Protests at Belo Monte Dam site (Brazil)

Hundreds Occupy Belo Monte Dam Site in Brazilian Amazon

The protest arrives one day after the second judge from the Regional Federal Tribunal voted against judge Selene Maria de Almeida's landmark decision against the Belo Monte dam.

Judge Selene Maria de Almeida's decision (which is not to be confused with last month's decision by judge Carlos Castro Martins to suspend the construction of the dam) found that the government illegally issued the project's environmental licenses because it failed to properly consult affected Indigenous peoples beforehand. That failure, according to judge Selene Maria de Almeida, is a direct violation of Article 231 of Brazil's Constitution.

"The trial is now tied at one vote in favor, and one vote against," says International Rivers.

The Moment is Now: Save Wirikuta

The Moment Is Now: Save Wirikuta, The Sacred Heart Of Mexico! Oct. 26-27, 2011

The Wixarika People are calling all social movements, activists and Indigenous Peoples around the world to join them in solidarity from Oct. 26-27, 2011, to help Save Wirikuta, The Sacred Heart Of Mexico.

Wow - Pushing Back the Desert

"The Man Who Stopped the Desert"

So [Yacouba Sawadogo] began planting trees. It not only saved the land from degradation but also restored ground water to unprecedented levels.

"People thought I was mad when I started planting these trees," he said. "It is only now that they realise how beneficial the forest is."

People are coming back to his region after fleeing years before. See! One person can make a difference. Sometimes I need to be reminded of this.

What desert do *you* live near?

Sea Level Rise and Cow Power

IPCC predictions of less than half a meter sea rise is 3 times too low.

The results are that the sea level will rise between 0.7 and 1.2 meters during the next 100 years. The difference depends on what mankind does to stop the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. If we seriously reduce the emissions of CO2 globally, the sea will only rise 0.7 meters, while there will be a dramatic rise of 1.2 meter if we continue to increase CO2 emissions with the current use of energy based on fossil fuels.

In the calculations the researchers assume that we continue to emit CO2, but that we move more towards other energy supplies and reduce our use of fossil fuels and with that reduce the emission of greenhouse gases. This scenario would give a rise in sea levels of around 1 meter.

In other news, Vermont Experiments in Cow Power

I can't help it, I just love the title. Cow Power! The Moo Rules!

"A recent case study in the State of Vermont suggests that deriving electricity from cow manure may be economically feasible."

So, yes, seriously: interesting. Good to see regional solutions, because there is no one right answer for a vast nation such as the U.S.A. Wind is a great idea for certain states, hydro, geothermal, or cow is great for others.

Paraguay: Aché Community Removes Brazilian Farmers From Ancestral Lands

Paraguay: Aché Community Removes Brazilian Farmers From Ancestral Lands

I'll be darned. I think I've become so accustomed to reading things that go the other way (i.e., farmers/military/whatever displacing indigenous community) that I couldn't read this headline properly at all.

On Tuesday, October 11th, members from the Aché community of Chupa Pou sent individuals armed with bows and arrows into a 2,000-hectare (nearly 5,000 acres) area to defend it from Brazilian farmers who were on the land. The Chupa Pou community not only claims the land as their traditional territory, but that in 2007 the Paraguayan government — after a struggle of many years — purchased the land for the Aché people, thus giving them legal title as well. Although there were no reports of bloodshed, the Community’s maneuver did successfully get 250 Brazilian farmers to leave the area, although they told the media that they would return.

Lake Offers Clues to Climate Change

Lake Agassiz Demise; Long-Lost Lake Offers Clues to Climate Change

Quoting from the latter:

“My work focuses on abrupt or rapid climate change,” Lowell said. “The Younger Dryas offers an opportunity to study such change. The climate then went from warming to cooling very rapidly, in less than 30 years or so.”

Scientists noted that the Younger Dryas cold spell seemed to coincide with lower water levels in Lake Agassiz. Had the lake drained? And, if so, had the fresh water of the lake caused this climate change by disrupting ocean currents? This is the view of many scientists, Lowell said.

