Earth Week is here baby. Below is the list of what's going on, on campus.

Schedule of events:

MONDAY march 28
1.)fair trade coffee at residential dining services all week...

TUESDAY march 29
2.)the beehive collective "plan columbia" 7pm in wolverine room, union
http://www.beehivecollective.org

WEDNESDAY march 30
1.)Diag Day - music, info, freebies 11-4pm
2.)Dining Hall Sustainable Lunch - organic & local foods featured
3.)movie: "The Price of Health" - 7:30pm ERB institute, Ross B-school E1550
4.)Transformer's green business tour - Leopold's 7pm 523 s. main
5.)2nd annual hunger banquet - 6:00-8:30 in the wedge room, west quad. $1 dinner

THURSDAY march 31
1.)!!keynote address by Winona LaDuke!!, 1996 & 2000 Green Party VP Candidate,
Native American author & activist - SNRE Dana Building 1040 7pm

FRIDAY April 1
1.)movie: “the take” 8pm fair trade apparel conference at school of social
work, education conference center

SATURDAY april 2
1.)The Detroit Project - service day! register www.umich.edu/~thedp
2.)North Campus Woods Conservation - Invasive Species Removal Project. contact
3.)PitE student organizer Tony Shourds tshourds@umich.edu

SUNDAY April 3
1.) Showing of "Oil on Ice" and "Being Caribou" at the Banff Film Festival

SATURDAY april 9
1.)Hands on the Planet - service day! register www.umich.edu/~mserve
2.)Environmental Justice Toxic Tour of Detroit - register tyogawa@umich.edu
3.)North Campus Woods Conservation - contact tshourds@umich.edu

On Wednesday, which is tomorrow, Environmental Justice along with other greenies will be camping at the Diag. If you are passing by the Diag tomorrow, make sure you go to the EJ table and put your signature down on a poster that says "Thank You RDS for serving Fair Trade Coffee!"

The poster is a way to thank the University's dining services for serving fair trade coffee for the rest of the week in honor of Earth Week. The people in EJ (me included, ehem) made the posters.

On April 3rd, Oil on Ice will be shown. Oil on Ice is an award-winning documentary about Arctic Wildlife National Reserve. If you haven't heard, the Senate is planning to pass a bill to drill AWNR soon. This is a good opportunity to be educated on the ANWR issue.

Happy Earth Week people.

I woke up, went to ReCom.org and read a thread about a new quake off Sumatra with 8.2 magnitude on Richter scale. As in right now, tsunami alert has been sounded. However, three hours after the quake was first discovered, no tsunami has been detected yet.

On the blogosphere, to show how strong the quake is, lots have reported that even Malaysians felt the tremor.

I need to take a break. Else, what's temporary might become permanent.


Life feels good without the glove.

Somehow, the photo reminds of me of Fido Dido. Does anybody remember Fido Dido?
Damn, can't believe it has been so long.

The reason why World of Warcraft is currently the best MMORPG of all time and why it is a bestselling game.

Though I was not in that successful raid of the filthy Orc's capital, I did join another raid on the same city yesterday. Result?



That's me. Dead.

One problem with huge raid is leadership. Most of the time, while the voice of the mentats can easily be heard prior to an attack, as the time progresses and the target in sight, voice of the leader will usually be lost among the noise. Once that happened, a few will rise up to try to take up the leadership. And if none stepped up, the raid is doomed to fail.

In yesterday raid, the initial leader failed to assert his control over time and thus, a few others took the initiative to lead. It was great but the raid was a failure despite the majority of us managed to get behind enemy line and be inside the throne room.

Reason for failure - the lack of obsessive-compulsive behavior. People just gave up.

The plan for the raid was impressive nonetheless. In total, in maximum estimate, 80 people were involved, with at most half were high level players. Two groups were form. One was the main driver while the other was a diversionary force.

It was too complex to be done with large number of people with too short a time. I had my doubt at first though I didn't voice it. A paladin however did voice his doubt. A person remark to the paladin, "of all persons, it's a paladin that's having doubt".

The push against the enemy line was hard. We were confronted from the north and after half an hour. from the south too, making any strategic retreat impossible. Luckily, we managed to break loose after a few tries thanks to the help of the diversionary force. Our back was covered by the secondary column and thus, we were able to concentrate on the major front.

