BoSt Productions Update

This about says it all.

Mon, 20 May 2013 01:56:36 -0400

This about says it all.

Some Videos About Education

Sat, 11 May 2013 13:37:50 -0400

“When the safety of America is threatened, we will spend any amount of money. The real safety of our nation is preparing this next generation so that they can take our place [in] thinking and technology and democracy.”

Jeff Bliss is an 18-year old high school student in Duncanville, Ill. who got fed up with a teacher for what he thought was lazy, apathetic teaching. So, he gave her a piece of his mind — and touched a national nerve.

A classmate taped his mini sermon on the importance of good teaching and the video went wildly viral — landing him unexpected celebrity.

Until recently, many teachers only got one word of feedback a year: “satisfactory.” And with no feedback, no coaching, there’s just no way to improve. Bill Gates suggests that even great teachers can get better with smart feedback — and lays out a program from his foundation to bring it to every classroom.

Calling Out the Climate Deniers

Sun, 05 May 2013 12:14:00 -0400

Introducing Reality Drop on Vimeo.

Man-made climate change is here: A reality we can no longer ignore. We see the impacts in our everyday lives, from extreme superstorms, to heat waves, to massive wildfires and droughts.

But Dirty Energy companies and their allies have spread lies and confusion about climate science. Their “think tanks” produce false theories. Their “experts” spout false claims. They flood online comment streams with false information.

The result? People still aren’t sure whether we should do anything about climate change — or if it’s even happening. The media doesn’t report the facts straight about climate change — or worse yet, they don’t cover it at all.

Reality Drop’s mission is to reveal the denial and deception around climate change, spread the truth, and clear the way toward real solutions.

We’re long overdue for a national conversation about the carbon pollution that’s warming our planet. We can make this conversation happen… and we can relentlessly call on our leaders to move us toward a clean energy future.

We have something on our side that no amount of money can buy: Reality.

thumbcramps: hi guys! this is a comic i made for a final in my...

Wed, 01 May 2013 03:34:19 -0400

thumbcramps:

hi guys! this is a comic i made for a final in my comics in literature class. we had to do a research paper on a topic we’d discussed in class and then accompany it with a comic with a relevant subject. my paper was about hyper-sexualization of women in comic books, but i decided to broaden it out here as well as personalize it and make myself the subject and discuss something i’ve been subjected to in the convention circuit and on the internet as well as thousands of other women, as well as give a cue to thought about how the comic book industry as well as the video game industry and even just media in general (all of which are male dominated) push such ridiculous pressures onto girls and women.

also, it feels kind of silly to have to add this since i hope it’s obvious, but i am very aware that there are men that don’t subscribe to this attitude, and am incredibly grateful that these issues are brought to light to people other than the ones that are subjected to it.

anyway haha i have literally been staring at this for 9 hours i don’t even know which direction is up anymore. thanks for reading!!!

Well put.

Why the Kinder Morgan Pipeline Proposal is Not Worth the Risk

Tue, 30 Apr 2013 16:05:00 -0400

WHY THE KINDER MORGAN PIPELINE PROPOSAL IS NOT WORTH THE RISK.

A spill would be catastrophic. Not only from an environmental perspective but also economically if you want to learn more read this article.
Jobs. Or lack thereof. Proponents of this project talk about thousands of jobs and yes there will be significant employment over the construction phase – although many jobs will be for highly specialized crews imported from out of province and/or out of country – but, long term, the Kinder Morgan proposal will provide about 35 new full-time jobs.
Pipelines and tankers pose a huge risk to our Super Natural BC Tourism industry. An industry worth billions. Read more here.
We have an obligation to slow down the development of Alberta’s tar sands anyway we can. We have been blessed with extraordinary wealth here in British Columbia. Wealth that has resulted from hard work but also from an abundance of natural resources and global economic circumstance. We can afford to take a stand.

Email your candidate now.

Mitch McConnell’s actions now will be remembered in...

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 13:56:00 -0400

Mitch McConnell’s actions now will be remembered in 2014.

images are employed as fair use; editorial comment and criticism

Stop Enbridge Line 9 from pumping Tar Sands bitumen through...

Tue, 16 Apr 2013 02:36:47 -0400

Stop Enbridge Line 9 from pumping Tar Sands bitumen through urban areas.

Feel free to re-use my gif if you want to.

