Breaching The Web

According to the Sioux City Journal, The Army Corps of Engineers is in a legal battle over the Missouri. In the midst of a controversy over how to restore the Missouri to a more natural flow, with a spring high and a summer low, two conflicting court orders have been issued:

“It is impossible to simultaneously comply with the conflicting flow requirements obtained in the two orders,” the corps said in a statement issued late Tuesday.

The U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on Saturday ordered the low flows to comply with the Endangered Species Act. But the U.S. District Court for the District of Nebraska ruled last year the river must have enough water for barges to navigate and power plants to operate.

This may appear comical on the surface, but it masks a challenge that will become more and more common over the next few decades: how do we balance the needs of fragile ecologies with our own economic needs? Do we care more about endangered species or about low electric bills? How can we reconcile these issues?

There are no easy answers.

On December 17, 1903 The Wright Brothers took off on their famous North Carolina flight. The Raleigh News & Observer is counting down to the 100th anniversary of that flight with extended coverage. Features include The Wright Brothers’ first first flight (which they felt was too short to prove that their airplane worked), a description of James Henry Gatling’s hand-cranked plane (which pre-dated the Wright Brothers’ plane by 30 years), and the story of Richard Pearse, New Zealand’s first flyer.

Matthew Baldwin has a nice piece in The Morning News about how copyright extension harms the entertainment industry, using The League of Extraordinary Gentlement as an example:

“The book

If this sign were a bumper sticker, I’m thinking it just might be the very first bumper sticker to grace a car owned by me: Nobody Died When Clinton Lied.

If (like me) you’re only just getting up to speed on Liberia, you might find this profile of President Charles Taylor useful. Taylor’s history of human rights violations iand his willingness to put his own interests ahead of his country are chilling.

But it’s not new. Taylor has been president since 1997, but before that he was a major partisan in Liberia’s civil war. During the war, several different coalitions of Liberians requested that George H.W. Bush send in peacekeeping forces, but G.H.W.B. refused. Now, George W. Bush has all but promised American assistance, either directly or through support of an African peacekeeping force.

I can’t help but wonder about G.W.’s willingness to intervene — he sent U.S. troops to Iraq, something G.H.W.B considered but didn’t do. Now he’s thinking of sending troops to Liberia — something else G.H.W.B considered, but didn’t do.

Is it possible that our president is so lacking in imagination that all he can do in the realm of foreign policy is make war where his father would not? Is he trying to prove something here? In the end, will G.W’s presidency be nothing more than an infantile rebellion against Daddy?

Is this the kind of future countries that are “liberated” by the U.S. can expect? Afghan Poppies Proliferate:

“The drug trade in Afghanistan is growing more pervasive, powerful and organized, its corrupting reach extending to all aspects of society, according to dozens of interviews with international and Afghan anti-narcotics workers, police, poppy farmers, government officials and their critics.”

“In the eastern province of Logar, convoys of trucks loaded with drugs and guarded by men armed with semiautomatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenade launchers travel toward the Pakistani border at least two or three times a week. The police chief says that his men don’t have the firepower to stop them and that some well-armed militiamen are in league with the smugglers.”

One more reason to vote for Dean.

Since 1997 The Bismarck Tribune has published an annual magazine about Lewis & Clark’s trip across the continent. The 2003 issue features personal stories from the journals kept by several expedition members, as well as biographic sketches of several members.

I’m sorry for the slow down in posting — some very, very good things have been happening at work lately, but they have made me very, very tired. After 5 lovely days off from work, I’m feeling much more like myself (and that means more updating). Plus, work has slowed down a bit.

Over my short break, I made two purses for myself. One is a cute little rectangular tote bag made out of an awesome fabric called The Adventures of Nina. The picture doesn’t do the fabric justice — it’s much more vibrant. This is not a conservative purse.

Can anyone tell me if The Adventures of Nina was/is a real comic? The stores that carry the fabric describe it as “inspired by an ’80s comic.” My google searches have only turned up the fabric itself, porn sites, an online comic called Nina’s Adventures, and reviews of a PlayStation game called Breath of Fire that features a character called Nina.