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| Henry Morgentaler's successful (if controversial) nomination is just another episode in a life full of controversy thanks to his position as Canada's most visible abortion doctor. Some opponents are so upset that they've decided to attack the Chief Justie of the Canadian Supreme Court by lodging a complaint with the Canadian Judicial Council because she supervised the decision.ecause she supervised
Toronto's Harbord Street, near the University of Toronto campus, plays an intimate role because his clinic out of 85 Harbord Streetot of one of the old Victorian row houses that line(d?) that part of the sub-Annex. .
Now, in The Globe and Mail's words.
The story of this old Annex Victorian semi, among the storefronts on the south of Harbord, really begins on June 15, 1983, when Henry Morgentaler opened an abortion clinic. It was subjected to protests and pickets, and victories and defeats - for both sides of the debate. The drama might have ended in 1988, when the Supreme Court ruled that freestanding clinics were legal, but the rallies continued, reaching 3,000 strong. Harbord Street Cafe, at No. 87, closed shop, its windows papered over. A sign for The Way Inn took its place. The Toronto Women's Bookstore moved down the street. Then on Victoria Day weekend in 1992, an explosion by arsonists blew the wall out at No. 85. No one was ever charged. A small apartment is there now, next to Ms. Emma Designs at No. 87. Earlier this week, Dr. Morgentaler was named to the Order of Canada. | comments: Leave a comment   |
| | Subject: | R.I.P., Julius Carry | | Time: | 10:08 am |
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| | Julius Carry, who played Lord Bowler on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr., has died of pancreatic cancer. :-( | | comments: 1 comment or Leave a comment |
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Happy Birthday to my dear friend ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) euclase ! I hope today brings you all the happiness and cake you deserve. :::HUGS::: 
P.S. I just dropped a *little* something I made you in the mail - It will be a day or two late. :-( | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | green | | Subject: | the dollars and cents of it | | Time: | 08:09 pm |
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| The question keeps coming up: Is wind/solar cost-competitive yet? Is nuclear? The answers shift depending on fuel prices and location. In Morocco when I researched this in 2001, for example, they had no fossil fuels at all, so imported coal was going to cost 6c/kWh in hard currency whereas the steady tradewinds along the Atlantic coast generated wind energy at 4.5c/kWh at the one wind park that had been up for a year. In the rest of the world, new natural gas has historically been cheapest at about 3.5c per kWh, and wind at around 5.5c for good locations, but obviously this depends on the price of gas. Solar used to be absolutely non-competitive (in the double digits), but new "thermal solar" (where parabolic mirrors heat a liquid that turns a turbine) are now being built on a utility scale. Handily for solar, the sun shines during the day's peak demand hours.
The breakdown goes something like this:
1. Construction Cost:
- Gas is cheapest, coal second-cheapest. New clean coal technologies cost about the same as renewables, maybe a little bit more.
- Renewables are costly to construct since fuel is free. The entire per-kilowatt price for windpower is the construction cost divided by 20 years.
- Nuclear is basically ludicrous. When on budget, it costs the same as wind. When off budget, it's out of the ballpark. The last nuclear plant to come online in the US took 23 years to build at a cost of $6.9 billion. The history of nuclear is a history of government bail-outs.
2. Fuel:
- Gas prices depend on whether you are piping it within North America or getting liquified natural gas (LNG) from other continents. The US has some gas in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, but most of the world's gas is in Russia, Iran, and Qatar. Gas costs more than coal and is expected to rise.
- Coal prices are low, and we (and China) have unlimited amounts of it if we choose to mine it. People are working on how to turn coal into natural gas.
- Renewables cost $0 and will always stay at $0 no matter how other prices move.
- Nuclear: mining, refining, using, decommissioning, and storing the fuel costs some unspecified amount. Uranium comes from Australia and Canada. Some say the marginal dispatch price is only 1.7c/kWh for nuclear after the plant is built, but Britain paid $90 billion in liabilities for its inept and now-bankrupt waste re-processor, according to the Economist.
3. Maintenance:
- Gas and coal turbines have to be shut down for cleaning (coal more than gas) on a regular rotating schedule. The average plant has 2-6 turbines.
- Wind just has air blowing through its turbines, so maintenance is less intensive. The average utility-scale plant has 80-200 towers. Solar's surfaces have to be cleaned to maintain efficiency.
- Nuclear sometimes gets less maintenance than it should, leading to scary stories of cracked concrete. All power plants have security, but nuclear has super-security.
4. Public Costs:
- Coal is dirty, causes cancer, etc.
