Lay off the Bottled Water

The following excerpts come from the National Geographic's Green Guide. The bottom line: water bottles are are terrible for the environment. Carry a reusable water bottle, or drink tap water. Plastic water bottles take over 1,000 years to disintegrate, and over 86% of bottles are not recycled.

Personal Health

Americans spend more than $10,000 a minute for something that is readily available for free: water. Why do we shell out from 240 to over 10,000 times more per gallon for bottled water than we do for tap water? Perhaps we've given in to the marketing and advertising hype that bottled water comes from pristine springs and lakes. Or maybe because of the taste or the perception that bottled water is better regulated, safer or purer than tap water.

However, according to government and industry estimates, about one fourth of bottled water is bottled tap water (sometimes, but not always, with additional treatment).

Environmental

Usually water is bottled in plastic packaging. Plastics are made of petroleum, a non-renewable resource that requires new fossil reserves to be extracted all the time. By choosing to drink tap water, we can conserve this valuable resource and reduce our dependence on oil. The plastic manufacturing process is also associated with toxic byproducts, such as styrene and benzene, which are released in the air and cause not only pollution, but respiratory problems and may cause cancers as well.

Most bottles will be incinerated or will end up in our already overcrowded landfills. The World Wildlife Fund estimates that about 1.5 million tons of plastic are used worldwide to make water bottles and according to the Environmental Protection Agency, plastics are the fourth largest category of municipal solid waste.

Obtaining water from an underground pipe is more energy efficient and uses far fewer natural resources than bottled water because of the transportation of bottles in trucks across the country or by ships around the globe.

Choose water in glass bottles over watter in plastic bottles.

Water Filtering Systems

At 30 to 50 cents per gallon, filtering your tap water is not only more cost effective, but it also gives you control over what chemicals or substances are removed from the water you drink. Compare this to 89 cents to more than $2 per gallon for bottled water delivery to your home and the cost and environmental benefits of an at-home water filtration system become apparent. Additionally, filtered water keeps the plastic used for bottled water out of our landfills.

Noan Chomsky vs. William F. Buckley

Making My Morning

It's too easy for a baseball manager to get thrown out of a game these days––at least according to Tim Murphy at Slate.com. Bobby Cox will soon break "John McGraw's 75 year old record of 131 career ejections," without earning it.

Cox should take a lesson from Phillip Wellmen...

The Bikini Turns 60!

Check out this slide show at Slate.com chronacling the history of the bikini. It was first doned in public in 1946, and was shunned by Americans for two decades.

The first designer, Jacques Heim, created a tiny suit called the atome. The second, Louis Reard, introduced his design on July 5, four days after the United States had begun atomic testing in the Bikini Atoll. In a rather bold marketing ploy, Reard named his creation le bikini, implying it was as momentous an invention as the new bomb.

Click here for Maxim slideshow on the bikini.

Libby and Obama

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifI just have to take a couple of minutes to put in my two sense worth on yesterday's news. Regarding Scooter Libby, Cheyney's Chief of Staff who lied to federal prosecuters, it is disgraceful for Bush to commute his sentence. Libby's 30 month jail sentence was well within the federal guidelines and was not an "excessive" sentence as Bush claimed. He received a fair trial and got nailed. The Bush administration has been deceitful towards the American people for 6 years (i.e. reasons for going into Iraq, existence of illegal wiretapping, use of extraordinary rendition, reasons for firing attorneys general)and now that one of its gang gets caught, Bush gives him a get-out-of-jail-free cards. This is no way to ensure a healthy democracy.

On a more positive note, Obama raised $32.5 million in the second quarter. Hillary has not declared her total, but it's estimated at $27 million. While Hillary is at the front of the race, this puts Obama in a real position to win. Hillary does not have this thing locked up. Moreover, 90% of Obama's first quarter donations came from gifts of $100 or less, and he now has a total of over 258,000 donors! That is more than in the history of the U.S.!

Obama continues to connect with people and empower them to participate in the Democracy. This phenomenon does strengthen our democracy. Obama has taught a generation that power is in the citizens' hands (even if you can only donate $50) and does not rest solely in large donors' hands. He has given us a taste of what it is like to have one's opinion and money matter in politics.

Added July 5
[The last thing Bush wants is to see a high ranking White House official's picture out wearing an orange prison suit.

John Dickerson at Slate.com ,

What's astonishing is that the factors Bush relied on in commuting Libby's sentence are the same ones that the administration has aggressively sought to preclude judges from considering when imposing sentences on everyone else...

The Bush administration, however, has consistently maintained that at sentencing, judges should be precluded from thinking about precisely the sort of individual circumstances the president raised in lending a hand to Libby. Last month, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales proposed legislation that would prevent judges from relying on anything outside the federal sentencing guidelines as the basis for a sentence more lenient than the range that the guidelines provide for.

Now I hear that Bush's commutation may also remove Libby's propation!]

Sync or Swim

This is my first water ballet performance.




Check out the world champion Russian team