Here’s a graphic I made by using the top fifty spoken words in his speech with Wordle, which is a pretty friggin pleasant way to waste some time graphic-in’ around.

And here’s his I Have A Dream speech all autotuned up.  Enjoy!

By the (quite talented) designer Jude Buffum. (Check him out!)

Found at Holy Caw!

Holy frijole, nature is sparkly!

You know you love it.  Despite the bloodsucking ticks and Tazmanian Devil face-eating viruses, nature’s got some beauty in its bag.  Glaciers, rivers, butterflies, and rainbows: four things not only in new Lucky Charms’ Eco-Mallows special edition, but also in your very big backyard.  No, I did not just call your butt big.

Occasionally, we as humans, really try to fug things up.  But it’s not always our fault.  Okay, humans are actually a really big part of it…

Here’s a countdown of things that might surprise you about what’s destroying our Big Momma Nature.

5.)  Dogs.

The family dog leaves a bigger carbon footprint than the family SUV.

Oh no!  My neighbor’s Xoloitzcuintlis is worse for the environment than my Sequoia!  What should I do?  Should I attempt to find a hybrid hound?  Perhaps instead of buying dog food, which uses land and energy for the meat content, I should create a dog that eats only eucalyptus leaves?  I could have the world’s first Koalafghan!  Neat!

This story is basically the same all over the internet:  This book says that because of the energy used to make the meat that’s used in dog food, a typical medium-sized dog will contribute twice the carbon footprint per year than the average 4×4 vehicle. (source)  And New Scientist has backed up the facts by producing similar findings.

Bad dog. Caused monsoon.

So lemme get this right…

A dog, in a year, because of the meat… that’s used in the dog food, invariably creates a larger carbon footprint than driving an SUV in a year (also attributing for the vehicle’s manufacturing eco-cost.)  What does this mean?  Should we abandon all dogs and cats for the sake of the environment?  Or do what the book recommends and instead adopt pets we can eat – “useful” pets like chickens?

Freakin’ grrrreat.  Let’s add stress and guilt to pet owners, they’re the problem-makers!  Oh, yeah  that should totally fix everything.  The only thing I can see this doing is giving Hummer-owners more fuel (hurr) to say, “See?  I’m not doing anything wrong!  Even dogs make more impact on the environment than my big-ass Chevy Subdivision!  Outta my way, hippie!!”

It’s completely the wrong message.  This is either trying to get pet-owners to change their horrendous pet-owning ways or make SUV-drivers give even less of a crap about America’s oil consumption.

The thing is, is that it sounds like this book is scientifically accurate.  But I don’t think the blame needs to lie with pets or their owners.  If the problem lies with the energy and land usage for the meats used in the food, then maybe our kibbles and bits need some changing?  How about we take this to the pet food companies instead?  Because we’re gonna buy whatever they give us.  If there was crude meat, crude fats, and crude oil in that can of Alpo, we’d probably buy the damn things and give them to our cute little furballs.  They’d thank us by barfing in our Tahoe.

4.)  Fake fur.

Fake fur is worse for the environment than real fur.

Slate’s Green Lantern recently came out with an article expelling how “green” fake fur is.  It makes some good points right off the bat – firstly making the case that either industry will try to sway you their way, so just don’t listen to anybody and you’ll be fine.

You're right. It's the furs that make this weird.

Fake fur is made of synthesized fibers: nylon, acrylic, polyester – all petroleum products.  Some fur nowadays is being processed from cotton, which I suppose is better.

Real fur is made from (I love this actual quote from the article) “renewable resources.”  Most furs come from real animals, from farms that raise animals for their pelts.  The article sources a report that claims that fake furs require 3.5 times more energy than furs made from wild animals, and farm furs need 15 times the energy.  It does mention, however that these numbers come from a possibly biased 1979 report.

So… fake fur is generally made from oil, and doesn’t decompose for-freakin’-ever.  Real fur is a pretty big social no-no these days (at least, obvious fur like ermine heads and beaver tails hanging off your hooded coat) and many folks get a little emotional at the thought of catching a bunny and killing and ripping it’s hide off just to make your fingers toasty.  What’s the right answer?

