Third time's the charm!

After two years of trying and failing, I have finally, as of this hour, completed the National Novel Writing Month challenge of writing 50,000 words. And it only made me a little bit sick in the process (I am currently cocooned in a blanket on my couch, fighting off some early winter ailment or another).

Somewhere around 30,000 words in, I thought for sure I was done for, failed again, fallen off the ol' writing wagon. But somehow, some way, my crappy little novel took shape and pulled through to the end. And now, just as soon as the glow of victory wears off, I'll start the arduous task of editing the damn thing.

This does, however, mean I can get back to concentrating on my other writing habits, the ones that actually sometimes pay and that will likely have more effect on my career than this. But boy was it fun, and I won't lie, I feel pretty damn good for having done it.

For more info on NaNoWriMo, as those of us in the know call it, and about their efforts to raise money for the Young Writers Progam, go to their website and have a look around.

Blogs Speak: Ziegler and Shoebat

My what an opinionated bunch we are (I guess that's why we blog):

Paul Soglin has a take on the UW-M/Walid Shoebat affair that's interesting and very reasoned. I do agree that they have every right to bring Shoebat in to speak, but I also still think Shoebat is an extremist who pays a lot of lip-service to being pro-Israel but is then prone to making statements like these:

Your third offense is your sheer stupidity, a thing the Jewish people cannot afford for their survival. It was sheer stupidity that cost so many Jewish lives. Many Jews tend to trust the wrong people, but when the right people come along they doubt. Jews trusted in Oslo and were sold, Jews trusted in Germany and were killed, Jews trusted their Arab employees and where slaughtered....

When will Jews ever trust the right people? Better then this question is this - why should rightous gentiles stand with the Jewish people, risk everything to get stung by so many Jews who doubt them?

Again, I'm trying to find his love and respect for the Jewish people, but it's hard to sort it out through the thick clouds of condescension.

Rick Esenberg weighs in on the Judge Ziegler conflict of interest debate and, despite his many typos (seriously, these things do have a spell check function), makes some valid points.

Now, while everyone else is wailing and gnashing their teeth over not being able to watch the Packers-Cowboys game tonight (well, everyone except those who live in the designated "home viewing areas" of Green Bay and Milwaukee and those with satellite), I'll be desperately trying to get my novel up to the 50k mark before midnight Friday, which will include a marathon writing session tonight. Wish me luck!

The Mysterious Mr. Shoebat

Full disclosure: I'd never even heard of this guy until today when, during my pained perusal of various right-wing blogs, I came across several references to a one Mr. Walid Shoebat. A darling of the religious right and super pro-Israel organizations, Shoebat claims to be a former Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) "terrorist," having committed any number of violent acts against Jews and Israel, who has since seen the light, converted to Christianity, and now travels the country praising Israel and denouncing Islam. The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee is hosting a talk by him on Dec. 4th, an event that the campus' Muslim Student Association is protesting against.

It's all a little confusing. There appears to be very little official documentation on the guy to help back up his claims of PLO pedigree (though I don't suppose the PLO keeps very precise records of its membership), and his extremist views about Islam, humorously opposite but still similar to his old views about Judaism, are certainly cause for alarm.

It has been pointing out that Shoebat, though claiming to have once beat an Israeli officer into a "bloody gore," among other offenses, doesn't seem to have ever been investigated by the US. Palestinians (and Muslims in general) with far lesser black marks on their report cards have been deported, but this man was allowed to become a naturalized citizen and to move freely about the country. That seems odd to me. He should absolutely be allowed to be here, to travel freely, to give talks, etc. What I'm suspicious about is the stark contrast between his treatment and the treatment of other men with similar (or allegedly similar) backgrounds.

See, the thing is, Shoebat's fundamentalist Christian faith holds that Jewish domination of Israel-Palestine will lead to Armageddon (the Rapture), a time when those people/countries who believe in Jesus Christ will be saved and everyone else gets to roast in hell for all eternity, including (ho! ho!), those poor Jews he now professes to love so much. How is that not antisemitic?

