Can Open-Source Models Decode Urban Agriculture?

I was planning on doing a little gardening this year. Probably nothing massive but this info and the blog associated with it are interesting reading.

Also cool is the open source ecology project, which plans to create blueprints for machines that can sustain civilization. Frankly, that’s just genius and if we weren’t such a market-driven pack of vultures, this would have been around a long time ago.

To young voters, socialism isn’t a bad word – The Boston Globe

Here’s the problem with conservatives. Well, there are many, many problems, but here’s a bad marketing decision.

In their hatred of having a black President, they’ve taken to calling him a socialist (or whatever) because they can’t openly call him the N word.

It sells well with the “we hate education” crowd. However, it is falling flat dead with young voters.

Why?

Well, one, a lot of them are in college and can actually learn what words like socialism, communism, and fascism mean. They can see communist China using capitalism to kick our ass economically. They see semi-socialist parts of Europe recovering from the Great Recession and having 32 hour work weeks, a paid year off or two for maternity leave, five weeks of vacation, and health care and great infrastructure.

Then they see the US with crumbling this or not and a bank/government/corporate scandal or theft every few days. And aside from the President and his party all they see are Sarah Palin, Glenn Beck and company making common cause with racist anti-government militias a la McVeigh.

What the hell kind of conclusion do you expect them to make other than conservatives are lunatics more in line with the Taliban than with them?

‘My best friends are minority!’

The past election brought forth a bumper crop of conservative racists and general loons. They even took over the legislature here in Minnesota.

So now, these folks feel like they can say what they truly believe. Normally, I’ll all for that.

Actually, I’m *still* for it, but it is frightening that American citizens willfully vote for people who blame our poor schools on integration.

You know, this from the same party who don’t pay teachers well and then accuse them of being rich “parasites” for daring to form unions and have rights.

This from the same idiots who love to ban – and sometimes burn – books, try to alter the history books to ignore large groups of people, not to mention reality. The same kind who hate science and want to teach creationism. Who loathe the concept that children might actually learn about their bodies and thus try to force abstinence only ed and ignore that kids have sex, whether they should or not.

The same folks who hate that kids are fat but don’t see the correlation between that and the soda machines and food company sponsorships all over the buildings and sport arenas.

The same folks who mock the First Lady, often in hateful racist tones, when she tries to address why our kids are unfit.

I’m ranting, but these are the kinds of people who should be kept far, far away from the levers of power. Hey, the left has them too. But Nader is an election spoiler, not a primary candidate of the Dems. When you look at the Palins, Trumps, Huckabees, and Gringrich types having a serious chance to hold power – and who have in the past – you gotta question the sanity, logic, and, yes, patriotism of those who vote for that kind of person.