- Gas is pretty clean but still has global warming problems.
- Nuclear has no global warming, but the nuclear waste sticks around. A Chernobyl-style disaster isn't a real likelihood, though.
- Importing fuel adds to the trade deficit, but high construction dollars tend to stay in the country in the form of construction jobs.
- Price insecurity can also have geopolitical consequences, such as wars for Kuwaiti/Iraqi oil or Iranian natural gas. See where 2/3 of the world's gas is located: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_natural_gas_proven_reserves.
- Nuclear waste leads to dirty bomb risk.
- A network of 200 wind turbines is harder to bomb, though the transmission nodes could still be targets. Flammable things like gas pipelines, LNG terminals, and coalyards are all obvious targets.
For a case study with real numbers, here's a Swarthmore engineering prof's analysis of the market in Pennsylvania.
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| | Subject: | SGA | | Time: | 09:49 am |
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| Ah, well. It was a decent run, but the fanfic was, imho, better. I will miss it, though.
On the other hand, it will be fun to see what the next big thing will be. | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | I'm Awake | | Time: | 07:39 am |
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| It's 7:30 and I'm awake. And I have been for an hour. o_O
Plans for the day:
1. Play Rock Band until I get annoyed at failing out of all the songs I'm stuck on.
2. Shower.
3. Do some laundry.
4. Play more Rock Band.
5. Possibly go visit my mother this afternoon.
6. Go to work.
7. Go to mamarosebud's and ROCK OUT WITH MY SOCKS OUT! | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | gencon | | Subject: | Home from Vacation | | Time: | 09:36 am |
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| And still home from work. An extra day, for reasons I will explain below.
First off, GenCon was fun. The trip out was awesome, and the trip back was from hell once we hit CT. I could deal with a little delay in NY, for the short time we're in it, but CT should only take 2 hours to cross, tops, and it took us 4. And we were traveling midday, so it's not like we should have been hitting commuter traffic. I only played 2 games at the Con, since we didn't advance in NASCRAG after a terrible first round. Our GM even told us he'd missed the THREE DM briefings, and the co-GM got pulled away to run another group. If we do it again next year, we will not be signing up for first slot. And also I was unhappy with the scenario overall. It was not the happy, fun NASCRAG, but way too "dark" for me. My character accidentally masterminded the slaughter of innocent women and children instead of the army we thought we'd be fighting. And one of the other players betrayed the entire group at the end of the first round; something he'd been told he was supposed to do at the start. Not what I like to see in my NASCRAG games, and they'll eventually be getting an email from me.
( Now with the slightly TMI )
So anyway, another day out for me. Work tomorrow, then Saturday we're off to our annual Whale Watch out of NH (matociquala, you going to be there, yes?), and then Sunday is the annual "Be there or be talked about" anniversary party at the in-laws. I need a vacation to recover from my post-vacation. :(
Oh, and I should add, I've not read LJ (except certain comms) in over a week. If there's something you want me to see, point me to it, because otherwise I'll not see it. Am starting from scratch today. | | comments: 11 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Wii Fit Observation | | Time: | 09:11 am |
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| | Attempting any exercise that involves standing on only one leg will cause at least one cat to come over and attempt to "help." | | comments: 4 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | *sniff* | | Time: | 09:10 am |
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| "Take care of yourself, Detective, and may God watch over you."
"That oughtta keep him busy."
(Yeah, I've been catching up on my Tivo). | | comments: Leave a comment |
| Happy birthday to the fantastic euclase! May you have a most excellent day, my friend, and many more to come!
And in other news...
* I just saw the newly released "Director's Cut" of one of my absolute favorite films of all time, Dark City. Yes, the "Director's Cut" is better than the original and well worth seeing if you like the film. And yes, if you haven't seen the film, you need to do so. Immediately.
* Lois McMaster Bujold's wonderful recent Guest of Honor Keynote Speech from Denvention 3, which includes some interesting comments on genre fiction, is now online.
* Maria Lectrix has completed two new unabridged readings of excellent novels, The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath by H.P. Lovecraft and The Moon Pool by A. Merritt. They are now available for free download here with her other completed novels.
* TheHog'sHead.org has posted a very useful calendar for Harry Potter fans: "Your Guide to Potter Events From Now Till Half-Blood Prince."