A tribute to taurenslayer, the initiator of the raid and errik for taking up the torch. Also, to all Horde that died valiantly... in their own capital.

p/s - to modem users, don't even think of clicking on that link. It's 91 MB.

St. Patrick Day is the day when everybody:
1. pretends its holidays
2. pretends its spring
3. pretends everybody is above 21

Climate change has possibly made sure that pretending one of the above is harder - I woke up just now and I saw a number for tiny vengeful white flakes invading the cursed Ann Arbor. Heck, as if seeing the disgusting weather with my own eyes is not enough, on the internet, winter storm watch for the Midwest has been issued.

Anybody willing to check when was the latest snowfall each year for the last 100 years for Ann Arbor?

Though I know some econometrics, I'm just too lazy to analyze them. If you want to do it, some sites to look at are the NOAA and the pioneer of online weather report at the University of Michigan Weather. The zipcode for Ann Arbor is 48109 and its location is longitude 83 deg, 43 mins and lagitude of 42 deg, 18 mins. North and west of course.

p/s - somehow, I remember, it snowed in April too. Maybe it's not too unnatural.

So, the bid to remove the ANWR provision from the budget has predictably failed by a small margin. The Senate voted 51-49 to reject the amendment. With this, the probability of seeing ANWR being drilled is higher than any other time the drilling idea has reached the floor. The shroud of the dark side has fallen, begun the clone wars has. Er, I mean, er, - actually this ANWR scuffle has been dubbed the first political battle of the year. And Star Wars latest trailer is goddamn sexy though was out a week ago.

And the left is losing badly though the vote will be slim. (Cough) But it's not so bad. Looking at history, the left loves losing actually.

Official result can be read from the Senate website. Creek Running North has a short entry on who voted what.

Half way around the world, the New York Times has reported earlier last week that progress is being made by conservationist in the Tigris-Eupharates marshes that were devastated by Saddam Hussein. I'm unable to provide the link since it has been archived. However, and fortunately, Google provides an excellent search. For background on the story, read some of my earlier entry and also the enlightening Laputan Logic.

In Malaysia, the ones that are responsible for the environmental destruction near a nature reserve - the ones in the government - has gotten away. Instead, some of the the developers, are being charged. While it's good to see action is being taken, sadly, the target should be the ones that approved the irresponsble projects, not the ones that conducted the project. But then, again, in Malaysia, priority means nothing. Hey, we will have the biggest courthouse in the world but not the best judiciary system in the world.

p/s - update on Coke campaign. Some student entity from outside Michigan and other schools (Canada... eh?) has contacted the people in Michigan about solidarity and cooperation when Coke is concerned. And some has somewhat called for a North America anti-Coke coalition.

Plus, the College Democrats has jumped onto the bandwagon. The Republicans, I'd imagine, would love to be on the other side. And the official color for this campaign should be green instead of red. Red looks like too commie.

John Kerry offers to strip the drilling proposal from the budget (via). I don't think Kerry's suggestion will work, unfortunately.

The Republicans are shrewd to attach the drilling proposal along with the budget. Because of such arrangement, it would only take a simple majority to pass the drilling bill. At the same time, the Republicans are controlling the House.

Alternative Hippopotamus aptly describes the situation for ANWR. The real quote however is:

It would take a miracle to get you out of Casablanca and the Germans have outlawed miracles.

The hippo is right; it would take a miracle to prevent drilling and time to resist is running out. ANWR's only hope to be left undisturbed is the word no from rational Republican representatives that understand that, as John Kerry has stated during the 2004 Presidential campaign, we can't drill our way out of this energy crisis.

After more than two decades of fighting, it all comes down to here and now. And the future looks grim.

And yes, it will be in Malaysia! (via)

KUALA LUMPUR: The new Kuala Lumpur court complex, scheduled for completion in February next year, will be the biggest in the world, with 77 courtrooms.

The RM290mil complex will house the magistrate’s courts (26 courtrooms), Sessions Courts (21 courtrooms) and the High Court, including the Family Court (30 courtrooms)...

(Cough) I'd suggest Malaysia strengthens the separation between the executive, the judiciary and the Parliament before we start building the world's largest parliament house. As in right now, the Parliament is under Jabatan Perdana Menteri (that's the Prime Minister Department for those that are mentally challenged in Malay), which technically, as I understand it, means that the Parliament is under the power of the executive branch of the government.