We could start wearing tree bark instead…?

Looks itchy.

3.)  Men.

Not men as in mankind, but as in not women.

According to a poll mentioned in this article from Fast Company, 52% of women are dedicated to adopting greener living habits as opposed to just 33% of men.

When I was watching Pride & Prejudice with my wife on Oxygen the other day, (I counterbalance my manliness with cheese logs and dark beer while watching old kung fu movies at 3 am)  I saw a plethora of cleaning product ads, all geared towards women.  (Yes, I am aware it was the friggin Oxygen Network.)  There were women mopping, women doing laundry, shopping at Walmart, driving luxury SUVs, and eating yogurt.  Wait, there was also one about a man eating yogurt.

Anyway, all these products for women, I realize, have either a dozen “green” alternatives or are themselves trying to look more eco-conscious.  Walmart, Johnson & Johnson, Procter & Gamble, Toyota, GM, water-saving Tide cleaner, it’s all trying to look more environmentally conscious.  And it’s all marketed towards women.

Men, on the other hand – what the heck have we got that can be “greened?”

Organic Miller Lite?  Recycled sofas?  Letsee…  we’re not gonna trade in our barbecque chicken for molded-soybean curd, or drink natural Coca-Cola.  There’s nothing natural about Coca-Cola!  The choices most men make are probably going to be the ones we don’t even notice.  I can only assume that the NFL is trying to curb energy consumption by switching to LED lighting and recycled advertising.  We might be eating organic Cheetos without knowing it, or wearing recycled cotton in our underwear.

But consciously making that switch?  Probably doubtful.

This is the making of awesome.

Maybe when we see John Madden selling 4×4 hybrids or play a “Green Living” edition of Grand Theft Auto will we start to think about making the switch.

2.)  Eating endangered wildlife.

Take a nature reserve in China.  It’s got a tiger in it.  A tiger with less than a thousand extended family members in the whole world.  Now shoot the tiger and eat it.

This is why we eat delicious tigers.

This guy goes clamming last year and shoots an endangered tiger.  Makes sense, right?  Well, on the whole we’re pretty good about eating endangered wildlife, it seems…

We’re omnivores.  We eat flesh, both red and green.  We don’t always know what’s endangered or what isn’t when a big toothy thing is staring us down.  I’m not standing up for this guy – he had an illegal firearm, and he brought it with him to go clamming.  I’ve gone clamming a couple times in my life, and I’ve yet to see a clam that I would react to by firing a rifle shell between its …shells.

But endangered species are a sad topic, and extinct ones are even sadder and kind of piss me off a little.  I mean, geez!  It’s an animal that I’ll never see in real life!  I want to see that animal, and I want to see it in front of me.  I want to pet it.  Have you ever taken a digital picture or pictures, downloaded them on your computer and then someday the hard drive crashes and you didn’t back anything up?  Those pictures are lost!  Wouldn’t that piss you off, too??!

…

Sorry.

Which gives us a nice segway to number one:

1.)  Scientists

That’s right – you pesky rat-testing, lab coat-donning Faradays and Franklins.

While science has given us electricity and airplanes, it’s also given us equations and radiation.  For every Jurassic Park, you’re bound to have a Congo or two.

There is nothing funny about this.

Science is generally a cool thing.  Sometimes they just muck it up.  Here’s an example:

Check this out. On an island relatively near Antarctica, once upon a time, seals and penguins were killed for blubber and fur.  This was in the early 1800′s.  Mice and rats from the hunting vessels escaped onto the island and began to create a rodent version of the show Lost.  The rats became a problem, so we humans introduced cats to eat the rats.  Apparently there’s some tradition to leave food for shipwrecked sailors, so they also put rabbits on the island.