Proposed Alaska Coal Mine Divides Community, Elicits Racism

Proposed Alaska Coal Mine Divides Community, Elicits Racism

The Wishbone Hills coal mine, a controversial project proposed by the Usibelli Mine Company five miles west of the small community of Sutton, Alaska, and Chickaloon Village of the Chickaloon Tribe, is driving a wedge between local community members.

At a contentious September 7 town hall meeting that overflowed the building’s capacity to discuss the Alaska Department of Natural Resources’ mining renewal permits for the project, the Mat-Su Borough Assembly favored positively. The borough’s petition cited the mine as a 'God given resource.' A Chickaloon Tribal resolution was against, said Ahtna Athabascan/Suqpiat and Chickaloon tribal member Shawna Larson, a spokesperson for Chickaloon Village Coal.

A news story September 8 in the Anchorage Daily News elicited a racist rant in the comments section that ran for at least one day before the newspaper pulled it.

This reminds me of the Brockton Power plant project - "Neighborhoods have sprung up since the original remote mine went into operation, and since the last small scale mining in the 1980s, and now lie within a half mile of the proposed project." Just because it made sense at one point, or was environmentally reasonable at one time, doesn't mean it is now.

Cosmic Weight Watching Reveals Black Hole-Galaxy History

Cosmic Weight Watching Reveals Black Hole-Galaxy History

Using state-of-the-art technology and sophisticated data analysis tools, a team of astronomers from the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy has developed a new and powerful technique to directly determine the mass of an active galaxy at a distance of nearly 9 billion light-years from Earth. This pioneering method promises a new approach for studying the co-evolution of galaxies and their central black holes. First results indicate that for galaxies, the best part of cosmic history was not a time of sweeping changes.

Hydropower in China With Devastating Consequences

Liu Zhi: “Chaos reigns in China’s river valleys”

Despite fatal mudslides, disappearing fish stocks and parched riverbeds, China’s headlong dam-building rush shows no signs of slowing. Liu Zhi, of the Beijing-based Transition Institute, examines why. He argues that government control of rivers, rewards for ‘growth’ and bribes from dam-builders give local governments incentives to approve dams willy-nilly. Since the losses are borne by the public, while the profits go to local officials, they get built anyway. The situation won’t change, Liu writes, until Chinese governments face the rule of law.

Overdoing anything, or doing it in the wrong spot, even something as green-seeming as hydropower damages an ecology (or multiple ecologies, as in this case). Development, even of green energy projects, without close examination of the environmental impacts of that development, helps no one.

SF Couple Needs to Keep Fighting - Please!

S.F. gay married couple loses immigration battle

I'm reading between the lines (I'm an immigration attorney in private practice here in the United States) and my belief is that the couple had an I-130 Petition for Alien Relative and a I-485 Application for Adjustment of Status to Lawful Permanent Residency (green card application), possibly filed with it, denied on the grounds of the definition of marriage in the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is the agency that runs the Citizenship and Immigration Service, which decides these types of marriage-based petitions. They have some options, which I sincerely hope they take, including but not limited to:

1. Allowing the alien spouse to be put into removal proceedings so that the Department of Justice (DOJ), which runs Immigration Court, will have to either enforce DOMA or not via the Immigration Judge's decision, which can then be appealed to the Board of Immigration Appeals (also part of DOJ), and on to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals as necessary.

   The letter that Eric Holder, Attorney General of the United States, sent to the Speaker of the House of Representatives earlier this year saying that the Department of Justice would no longer argue in favor of DOMA in jurisdictions where the legal standard of review is "heightened scrutiny" only comes into play, for sure, in my opinion, when the matter gets before a Circuit Court of Appeals (one that's applying that legal standard). However, since the DOJ is the agency in charge of running the Immigration Court, I'm very VERY curious to see what the A.G. thinks the ImmCourt's responsibilities are in terms of an Immigration Judge applying DOMA. If the head of the agency says the law is insupportable, how can an adjudicator under the agency (Immigration Judge) enforce it?

2. Request Deferred Enforced Departure, which is a status granted by the DHS-Citizenship and Immigration Service, to aliens where the DHS says it has a low "priority" on removing the person from the country. In such cases, they may be allowed to obtain a work permit based on that status.
3. I forget if you can appeal a denial of an I-130 directly, but obviously, if that's on the table, do that until you get out of the agency and before a federal court.