Whistleblower's Open Letter to Canadians

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 02:53:00 -0400

Imagine a World Without Hate

Sun, 31 Mar 2013 00:58:00 -0400

Ice Breaking News: This Is Your 2013 Arctic Freezing Season On Crack by CLIMATE GUEST BLOGGER ON MAR...

Sat, 23 Mar 2013 14:52:00 -0400

Ice Breaking News: This Is Your 2013 Arctic Freezing Season On Crack

by CLIMATE GUEST BLOGGER ON MAR 23, 2013 AT 12:42 PM
MARCH 23, 2013
READ LATER

Image of massive Arctic sea ice cracks showing temperature of the ice and the cracks between floes. Via Arctic Sea Ice blog.

By Neven Acropolis

The sea ice cap on top of the Arctic Ocean is often imagined to be a monolithic, continuous sheet of ice floating on water. A closer look quickly shows it is rather a collection of larger and smaller pieces of sea ice. Of course, we have all seen theimages of ice floes separated by open water during summer, but even during winter the ice pack gets fractured, leading to leads that quickly freeze over again.

This explains how from the 1950′s onwards submarines were able to emerge at the North Pole (the image on top is showing the USS Connecticut as it surfaces in the Arctic Circle on March 19th 2011; copyright: Kevin S. O’Brien, U.S. Navy). The subs couldn’t break through the thick ice and had to look for a lead where the ice was thinner.

Strangely enough those who deny the reality and potential consequences of AGW still like to abuse this event and claim it somehow proves that nothing unusual is happening up North. It doesn’t prove or disprove anything, as cracks and leads have always been a normal feature of the Arctic sea ice pack. But ‘normal’ is a word that has become less and less applicable to the Arctic in recent times. The 2012 melting season was the latest climax in a series of record years, that showed conclusively that the ice is thinner than it has been for a very long time.

We don’t even have to await the coming melting season to see this re-confirmed. We can see it right now, at the end of the freezing season. Like I just said, cracks are a regular feature of the Arctic, but this video below, made by NOAA’s Visualization Lab, shows a cracking event that is very rare, if not unique :

Ice, however thin, doesn’t fracture by itself. It needs wind to pull the ice pack apart. This wind was provided by a big, intense and stubborn high pressure area that started about a month ago and kicked the Beaufort Gyre into action, which is an ocean circulation pattern that transports the ice in a clockwise fashion from the North American coast towards Siberia.

This short animation of ASCAT radar images shows the movement in 10 day intervals from January 1st onwards, compared to the previous three winters. The black dot represents the North Pole, the white mass below it is the northern part of the Greenland Ice Sheet, the brighter colours represent thicker multi-year ice that survived last year’s melting season:

Aside from the red circle showing the start of the cracking event, there is clearly another big difference with previous years (blue rectangles). At the end of the previous three freezing seasons some of the multi-year ice in that disappearing safe haven north of Greenland and the Canadian Archipelago was transported into the Beaufort Sea. This buffer zone of thicker, older ice actually prevented an ice massacre in the 2010 and 2011 melting seasons, but unexpectedly didn’t stand a chance in 2012. That means that this melting season there is no buffer zone on the Pacific side of the Arctic.

On top of that there is this cracking event, the effects of which are difficult to predict. Even though sea ice extent and area have reached their annual peak and temperatures aren’t as low as they used to be, it is still quite cold in the Arctic. The labyrinth of leads that stretches all the way to Greenland due to another intense high pressure area, is freezing over again with a thin layer of ice (see yesterday’ssatellite image). A possible outcome could be that when the Sun starts to beat down on this part of the Arctic from May onwards, the thin ice will quickly disappear leaving behind stretches of open water well inside the ice pack. Under the right circumstances this could significantly accelerate melting. Never mind the fact that the ice pack has started to break up in ever smaller parts so early in the year, making it much easier to move the ice around.

What about those big high pressure areas causing all that thin ice to crack and get caught up in the Beaufort Gyre? Not only have they been spurring on the spectacular cracking event of recent weeks, they are also helping winter to keep parts of the US and Europe in its icy grip. The highs are tied to a sudden stratospheric warming event (SSW) that has effectively made the Polar Vortexcollapse relatively early, after it was already considerably weakened by a SSW inJanuary. The Polar Vortex normally keeps cold air from spilling out all over the Northern Hemisphere. As Andrew Freedman wrote on Climate Central a couple of days ago:

The weather map across the Northern Hemisphere features a sprawling and unusually strong area of High pressure over Greenland that is serving as an atmospheric stop sign, slowing weather systems as they move from west to east, and allowing storms to deepen off the eastern seaboard and tap into more cold air than they otherwise might have.