I'd suppose next year, the Sultan Abdul Samad Building is nothing but history.

p/s - Danny Blind is the new Ajax coach. Ajax for Ajax!

Here we go again.

He said drilling in ANWR should be part of an overall energy bill that would promote conservation, increase domestic energy production and modernize infrastructure such as power grids and pipelines.

Yes, drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge would indeed promote conservation. What a wonderful logic!

Somehow, it is consistent with the idea of 'saving the forest by cutting the trees down'. Ooo, I love the forest. Wait, what is this tree doing here? Cut it down! It's blocking my view of the forest!

Bullshit.

The last time the bill was brought to the floor, it was killed. It was not easy but it was taken by its throat and thrown off into the drain nonetheless. This time around, with record price at $54 per barrel, with Bush on his second term and a Republicans-filled House, killing the bill should be harder. Way harder.

p/s - for the past few days, tension has been running high between Malaysia and Indonesia. Though war is unlikely, some Indonesians have attacked Malaysian government websites. Counterattacks have been done against Indonesian property on the net. Screenshots has more.

It's quite weird however seeing the local Malaysian dailies being unexcited about the current development at Ambalat in east Borneo. Indonesian press on the contrary is going balistic.

Some days ago, a report was published by the Food Policy journal. An archive of the journal can be found at ScienceDirect. According to BBC, the authors of the paper argue that buying food locally is ‘greener than organic’. I’ve heard the idea of 'buying locally grown food is better than buying imported food' a long time ago but never really gave it a thought.

The rationale behind this is externality – some cost of food distribution is not internalized into the price and thus, the food price doesn’t reflect the true cost of the food. According to one of the authors:

"The price of food is disguising externalised costs - damage to the environment, damage to climate, damage to infrastructure and the cost of transporting food on roads," Professor Lang told the BBC News website.

One problem I have about the concept of buying food locally is the idea of opportunity cost and comparative advantage. The cost of growing food locally might be higher than the cost of growing food abroad. To describe this, borrowing the rose example from Krugman’s International Economics text:

…He took the occasion to make a speech denouncing the growing imports of flowers into the United States, which he claimed were putting American flowers growers out of business…

…The case of winter roses offers an excellent example of the reasons why international trade can be beneficial. Consider first how hard it is to supply American sweethearts with fresh roses in February. The flowers must be grown in heated greenhouses, at great expense in terms of energy, capital investment, and other scarce resources…

He, in the example refers to 1996 Republican presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan.

Now, replace roses with some food that can’t be grown during wintertime without the help of greenhouses. The same idea still applies and hence, again, the cost of growing food locally might be higher than the cost of growing food abroad.

Moreover, I do believe, if, hypothetically, we were to buy food locally, prices would differ across areas. Different places do have differing supply and demand and thus, differing prices. Difference in prices would later lead to arbitraging opportunity. Arbitrage leads to trade and thus, the exportation and the importation of food, all over again. It’s merry-go-round. Unless of course, if some entity were to standardized the prices, than it would not be a problem. However, standardizing the prices doesn’t sound like a bright idea.

Before the two issues are resolved, I will not readily accept the idea of buying food locally is necessarily better than buying food originated from somewhere else just because it seems green.

At the same time, it also takes energy to transport food from one place to another. But, if price in town A is lower than price in town B with the cost of transporting the food from town A to town B is higher than the difference in prices, trade wouldn’t happen anyway.

Further:

"It is going to need some sophisticated policy solutions," Professor Pretty said. "You could say we should internalise those costs in prices, so that it affects people's behaviour. That might be economically efficient but it lacks on the social justice side because it will affect rich people much less."

If we could internalize all the costs, the problem would indeed be solved. The greenest and the most efficient way to buy food would be to consume the cheapest one (ceteris paribus, definately).

However, given the externalities, I really don't think we know which food is greener than the other, or the cheapest if all cost were to be internalized - the green bean originating from somewhere in the US or the red bean grown somewhere in Latin America. Then again, green bean and red bean are not really substitutes but I suppose you'll get the idea clearly, one way or another.


Which is greener - the guy with the camera or the veggie?
p/s - been migrating past comments from Haloscan to Blogger. The time stamp will be incoherent but what the hell.

pp/s - NYT (reg. req.) on World of Warcraft. (Via)