Charlie Sykes, Jessica McBride, and others of their ilk are up in arms that anyone would have a problem with this guy, tossing accusations of antisemitism and racism around like hot cakes. I don't necessarily agree with the MSA's contention that this man shouldn't be allowed to speak on campus. Fair is fair. But if someone takes issue with his message and his credentials, they have just as much right to criticize and call him on his shit as he does to get up and talk.

Walid Shoebat seems to simply have gone from one extremist point of view to another. This isn't growth, it's a lateral slide where nothing is really learned. Calling for an end to antisemitism is good, but following up that call by claiming that all Muslims are evil is wrong. It should be simple. Anything less is hypocrisy.

Some folks on the far-right like to act all surprised and hurt when "those nasty liberals" call foul on their favorite mouthpieces and figureheads. Oftentimes, the tactic employed to silence the critics is to accuse them of the same kind of bigotry and bias that they, the accusers, are guilty of. It's a tried and true method, but extremely detrimental to the quality of the greater debate and just downright shitty. Both sides need to rise above such petty mud slinging and get to the real issues: working to promote understanding and unbiased education for and between rival groups, dispelling stereotypes and myths, and helping the next generation achieve some kind of meaningful coexistence.

It would help if some of them stopped pushing so hard for the Rapture, too.

No one religion should get to keep Jerusalem all to themselves. The land belongs to no man, and the sooner we realize that, the sooner we can make with the peace. All sides--Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Atheist, whatever--need to ante up and do their part to make it happen. No one is completely without blame. No one bears the full brunt of responsibility. We all share it, and it will take us all to make things better.

Ziegler's many conflicts of interest

She's at it again!

Ziegler to hear case funded by election supporter.

I'm not sure why the attorney general hasn't asked her to recuse herself yet. Doesn't $2 million in donations from the company that's partially funding the defendent in this case count as a big, fat, super obvious conflict of interest? If not, what does count as a conflict of interest in this state?

I was ticked off that voters put Ziegler into her current position in the first place, what with all of the major conflict of interest issues that came up during the election. Heck, even she admitted to a violation of the state's judicial code, and all she gets is a slap on the wrist in the form of a reprimand. Have we given up entirely on holding public officials accountable? Because that's the message I'm receiving, and I don't like it one bit.

Cable bill not so hot. No, really?

Seriously, I wouldn't have guessed it. Really. Never saw it coming.

The good, the bad, the ugly deniers

I'm reading about Fort Atkinson's very cool Heart of the City program, a voluntary "diet" that has citizens cutting their energy usage and greenhouse gas emissions. It sounds like a great idea, and seems to have led to some serious savings, both in terms of energy and money, for the town.

But then, upon reaching the bottom of the article, I come across that chronic buzzkiller, the Global Warming Denier. It seems as though the WSJ Forums have picked up one of their own, as this forumite has been popping up in the comments section of many articles that, in one way or another, touch on the issue of global warming.

I understand that there is still debate in the scientific community over the severity and exact causation of the problem. The great thing about modern science, though, is that through use of the scientific method, we're able to sift and winnow our way closer to more and more truth every day. Still, there are those who would prefer to stick their heads in the sands (y'know, the sand that used to be fertile ground but that was ruined by human overuse and such?). They deny the very thought that humanity's actions may be interfering with the delicate balance of the Earth.

How they continue to live in such an anti-reality zone is beyond me, especially considering the wealth of research from all corners of the scientific spectrum to support the theory that yes, we are in fact changing our world, and not so much for the better.

Have some facts:

Average temperatures have climbed 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit (0.8 degree Celsius) around the world since 1880, much of this in recent decades, according to NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

• The rate of warming is increasing. The 20th century's last two decades were the hottest in 400 years and possibly the warmest for several millennia, according to a number of climate studies. And the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports that 11 of the past 12 years are among the dozen warmest since 1850.

• The Arctic is feeling the effects the most. Average temperatures in Alaska, western Canada, and eastern Russia have risen at twice the global average, according to the multinational Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report compiled between 2000 and 2004.

• Arctic ice is rapidly disappearing, and the region may have its first completely ice-free summer by 2040 or earlier. Polar bears and indigenous cultures are already suffering from the sea-ice loss.