If I were in California, I'd be hunting this couple down to volunteer my services pro bono - I hope they have an attorney, because immigration petitions or court rarely goes well without one. It's that sticky.

Critique of G+ Names Policy

I've reviewed the recent G+ answers on names setting out the current name policy at G+ (aka plus.google.com) and have some notes for the team. Be advised that I'm a software engineer turned lawyer and part-time professor of legal research and writing. Which means, doing this amused me *immensely*. It may or may not amuse you. Regardless, this is a serious critique of the way the policy is written.

Nutshell Critique: Your rules, as stated, do not successfully implement your policy.

More Detailed Breakdown:

This is the policy that the rules, enumerated further below, will attempt to implement:

"Google+ makes connecting with people on the web more like connecting with people in the real world. Because of this, it’s important to use your common name so that the people you want to connect with can find you. Your common name is the name your friends, family or co-workers usually call you."

(Emphasis added). Now, the rules that attempt to implement this policy are:

a. Use your full first and last name in a single language.
b. Put nicknames or pseudonyms in the Other Names field.
c. Avoid unusual characters in your name.
d. Your profile and name must represent one individual.
e. Don't use the name of another individual.
f. Name Changes - one per 30 days

Let's review them together, shall we? Google defines a "common name" in a specific way - the name "your friends, family, or co-workers usually call you" - and wants you to use that name for a specific purpose - to make you easy to find by the people who you want to be able to find you and connect with you.

None of the rules enable implementation of this policy in any significant way, and half of them hamper it.

a. If your commonly used name is "Skud", just to pick an example not at all at random, the rule that you use a first and last name increases rather than decreases the difficulty of the people with whom you want to connect finding you, because those people will be searching for you via the name "Skud".

b. Ditto the requirement that you put nicknames or pseudonyms in your 'other names' field. If your commonly used name is a nickname or a pseudonym, then that is the name people with whom you want to connect will use to look for you. See, e.g., "Skud", or "James Tiptree, Jr." So, that should be your primary name, not your 'other' name, by definition.

c. Unusual characters: If your common name has unusual characters than that is what must be used to express it. Any other name is not your common name, and thus fails the definition given above and can't satisfy the stated policy.

d. One entity at a time. - This rule I'll address at a later time of my choosing.

e. Don't use someone else's name. This is problematic because names, however much we'd like them to be unique, aren't. There are many Johnny Smiths out there, and more than one might want to be on G+. However, the rule, as written, is not too atrocious - the goal is clear: don't impersonate someone else. Why not make that aspect more explicit, though?

(I call this the 'don't impersonate Wil Wheaton' rule. Because breaking it would make you a dick.)

f. Name changes - once every 30 days. This rule is murky at best (why 30 days and not 15, or 60?), but if you read between the lines, you can see the goal of persistent identity. Why don't you try to tease that out a little more? The problems inherent in this list come from the prior rules, that hamper rather than facilitate establishing your persistent identity through assumptions of what a 'common name' must looks like.

So, Google, your names "rules" as written do not implement your stated "policy" of making it easy for users to be found by those with whom they want to connect.

I give your draft a C-. Maybe a D+. (And that means, not even professionally competent.) Don't be too downcast, though, because I'm going to give you more time to work on it. Why don't you get it back to me in a week, and I'll give you some more critique. We can see where you stand, then.

G+ and names

I've been less visible on this subject than others, due to time constraints.

I happen to use my real name in my Google Profile, which, funnily, isn't[*]. In part, because I never planned to do anything with my Gmail account. But then I wound up using it for work, and then someone sent me a G+ invite, and I felt obligated to give it a try. So, it's mere coincidence that I actually conform (apparently) with the G+ community standards for naming, or whatever it is.

Skud has been great as the go-to person on this subject. Check out Google+ names policy, explained

The whole 'give us a government issued id with your name on it' thing from Google is quite creepy, aside from the issues of one's commonly-used names and one's i.d. not always matching and how being asked to use your 'real name' on your profile is problematic for minority communities (trans, women, etc), as so many have written so eloquently already.