That is not your typical fair weather area of High pressure, either. Some computer models have been projecting that, sometime during the next couple of days, the Greenland High could come close to setting the mark for the highest atmospheric pressure ever recorded.

The blocking pattern has helped direct cold air into the lower 48 states as well as parts of Europe, while the Arctic has been experiencing dramatically warmer-than-average conditions, particularly along the west coast of Greenland and in northeastern Canada. Blocking patterns are often associated with extreme weather events, from heat waves like the one that occurred last March, to historic cold air outbreaks and blizzards.

Another atmospheric blocking event on a large scale. What a coincidence. Below there’s a composite image of the two recent high pressure areas, the extremely negative Arctic Oscillation Index and temperature anomalies for the Arctic since January 1st (click for a larger version):

As can be seen on the image in the lower right corner, temperatures in the past three months have been anomalously high over Greenland and Baffin Bay, where sea ice area has already started to drop. This doesn’t bode well with last year’s events in mind, when almost all of the Greenland Ice Sheet was melting at one point (something which allegedly only occured once since the Holocene Climatic Optimum) and wild streams washed away bridges and heavy machinery, culminating in a record yearly amount of 570 Gt of melted volume.

So is there any good news with regards to the Arctic? Well, more and more oil companies are deciding that Arctic drilling is too difficult and therefore not worth the investment. But when it comes to sea ice I can only offer one thin sliver of hope. According to the PIOMAS sea ice volume model, our best tool for estimating the volume and average thickness of the ice pack, there is approximately as much iceas there was last year. Even though average thickness figures (calculated by dividing the volume by total area) suggest that the volume increase occured on the outer edges of the ice pack where ice will melt out anyway, it is still mildly comforting, as volume numbers were quite a bit below those of previous years so far:

Although the melting season has now officially started and sea ice area/extent has started to decrease, the ice will thicken some more until the Sun takes over the entire Arctic Circle. Perhaps weather conditions will be mild, gigantic cyclones leave the ice alone, and the ice turns out to be sturdier after all. But given the current status a new record is a very definite possibility. It’s not for nothing that we are entering the period that according to [early versions of] Wieslaw Maslowski’s model could see an ice-free Arctic (sea ice area below 1 million km2) for the first time in a very long time. This will probably have consequences, if they aren’t already upon us.

We’ll have to wait and see…

– by Neven Acropolis, who oversees the Arctic Sea Ice blog.

Red Lake Chippewa Discover Enbridge Tar Sands Pipelines Through Nation-Owned Land Have No Easement Contracts » Tar Sands Blockade

Sat, 16 Mar 2013 17:20:27 -0400

Red Lake Chippewa Discover Enbridge Tar Sands Pipelines Through Nation-Owned Land Have No Easement Contracts » Tar Sands Blockade:

For over two weeks now, Nizhawendaamin Inaakiminaan (We Love Our Land) has been occupying land directly above four pipelines across an easement that Enbridge has claimed since 1949 when the company, then called Lakehead Pipe Line Company, installed the first of four pipelines across land owned by the Red Lake Band of Chippewa despite not having an easement from the Red Lake Chippewa Nation. These pipes carry toxic tar sands, Bakken oil, as well as Canadian crude. By threatening the local lakes, these pipes endanger the lives and economic livelihood of Red Lake Band members.

The grassroots group of Red Lake Chippewa and Anishinaabe Indians is joined by blockaders and solidarity activists determined to shut down the pipelines, hold Enbridge to account for stealing land, and protest Enbridge’s proposed expansion of the nearby Alberta Clipper toxic tar sands pipeline.

Located in Northern Minnesota near the town of Leonard, the occupation of the Red Lake land began Thursday, February 28. Requests to Enbridge regarding internal safety regulations related to above-ground activity over their pipelines resulted in a spokesperson claiming that activity such as fires and the construction of permanent structures like fences and houses would result in a pipeline needing to be shut down as documented in this viral video:

Similar action camps around the continent have been fighting the fossil fuel industry to stop the destruction of sacred lands in the pursuit of ever-more dangerous and destructive fossil fuel resources. Indeed, the pipeline industry would be hard pressed to imagine a tougher time in which to be doing business.