The rabbits spread and began eating all the vegetation, so they gave the rabbits a disease to thin the herd.  It thinned the herd so much that the cats (who were eating bunnies by the bowlful) found themselves rather rabbitless.  So they went for the native birds.  In an effort to save the birds, the cats were completely eradicated by gunshot in the year 2000, and finding themselves cat-less, the rabbits bred like, well, you know…  So now the rabbits are again eating the island away, and must be dealt with before eating away all the natural fauna that keeps the native penguin population safe.

Bunnies versus Penguins.  Sounds like either the cutest fight ever or some long-lost Roger Corman movie.

——————————

Anyway, all these things have the potential for comeback in the next decade.  Dogs can eat healthier, people can stop buying fur (it does seem a little pretentious), guys could lift their eco-standards a bit and eat less endangered Indochinese tiger, and science could try not making a scrambled-freaking-mess out of your everyday island paradises.

CERN Scientist: "Oop...!"

Here’s to another decade on Earth!

One big year of discoveries.

This is what a bag of sunshine looks like as it evolves.

Here’s to another fantastic year.

The baby boy is one year old today.  I have been a parent for one year.

They say that it all just passes you by in an instant.  I wouldn’t call it an instant.  Coffee is made in an instant.  Minute rice is made in an instant if you’re willing to extend your instant a few minutes.

I’m currently listening to Jim Reeves on Pandora with my dear old grandmother-in-law who’s regaling stories of living in California in the 50′s.  She grows ponderosa lemons and pomegranates in her back yard and sends them to the rest of her family.  She’s a wonderful old lady and I love listening to her voice that reminds me of the crinkling of old paper.

Earlier today my one-year-new boy got his second birthday party.  The first was at my parent’s house a couple days ago during the Christmas break.  Recently there has been a never-before-seen carnage of wrapping paper followed by a plethora of bleeping and whirring educational toys.  I can only assume that future Decembers will be similar – celebration following celebration – our anniversary, then Christmas, and finally Jameson’s birthday.

It’s been a year for firsts.

Roller coasters could look at this last year and become jealous.  Work, family life, etcetera, etcetera.  We saw old friends that we hadn’t seen in over fifteen years and we saw friends that we’d seen only a year-and-a-half ago.  All of them we hadn’t seen enough of by the time we left.  Time is a cruel monkey and I am a hapless banana.

Family I never see enough of.

Cake is a different matter, however.  Both sets of grandparents made Jameson a birthday cake.  Each had a #1 candle, and each piece of cake was messily devoured.  Cake everywhere – frosting stains on the walls.  Jameson was a velociraptor in a land of little cake time travelers.

And he is learning.  Fast.  Climbing, clapping, walking, laughing, pooping, singing, screaming, dancing little explorer.  He will not be easily soothed by the cheap thrills of jingling car keys.  He seeks the top of the stairs, the darkness of closets, and the claustrophobic underneaths of old furniture.  He is already at age one an established scientist, adventurer, and food critic.

He is not, by the way, a fan of planes.

He says that we will wait for family to visit.

We will happily wait.

My god, it's true!

There are two factories that make Eggo waffles that have suffered setbacks.  One plant in Atlanta was flooded following a cleaning of a Listeria contamination, and the other is having technical problems.

Wait, go back.

“Listeria?”

Yes.  It’s a rather scary bacteria that has a mortality rate much higher than salmonella does.  In 2007 there was a contamination in milk from a Massachusetts company that resulted in two deaths.  in 2002 there was a Listeria chicken contamination that killed 7 and caused 3 miscarriages.  In 1985 a contamination of cheese killed 47 people, not counting 19 stillbirths.

It’s the bacteria that lends its name to the mouthwash Listerine.

So yeah, gross.

But hey, they’re still waffles.  Tasty waffles.  And they need love, because we’re American, and waffles are in our blood.  What are we going to do while Kelloggs is fixing this waffle shortage?

And what are we supposed to do?  Eat healthy waffles?

Yeah.  Right.

Nor did I really have an idea how they worked until I checked this out, at the Genetic Science Learning Center at the University of Utah.

And you thought all they had was 3.2 beer.