Lovelock is not an alarmist by nature. In his view, the dangers of nuclear power are grossly overstated. Ditto mercury emissions in the atmosphere, genetic engineering of food and the loss of biodiversity on the planet. The greatest mistake in his career, in fact, was not claiming that the sky was falling but failing to recognize that it was. In 1973, after being the first to discover that industrial chemicals called chlorofluorocarbons had polluted the atmosphere, Lovelock declared that the buildup of CFCs posed "no conceivable hazard." As it turned out, CFCs weren't toxic to breathe, but they were eating a hole in the ozone. Lovelock quickly revised his view, calling it "one of my greatest blunders," but the mistake may have cost him a share in a Nobel Prize.

At first, Lovelock didn't view global warming as an urgent threat to the planet. "Gaia is a tough bitch," he often said, borrowing a phrase coined by a colleague. But a few years ago, alarmed by rapidly melting ice in the Arctic and other climate-related changes, Lovelock became convinced that Gaia's autopilot system -- the giant, inexpressibly subtle network of positive and negative feedbacks that keeps the Earth?s climate in balance -- is seriously out of whack, derailed by pollution and deforestation. Lovelock believes the planet itself will eventually recover its equilibrium, even if it takes millions of years. What's at stake, he says, is civilization.

"You could quite seriously look at climate change as a response of the system intended to get rid of an irritating species: us humans," Lovelock tells me in the small office he has created in his cottage. "Or at least cut them back to size."

--from Rolling Stone

By 2020, droughts and other extreme weather will be commonplace. By 2040, the Sahara will be moving into Europe, and Berlin will be as hot as Baghdad. Atlanta will end up a kudzu jungle. Phoenix will become uninhabitable, as will parts of Beijing (desert), Miami (rising seas) and London (floods). Food shortages will drive millions of people north, raising political tensions. "The Chinese have nowhere to go but up into Siberia," Lovelock says. "How will the Russians feel about that? I fear that war between Russia and China is probably inevitable." With hardship and mass migrations will come epidemics, which are likely to kill millions. By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes -- Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin.

By the end of the century, according to Lovelock, global warming will cause temperate zones like North America and Europe to heat up by fourteen degrees Fahrenheit, nearly double the likeliest predictions of the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the United Nations-sanctioned body that includes the world's top scientists. "Our future," Lovelock writes, "is like that of the passengers on a small pleasure boat sailing quietly above the Niagara Falls, not knowing that the engines are about to fail." And switching to energy-efficient light bulbs won't save us. To Lovelock, cutting greenhouse-gas pollution won't make much difference at this point, and much of what passes for sustainable development is little more than a scam to profit off disaster. "Green," he tells me, only half-joking, "is the color of mold and corruption."

--from Rolling Stone

A: Totally!

Um....what a guy?

Smart enough to know her dirty street and dirty feet cred feed her fan base and make the paparazzi drool. But also intelligent enough to keep it just enough under control so the act does not destroy her.

And I don't knock her for this. She's sexy, talented and a savvy self promoter. She knows there's only so many years we'll care about her as a young damsel in self distress so she's going to milk it for all it's worth. And surround herself with lovers and people that further her goals.

Nothing wrong with that. Good art, and good business.

She reminds us we can start a blog and make money too! Yay: whatever!

Art Faggotry is out. Big boy bluster is in.

Now that we have not just common sense, but intelligence on our side, we have to put up. That is stand up to Bush and prevent a disasterous war with Iran. That's all of us--congress, citizens, the media, the Country. If we can't use this revelation to stop Bush's Bomb Iran plan, then at least we'll have settled the argument about whether we live in a democracy or a dictatorship.

You just made my day with your beautiful summary of what the birth of Jesus is supposed to mean. It reminded me of why I love the idea of Jesus Christ his teachings.

Christianity has a lot of potential for good. Christians need to get back to the basics of Jesus' teachings.

I'd be emarrassed at the obviousness of this statement if it weren't critical and mostly unheeded where and when it matters.

even if that means putting us at risk for many more 9/11's.