I do think the framing of that article was a little overwrought.

Yeah, my read of it is that it's total old-school muckraking. They have several billion dollars invested in the market; it would be hard to avoid a polluter or a gas company (and, AFAIK, every gas company is in Nigeria, and Nigeria is awful) and still make a profit-- especially if you're hedging your investments.

ION, I cooked brunch and dinner tonight, mostly from recipes out of Mark Bittman's How to Cook Everything. Scrambled eggs were amazing. A broiled cornish game hen turned out surprisingly tasty despite spending a few years aging in my freezer.

it would be hard to avoid a polluter or a gas company

It would be interesting, however, to exercise some might along with investment dollars. From the sound of that article, for instance, the evil gas companies are going to break pollution laws. Does anyone have enough financial clout to encourage them to follow the rules?

You guys with the Star Trek theme--okay, it kinda worked.

It was hard just finding 401k plans that didn't have ridiculously offensive companies on the dole. Today there are purportedly socially responsible investment firms, but it's still pretty tough for the average joe to invest responsibly, let alone someone of that weight of funds.

Although I certainly agree, if anyone could cause some changes, they probably could.

I've been wondering for a while why they don't jusy buy a drug company. There's got to be a sweet spot of modest profit and good works.

From the sound of that article, for instance, the evil gas companies are going to break pollution laws.

This is what you mean, right?

The oil plants in the region surrounding Ebocha find it cheaper to burn nearly 1 billion cubic feet of gas each day and contribute to global warming than to sell it. They deny the flaring causes sickness. Under pressure from activists, however, Nigeria's high court set a deadline to end flaring by May 2007. The gases would be injected back underground, or trucked and piped out for sale. But authorities expect the flares to burn for years beyond the deadline.

I actually know a surprising amount about the flaring issue in Nigeria and the attempts to build plants to recapture the natural gas. It's a huge project with potentially big profits that's been going on for awhile...but it's not easy to do immediately, and not easy to do without facing quite a bit of corruption and plain old crime. Projects have been stopped for years because of regime change. Anyhoo, where the article is talking about gas companies pretty much ignoring flaring because it's not worth it to the bottom-line, this is a huge oversimplification of the issue that betrays poor knowledge of what's going on with natural gas in Nigeria. Suffice it to say I personally don't think there's that much that the Gates Foundation can do, even if they are large investors (which I bet they are not; I imagine their investment strategy is hedging, which probably does not mean they own shares of any individual company so large that they can direct their workings. And while I'm writing, I've spent about ten minutes thinking about this and already I think it's ridiculous to expect a foundation whose aim is eradicating AIDS to spend a significant amount of time with shareholder activism, which is a pretty different function, that, as Jesse notes, would not involve the same people that do the distribution of funds.... Anyway.)

Back to pill containers for a moment, I got us these. If you click on "product" in the header and "engravings" in the dropdown, DH's has a biohazard design on the lid, StY's has a lotus. This is mine.

The thing I like about them is they are absolutely odor-proof. If you need to carry smelly pills (garlic, cinnamon), or just want to keep smells away from your pills, this thing works great. Plus--flying saucer! abducted cow!

I spent 4 hours today 30' up on an extension ladder lifting and reaching and maneuvering and pretty much making damn certain that I will really hurt tomorrow. And that was after 6 hours of similar activity on more reasonable footing.

I also saw Paramedics patrolling downtown on Segways! How long have they been doing that?

Isn't the Joshua Malina character on Numb3rs an attorney with the Dept of Justice?

Hey, have you guys seen the ad for that movie with the Lilly Kane actress, Vincent Kartheiser AND Justin Timberlake? It's like some weird confluence of fandoms.

wrod...

Beverly, thanks for the link! Those look lovely and perfect - I will buy a couple.