The more modern metaphor I much prefer is that SF as a field is an emergent property of the whole seething mass of writers and writing that make it up. It's a consequence, not a cause, and thus wonderfully resistant to attempts at top-down direction. (Fortunately, most writers have a cat's disdain for marching, or being marched, in lockstep; as for me, I am allergic to being held responsible for things over which I actually have no control.) From the thousands of threads making up the SF tapestry, some larger picture may indeed emerge, but I am only responsible for spinning my own bright strand, thank you very much. In other words, I don't believe in an Intelligent Design theory for the SF genre.
- Lois McMaster Bujold, Guest of Honor Keynote Speech from Denvention 3 | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Advantages of cat ownership | | Time: | 10:38 pm | | Current Mood: | ![[mood icon]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/niaha/kitty/ankhappyp.gif) touched |
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| Given yesterday's post - and the fact that there is still no sign of that rat - it seems only fair to mention that Mystery, in particular, has been being very sweet recently. Mayhem views my new habit of staying home as an advantage, but is sternly certain that if only I tried, I would be able to lean down and pick her up and carry her about constantly. With faith, she tells me, you can be whole - throw away your crutches and cuddle a cat!
Mystery, however, while initially of the same opinion as Mayhem, does seem to have figured out that I am not able to move fast and that I have definite limitations in what I can do. ( Cut for extreme cuteness of cats ) | | comments: 2 comments or Leave a comment |
| | Subject: | Ogling | | Time: | 09:52 am |
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| If you want to ogle nearly naked bodies at the Olympics, then diving is the sport for you. Muscular men in very brief briefs, flying through the air in twirls, getting wet - and then it's repeated in slow motion, so your eye can linger on every detail! It's amazing. Grace, power, elegance, naked flesh - I think I see why men like this ogling thing so much!
Seriously, I watched the men's 3M springboard diving competition and I felt at once awed by the male form and slightly pervy. (Qin Kai-ai-ai! It is slightly pervy to ogle 22 year-olds, right? But, but, biological imperative! Insert evolutionary-psychology theory here! Wait, as a woman, can I play that card?)
There's been a lot of talk in the blogosphere about the disparity between men's and women's uniforms in a lot of Olympic sports (especially beach volleyball, where the women wear bikinis and the men wear loose tank tops and knee-length shorts) and complaints from guys (including actual guys I know who are, um, probably reading this) about the androgyny of female swimmers in the new compression suits.
Now, I am not opposed to ogling per se, but prioritizing ogling over performance at the Olympic level (or any level) of sport is just silly. I mean, think about it for one second. Sometimes ogling is a pleasant side effect of the tight or skimpy clothes that best suits the sport, but... sometimes it is not. Anyone who thinks female athletes should have to bare hot bodies in addition to playing sports should stop for a moment and think about what that means. Do they feel the same about male atheletes? What does the answer say about their attitude to women in sport?
There was a quote I saw somewhere, though sadly I forget where and so can't quote exactly, describing an exchange between a man and a woman about male athletes in skimpy outfits. He said something like "No one wants to see that!" She responded with "Right, straight women and gay men DO NOT EXIST." | | comments: Leave a comment |
| I don't seen anything particularly personal in this message, so am posting for those who are interested, either in following how my niece is doing, or in following the Paralympics.
Hello Everybody!!
As of tomorrow morning, I am Beijing-bound! Several people have asked how to follow the coverage, so here are all the answers you've been looking for.
I will not be mass-emailing after this point, but I would love to keep you all informed of the happenings in Beijing through my website. You can either add my site (http://www.anjaliforberpratt.com) as a bookmark and check on it periodically, OR go to : http://anjaliforberpratt.com/user/register and register to be an authenticated user of my website. Once you do this, you will then be sent a one-time log in password. Once you do this, you create your own password and then when you go to: http://www.anjaliforberpratt.com/user and log in with your new log in and password, then if you view my latest blog entry in its entirety, there will be a link that you can click "subscriptions" and then subscribe to receive email updates when my blog is changed.
Other ways to follow the action:
Unfortunately, as of right now there will not be any television coverage that we know of in the US. You can watch live and after-the-fact webcasts at: http://www.paralympicsport.tv or http://www.youtube.com/paralympicsporttv
PLEASE share these links widely.
Results will be posted on the official Beijing Paralympics website at: http://en.beijing2008.cn/paralympic/
Thank you for all your support and for cheering me on to bring out my best in Beijing!
Anjali | | comments: Leave a comment |
| | Tags: | writer's block | | Subject: | Writer's Block: Your Favorite Series: One Last Go Round | | Time: | 08:10 am |
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Easy one, Firefly. Assuming they could reassemble the same cast and script writers. | | comments: Leave a comment |
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