From Oil to Supernovae

With the BP oil disaster still in the headlines, and America's still nervous feelings about conventional nuclear power, the fact that we are possibly on the verge of creating fusion has inexplicably managed to stay out of the public news. This is mostly because the project, which started back in 1997, ran into problems along the way, which is regrettable, but normal for new, highly technical situations like this. Although it's five years behind schedule and far over budget, it was dedicated last year and has already fired a successful test run this year. This summer, they may create a tiny star in this massive lab experiment, which would dissipate in a tiny supernovae, creating more energy than was used to create it. That's nuclear fusion with a net energy gain, once thought impossible, even laughable. While the use of such a power source would still probably be decades away, it's what we should be striving for, not continuing to drilling into the seafloor so we can occasionally cause such calamities as is currently ruining the coast of Louisiana. Drill, baby, drill, right?

Haiti to Monsanto: F*** You

In the hit documentary Food Inc., seed company Monsanto was vilified (and rightly so) for their legal attacks on farmers and seed harvesters for infringing their patent rights. Now, not only does Monsanto have to deal with problems like its public image, weeds becoming resistant to its weed-killer Roundup, and their general dislike by environmentalists; their gift to Haiti, 475 tons of hybrid seeds, will most likely not be accepted, and probably burned. Haitians see the move as an attack on their sustainable farming lifestyle, or as Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay put it, "a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds ... and on what is left our environment in Haiti."
Kudos to the poor Haitians, who, even after their nation was devastated by an earthquake earlier this year, still resist the Americanized notion of letting corporations take care of you, if only for their future benefit. I can't imagine the difficulties they currently face, so compound that in five or ten years when Monsanto holds farmers liable for using their seeds, forcing them to buy them and suing them if they happen to drift into their field, since Monsanto can't seem to be held responsible for their own wayward seeds.

Shocked and Appalled? Not so much

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Ga-ga

If I had been asked six months ago how I felt about Lady Gaga, I would have probably have used an expletive or two, and ranted a little about pop music and such. But recently, the world seems to be going ga-ga over Gaga. She made it onto Time mags list of 100 Most Influential People in the World list, leading the 'artists' section with a blurb written by Cyndi Lauper. South Park paid homage to her in their particular style by having Eric Cartman sing Pokerface during an episode. A few videos have made the Youtube rounds like the a capella version of Bad Romance and some of our soldiers in Afghanistan doing their own version of Telephone. Glad I know that my tax dollars are being spent wisely, keep up the good work, troops. I also just stumbled onto this teenager who does an impressive cover of Paparazzi on piano.
So now, I find myself intrigued by the Lady. Her lyrics are at times bizarre and charged with dirty sexuality. She writes most of them herself, which is quite a departure from most pop music stars, who sublet this tedious (and ultimately forgettable) task to firms in Nashville that crank them out like the sugar-pills they are. Gaga has actually made something possibly memorable, and despite my general abhorring for anything pop, find myself not changing the station when Pokerface comes on. Is that because of the purported meaning of the song? Possibly.

However, I'm much more entertained by Lily Allen, whose lyrics leave nothing to the imagination as does Gaga, but isn't nearly as bizarre, and can be downright cute, despite her notoriously bad behavior. Youtube her, but beware, some songs are NSFW.