Indigenous resistance to tar sands pipelines in the region dates back to 2009 when Enbridge’s Alberta Clipper tar sands line was run through Leech Lake and Fond du Lac Anishinaabe reservations. The pipeline was only saved by technicalities in tribal law that led a judge to dismiss the case against the decision by elected officials to contract with Enbridge.

Enbridge is currently in the process of seeking approval to nearly double the capacity of the nearby Alberta Clipper toxic tar sands pipeline from its current 440,000 barrels per day up to 800,000 bpd. Not only will the Red Lake action take four pipelines offline, it is also setting precedent that pipeline expansion will not be tolerated! Not only that, but shutting down the illegal Enbridge pipelines may prevent millions of barrels of dirty tar sands from reaching market.

Now, with a decisively bold move and the backing of large constituencies of Red Lake Band members due to years of local community self-education, Nizhawendaamin Inaakiminaan might well set the first example of a tar sands line being forced to shut down permanently due to protest after it has been operational!

Red Lake Chippewa Discover Enbridge Tar Sands Pipelines Through Nation-Owned Land Have No Easement Contracts

They are accepting donations to assist in the purchase of building and life-sustaining materials here:
https://www.wepay.com/donations/enbridgeblockade

Please donate if you can.

motherjones: canadianoftheweek: Hadfield becomes first...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 21:37:05 -0400

motherjones:

canadianoftheweek:

Hadfield becomes first Canadian commander of ISS

Commander Chris Hadfield has been delighting people around the world with his Twitter photos and videos from the International Space Station, and Wednesday he officially took the reigns of “the world’s spaceship” as the first Canadian to command the ISS.

See his full statement here.

We love that there is a “Canadian of the Week” Tumblr.

gameofthrones: “North of the Wall” by JC Richard, the fourth...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 21:35:28 -0400

gameofthrones:

“North of the Wall” by JC Richard, the fourth Game of Thrones Mondo poster.

motherjones: Meet the man behind the 47 percent video—and read...

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 21:35:04 -0400

motherjones:

Meet the man behind the 47 percent video—and read about why he’s going public now.

(Are you near a TV? Tune in right now to watch him on The Ed Show!)

The New 7th Congressional District in Pennsylvania

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 21:32:08 -0400

motherjones:

scritic:

View PA-7 in a larger map
How gerrymandering looks like. (Via this and this).

Rorschach test time.

Stretching it just a bit. It’s as bad as the maps of the Palestinian West Bank.

13-03-2013 Funny oops, worth sharing.

Wed, 13 Mar 2013 21:29:45 -0400

13-03-2013 Funny oops, worth sharing.:

The voice at the end is so funny.

Dick Armey, Freedom Works and Big Tobacco

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 04:33:20 -0500

Dick Armey’s Tobacco Ties: The Early Years (via Desmogblog)

This is the first of a three-part series on Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R) and his relationship to Big Tobacco throughout his career. Dick Armey, who recently resigned from the Tea Party group Freedomworks, was first elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1984, as a representative…

Dick Armey’s Long History of Working With Industry-Backed Groups (via Desmogblog)

The second in a three-part series about Dick Armey and his relationship to the tobacco industry throughout his career. See part one here. There is no doubt that Dick Armey considered the tobacco industry a friend, as discussed in part one of this series. There is also no doubt that cigarette makers…

FreedomWorks Continues Dick Armey’s Defense of Big Tobacco (via Desmogblog)

The third in a series about Dick Armey and his relationship to the tobacco industry throughout his career. See part one and part two. In his last job as head of Freedomworks, Dick Armey became a more consistent and reliable ally for the tobacco industry for at least one of their pet issues: cigarette…

Tea Party Used as Stooges by Big Tobacco and Big Oil

Mon, 11 Feb 2013 04:26:01 -0500

Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaires (via Desmogblog)

A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene. Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf…

What Were You Thinking, Enbridge?

Sun, 03 Feb 2013 15:57:21 -0500

16 Year Old Testifies on Northern Gateway: What the Hell Were You Thinking? (via Desmogblog)

This: What the hell were you thinking? from Catherine Wallace on Vimeo. Tags: Enbridge Northern Gateway Pipeline Enbridge Hearings

Lest We Forget Sarah Palin

Sat, 26 Jan 2013 16:47:00 -0500

Clips courtesy of Media Matters for America:

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/01/26/the-10-worst-things-sarah-palin-said-on-fox-new/192403

And that brings us to this item from Think Progress:

Fox News Isn’t Renewing Sarah Palin’s Contract