They're asking you to scan a copy of your government issued i.d. and email it to them. What?

This insistence on a government issued ID that they claim will be deleted immediately causes a situation rife with the possibility of identity theft, doesn't it? I mean, come on, how many reading this work in IT, or used to? We all know how easy it is for things NOT to be deleted. Backups, rollbacks, cron jobs that don't work right, and the ever-popular "I'll get to it eventually."

I'll be on Diaspora, instead. http://joindiaspora.com

[*] Isn't my real name. Except when it is. Like, on most of my government IDs. It's just not the name on my birth certificate, which is also a government ID. Why? Because my mother remarried when we were 8 or 9. And it caused a whole big drama when I tried in my 20s to get a passport in what I *thought* was my name, but is actually an alias, let me tell you. Holy crap. So, dear Google, I've been using a pseudonym almost my entire life. Which name *should* I give you, really?

If Your Website's Full of Assholes, It's Your Fault

Morally, if not legally. This blog post by Anil Dash, http://dashes.com/anil/2011/07/if-your-websites-full-of-assholes-its-your-fault.html is so very very right.

I've been waiting all day to make a post about this, and my own experience moderating communities and I simply don't have the time. In fact, not having the time is why I closed down a mailing list I ran around about 10 years ago - the nature of the debates we intended to have, and did have, quite successfully, required close attention, and I couldn't give it with Silicon Valley sucking my life away - and handed over moderation of another list for Webgrrls-LA around the same time, and never enabled comments on this blog, either. Because I didn't have the time. Don't have the time? Well then, don't host the community. Because you do have a moral obligation to police assholes, call them on their racism, classism, sexism, or general jerkiness. We have that obligation because we're human beings and we live in the same communities, even when they're online ones.

Lawyering as an Intrinsically Self-Sacrificing and Thus 'Female' Profession

All of the really interesting stuff I have to talk about right now is Too Personal, so there. That leaves us with links, film commentary, feminist commentary, etc. So, you know, the usual.

Feminist Commentary Portion:

I was talking to someone yesterday and commented on the fact that as an attorney you're supposed to be self-sacrificing and not allow "inconveniences" to interfere with your competent, zealous representation of your client.

Well, shit, when you put it that way, doesn't that sound like the ideal of the self-sacrificing woman, who puts her career on hold, or waits to go back to school to finish college so that she can raise the kids, or basically all the mom-type behaviors - explicitly self-sacrificing behaviors - we validate as worthwhile in women?

And yet lawyering is, paradigmatically, a male profession.

Film Commentary Portion:

Watched Dr. Zhivago last weekend (Omar Sharif) and just *loved* it, especially accompanied by vodka. Interesting to watch all the Brit actors running about pretending to be Russian. After watching and getting an Amazon gift card I promptly plunked it down for a copy of Dr. Zhivago of my very own, both the book, and the DVD.

Links Portion:

No links. You should read Hullabaloo. And International Cry. And Feministing. And Tiger Beatdown. And I Blame the Patriarchy.

Sidra has spoken: obey!

"God Told Me to Run" is Not a Qualification for Elected Office

Just for the record: I do not think that "God told me to" is a great reason to run for elected office in the United States. I'm also not keen on "God mentioned it to me the other day as a possibility", or "God and I were at the same barbecue and He didn't say anything about my idea to run for office so it must be OK," or even "God never replied to my email on the subject."

Anyone who claims God is telling them to do so specific as to run for President is, IMO, lying to cover up some other reason. You know, like an extreme thirst for power. Or something like that.

OH, wait, or (but possibly in addition to an extreme thirst for power) demonstrating their total contempt for people trying to live simple, moral lives with careful thought about their actions relative to their religious beliefs, as opposed to cookie-cutter Capitalist Jesus wankery.

(I am annoyed at my country's attitudes toward religion today, as well as at many people who keep wanting to run my country on the basis of their Awesome Love of Jesus. Can you tell?)

This post brought to you by Dubya, Sarah, and Michelle, and I'm sure, so many more idiots who try to claim divine right.