• Glaciers and mountain snows are rapidly melting—for example, Montana's Glacier National Park now has only 27 glaciers, versus 150 in 1910. In the Northern Hemisphere, thaws also come a week earlier in spring and freezes begin a week later.

• Coral reefs, which are highly sensitive to small changes in water temperature, suffered the worst bleaching—or die-off in response to stress—ever recorded in 1998, with some areas seeing bleach rates of 70 percent. Experts expect these sorts of events to increase in frequency and intensity in the next 50 years as sea temperatures rise.

• An upsurge in the amount of extreme weather events, such as wildfires, heat waves, and strong tropical storms, is also attributed in part to climate change by some experts.

• Industrialization, deforestation, and pollution have greatly increased atmospheric concentrations of water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide, all greenhouse gases that help trap heat near Earth's surface. (See an interactive feature on how global warming works.)

• Humans are pouring carbon dioxide into the atmosphere much faster than plants and oceans can absorb it.

• These gases persist in the atmosphere for years, meaning that even if such emissions were eliminated today, it would not immediately stop global warming.

• Some experts point out that natural cycles in Earth's orbit can alter the planet's exposure to sunlight, which may explain the current trend. Earth has indeed experienced warming and cooling cycles roughly every hundred thousand years due to these orbital shifts, but such changes have occurred over the span of several centuries. Today's changes have taken place over the past hundred years or less.

Please refer to the IPCC's 2007 Report on climate change for more in-depth details and research.

You can deny until you're blue in the face, but it ain't gonna make the problem go away.

And hey, curious to calculate your household's emissions and waste? There's a very decent personal calculator available over at the Environmental Protection Agency. Looks like my house came in under the national average, which makes me feel good, but then I have to think about the bigger picture and the fact that, if everyone on Earth lived like I do, we'd run out of resources pretty much immediately. Yikes. Still, every little bit counts, especially if those little bits end up leading to bigger things.

More progress on power plant clean up

A reassuring article in the WSJ today, detailing the further ramifications of the Sierra Club's successful lawsuit against the UW's Charter Street coal fired power plant:

The state of Wisconsin has agreed not only to clean up UW-Madison's coal-fired Charter Street power plant but also to review and possibly improve the operation of 13 other coal-burning plants it manages throughout the state, according to a settlement of a Sierra Club lawsuit announced Monday.

...

That decision led to Monday's broad settlement, which averted a federal court trial on remedies that was set to start Monday. The state agreed not only to immediately reduce coal use by 15 percent at the Charter Street plant but also to review its operation and if needed, clean up emissions at 13 coal-burning plants elsewhere, including Capitol Heat and Power on Madison's Isthmus.

I can tell you right now that it is needed, but I'm glad to see that the state is starting to take this seriously. It's a real shame that it look a serious lawsuit for them to start cleaning up their act, but better late than never, I suppose.

With all the lip service the Doyle administration has been paying to cleaner air and lower emissions, it's going to take some serious effort to make the action match the rhetoric. This looks to be a huge step in the right direction.

Of course, one need only to look to the bottom of the article at the first comment, where some poor soul posts the following deluded message: "Thank you, Sierra Club. Once again we get MUCH HIGHER energy prices in the name of the Great Global Warming Hoax," to be reminded that we've a long way to go when it comes to educating the public about the issues.

I'm torn between laughing and crying, really, there's so much that's wrong with that statement. The Great Global Warming Hoax? That thing that the vast majority of the world's qualified scientists agree is happening? Yeah, aside from that, we're talking about simply making the air we breathe far less toxic, something that tends to benefit poorer communities first, as they're usually the ones with the big ol' smoke belching power plants built at their centers.

Alternative fuels are proving to be viable and affordable sources of energy. With the appropriate amount of willpower and funding, they will only continue to increase in efficiency and affordability. A head-in-the-sand attitude like the poster's is what got us into this mess in the first place, and it's what will help lead us to disaster if it continues.

Anyway, I intend to keep a close eye on how this power plant clean-up progresses, and hopefully more influential people than I will do the same, so we make sure they get it right this time, instead of slacking off and waiting for next year like they've done so many times before.