Monthly Archives: January 2007

Obi-Wan Kenobi cloak rediscovered

Film, Oddly Enough, Science fiction

[Adam says:]

Personally, I think garments’ lost travels are more interesting than the post cards you sometimes see of a garden gnome traveling the world:

The cloak worn by Sir Alec Guinness in Star Wars has been rediscovered after nearly three decades.

After Guinness wore the garment for his role as Obi-Wan Kenobi, it was returned to British costume firm Bermans.  The cloak was subsequently loaned to other films including 1999′s The Mummy, and even hired out as fancy dress.

It was identified in a stock check earlier this year and now forms part of a film memorabilia exhibition at the Harrods department store in London.

carbon-neutral technology

Environment, Technology

A company called 3PAR is promoting a new idea in computer hardware. When you buy one of their products, they automatically include carbon offsets [1] for the energy it will use. The products themselves aren’t exactly everyday consumer items, but I can see this idea catching on as manufacturers realize that green values can be a differentiator.

[thanks for the link, Adam!]

[1] Wikipedia has more info on carbon offsets. They’re controversial, but I personally think they do real good and raise awareness. If people start thinking about the amount of energy something uses as an added up-front cost, it helps make efficiency part of the buying decision.

continuing the permanent war

Iraq, Politics

So I was reading the latest comments by William Kristol on opposition in Congress to the escalation of hostilities in Iraq, and they sounded a bit familiar:

It’s so irresponsible that they can’t be quiet for six or nine months and say the president has made a decision, we’re not going to change that decision, we’re not going to cut off funds and insist on the troops coming back, so let’s give it a chance to work.

(Emphasis mine.)  I kept getting that tickle in the back of my brain, so I searched this very same blog for the phrase “six months” and found something eerily familiar:

“Six months.  Just let this play out.“

Date written?  May 2006, about “six to nine months” ago.  (Follow that link for a similar chain of six-month timelines, stretching back to 2003.)  How many more six-to-nine-month extensions are we going to be asked for?  How many thousand-death promissory notes?

Poor Taste, Indeed

Agriculture, Community & Activism, Environment, Food, Organics, Politics

This is a very good article, titled Poor Taste, on Grist debunking a recent anti-sustainable, anti-organic and anti-local food rant in The Economist that even invokes one of the chief architects of the ill-fated Green Revolution.

I mean, point well taken that creating a truly environmentally conscious and sustainable food system is NOT just limited to what you put in your grocery cart, but that is no reason to throw the baby out with the bathwater . . . Heck, in this case, they are throwing out the entire bathtub.