquakes (Part 2)—7/16/09
Enhanced Geothermal Energy Project Halted in The Geysers—9/3/09
Is the Production of Geothermal Energy in The Geysers a “Public Nuisance”?—9/27/09
Just arrived: an email announcing the “the launching of a State Vaccination H1N1 Program.”
It commands: “you need to create your personal H1N1 (swine flu) Vaccination Profile on the Centers for Disease Control website.” Purporting to come from CDC in Atlanta <Centers for Disease Control and Prevention <[email protected]>, mine actually came from
Peru.
It’s phishing. Trash it without opening the attachment that asks you to, “create your Personal H1N1 Vaccination Profile” by clicking a link that opens a Trojan horse Continue reading “H1N1 Phishing”
In a previous post, I spoke about “Little Songs on Big Subjects,” tunes of tolerance written by Hy Zaret & Lou Singer and performed by The Jesters.
The album, recalled with great nostalgia by many, was recorded in the late-40s. It is long out of print and almost completely unavailable. The album was widely played on radio and was used in cartoons shown on early regional television. Here are the lyrics to one of the “little songs, “Ol’ Commodore Gray, and below, a link to its musical cartoon Continue reading “Little Songs on Big Subjects: “Ol’ Commodore Gray””
Earlier this year Buffy Sainte-Marie released her 18th album, Running for the Drum.
Her first album, It’s My Way, for which she was awarded Billboard‘s Best New Artist in 1964, included Universal Soldier, which has become an anthem for peace. Her song, Until It’s Time for You to Go, was a huge popular success and has been covered by many artists, including Elvis Presley, Barbra Streisand, and Cher.
Effectively blacklisted during the Johnson and Nixon administrations because of her outspoken politics, she was a regular on Sesame Street for five years beginning in 1975. And in 1982, She won an Oscar for Up Where We Belong from the film An Officer and a Gentleman.
Nonetheless, many have forgotten her.
I’m reminding.
NASA’s Cassini spacecraft, orbiting Saturn, has sent back some astounding photographs from a distance of nearly one billion miles. Click here for a couple of dozen that will amaze and intrigue.
