This weekend is the GreenBuilt tour in San Diego. Here are a couple of pics from the tour last year, a day before the fires.

The LA Times seems surprised, but I’m not: The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report that points at senior officials until after the election.

Since I am going to be there in December, I have links to a few sites that collect news feeds from peru. This morning I saw these two stories for today:

- Peruvians face hunger, UN warns
- Peruvians develop super-tasty guinea pig

Problem solved! Automatically generated feeds can be so cruel, no?

Jon Stewart is the man. Clicky here to watch him sass up a storm on CNN’s Crossfire. Or click here to read the transcript (about halfway down)

BEGALA: Well, it’s because, see, we’re a debate show.

STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great.

BEGALA: It’s like saying The Weather Channel reduces everything to a storm front.

STEWART: I would love to see a debate show.

BEGALA: We’re 30 minutes in a 24-hour day where we have each side on, as best we can get them, and have them fight it out.

STEWART: No, no, no, no, that would be great. To do a debate would be great. But that’s like saying pro wrestling is a show about athletic competition.

Another gem:

CARLSON: You had John Kerry on your show and you sniff his throne and you’re accusing us of partisan hackery?

STEWART: Absolutely.

CARLSON: You’ve got to be kidding me. He comes on and you…

STEWART: You’re on CNN. The show that leads into me is puppets making crank phone calls. What is wrong with you?

Had my eyes measured the other day for LASIK & wavefront. I have very good night vision, so I figured my pupils were fairly large. They are a ginormous 8mm – that’s a fancy medical definition for you. The average pupil size is around 5-6mm. There was some early evidence that with the larger pupil size comes an increased chance of halos at night – the theory being that your pupil expands outside the treated area, giving you some blur. But some recent studies have shown that it is more to do with the way you heal and how bad your eyes are before you go into it. I am about the right age for the surgery, and my prescription isn’t that bad, so those factors are good for me. I think it is worth the risk.

There are other risks of course, but I’m not too worried about dry eye or contrast loss – that sort of stuff usually only happens when you have a preexisting condition. I should be a pretty low risk for that stuff. It is funny how I’ve gone from zero knowledge about eyes to a very good understanding of the eye, different laser treatments, and procedures. Always good to know what you are getting into when they are using a knife on your eye :)

They said someone could watch the surgery, but Anna might be a bit too squeamish about it. She has this weird thing about knives and eyes. Strange, I know.

After the test I wandered over to the consumer mecca of UTC and ordered myself a lychee boba tea. It was so good I didn’t even care I was wearing dorky glasses to protect my drugged out pupils.

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New malaria vaccine raises high hopes – 30% reduction in general infection, 60% less likely to develop severe forms. Very good news for a lot of the world.

Interesting article: Glad to be asexual

Wired looks at us burdening the future – For most of history, this question didn’t matter much. Before the atomic bomb, we couldn’t really break the future. And before deficit financing, we couldn’t easily bankrupt it either.

An interesting assessment on your life: The Clean Sweep Program. I can’t say I agree with it all, but it is a thought provoking concept.

Google search for PC desktops, is it any good?

Busy busy. Even a simple wedding is a lot of work.

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Wow, check out the picture: World’s pollution hotspots revealed from space

Cheese or security. Answer, cheese! Airport security agency cited for lavish banquet, bonuses

$140 billion corporate tax bill – “the worst example of the influence of special interests that I have ever seen” Good thing the fiscally responsible republicans hold the majority in the senate, eh?

Interesting stuff: The NanoWater congress, which kicked off the Aquatech 2004 water-technology trade show, outlined how nanotechnology can create drinking water from contaminated water, salt water and all forms of waste water

Diesels + Hybrid = Greener.

I am going to get my eyes measured today for wavefront LASIK. I have wanted to do this for a while, but waited until the 3d technology was affordable ($2400). Surprisingly, the costs in Calgary were about the same for this kind of surgery. I guess the equipment costs take a while to recoup.

I’ve done my homework on my doc of course. He likes to travel and teach, always a good sign.

So if you see me wandering around today with pupils the size of dinner plates, don’t worry.

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The Sun is a great magazine. If you asked me if I would subscribe to a thin literary mag, I would have said ‘Put me on your do not call list’. Well, actually I would do that anyway, but the point is, I didn’t even know I would be interested in it.

This month there is an amazing interview with Daniel Ellsberg (Crusade Against The Abuse Of Presidential Power, From Nixon To Bush). They have a pdf link to some of the story here. I highly recommend it.

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Ah Monsanto, about time someone smacked you down: EPO revokes patent on Indian wheat

Interesting… The influence of sexual orientation on vowel production

Evidence of ‘jungle yeti’ found.

And to go with the above, Dinosaur tracks found in Swiss mountains

Seems that homeland security is freaking people out: The US Attorneys were informed that without a doubt an attack was going to be perpetrated in the US within the next 6 weeks, prior to the elections. Link.

Lastly, bitter irony: Iraqi nuke site looting after the war is putting materials back on the black market.

This will be a busy weekend. Little Italy festival, Ray at Night, and One Nation at the Whistle Stop. Too bad I have so much work to do :(

There are few travel shows out there, and even fewer that I like. Recently I have added Michael Palin’s shows to my very limited play-list (which is mostly A Cook’s Tour and Lonely Planet). His new series is on The Himalayas, and is quite amazing. I will not miss the other 5 episodes.

We all knew it, but now it is official: The latest and most definitive findings came this week from the head of the U.S. weapons hunt in Iraq, Charles Duelfer. He concluded that Saddam did not have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons, had no programs to make them or nuclear bombs, and had little ability to revive the banned weapons programs.

Bush now says Saddam had the ability to make weapons and give them to terrorists, an assertion he repeated Thursday. But Duelfer and other experts now say that is probably is false as well.

Archaeologists have unearthed the site of Genghis Khan’s palace and believe the long-sought grave of the 13th century Mongolian warrior is somewhere nearby

I just tried this out, pretty cool: Google SMS

For all you ipod nuts: iPodder

Underground SDSU station nearly finished