Louisiana 'Hizzy' of Representatives

Hurricane Chris blows up the Louisiana Legislature! Apparently he was given the mic as part of an appreciation or resolution honoring him. Halle Berry!

Man-Power

I'm assuming this contraption is a joke and not actually intended for consumption.

Changed Opinions?

After watching the June 2nd Daily Show, I realized I had a growing disdain for how the feds were running things. Strangely, P.J. O'Rourke, whom I don't usually like, seemed like he had some good things to say. Am I just tired, or was this a particularly good episode?

You Know How I Know You're Gay?

Apparently, Kim Jong Il is passing over his middle son's ascension to power because Kim thinks he's too lady-like. From the AP,
"Kim considers the middle son, Jong Chol, too effeminate for the job, according to his former sushi chef." Perhaps nobody has told Mr. Jong Il that he has a girl's name?

Tag Team Intellect

Whilst in Denver enjoying cocktails on the roof of the MCA, I took notice of a flyer I tucked away for future reference. The museum, in a blend of wit and knowledge and seemingly born out of a Dave Eggers publication, hosts Mixed Taste: Tag Team Lectures on Unrelated Topics. The list looks great, so I guess it's no surprise these sell out. I'd be into "Stan Brakhage & Machine Guns," "The Human Genome & Leadbelly," and "Hot Sauce and Jewish Mysticism." Apparently two experts give half hour presentations on their topic and then collaborate on the Q&A. They aren't allowed to draw any parallels about the other topic during lecture - during the later half, apparently "anything can happen."

Denver Are You Ready?

The beloved management of 303 Magazine is chipping me a few bucks toward a dirt cheap Southwest plane ticket, giving me a few assignments to keep busy in Denver for three days and letting me attend their bash at the MCA. My primary assignment in the next three days is to write about five "classic" Denver establishments. After a week of soliciting opinions from interns, perusing online forums and discussing things with my editor, we still hadn't arrived at establishment number five. Until now, that is. White Fence Farm, it is on! Aside from a Disneyland-like map of the place, they have live animals and live music.

Water you looking at?

Now that the EPA has finally sprung into gear acknowledging climate change as a looming threat, it's go-time on figuring out how exactly we're going to price these so-called "carbon trades." It's an interesting problem that some pretty excellent minds are tackling. Last Friday, I attended the Environmental Defense Fund's 9th (and final) State Water Conference where the final panel consisted of a lengthy discussion of the Water/Energy Nexus.

Apparently, it is cutting edge thinking to associate water usage with energy production and to measure the amount of energy it takes to pump, treat and manage water (and wastewater for that matter). Amy Hardberger, by far the most entertaining presenter of the day, walked the audience through the basics of energy and water's mutual dependence. It's a rare feat to get several dozen people alert and chuckling after 5 hours of previous presentations, but Amy was somehow able to do it. Her paper (written with several others) is available online and easily accessible reading. I'm currently putting an unprecedented level of effort into learning about resource management, but was grateful to have such handy schematics and simplistic explanations at my disposal.

To paraphrase the discussion, reductions in energy can result in reductions of water usage, because water is most often the agent used for dissipating waste heat generated by power plants. Similarly, water conservation can save on energy costs by reducing the amount of work needed to process and pump water. A more complicated problem resides in the valuation of these respective environmental effects, but at least we've got some talented, entertaining people working on it.