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.

Scrambled eggs were amazing.

What did you do to them that prompted amazement?

I hadn't noticed Vincent Kartheiser. Now there are two movies coming out soon that I don't really want to see for content that tempt me because of the actor(s). The other is the one coming out with Sean Bean. I don't really like horror movies, and that doesn't even look like a good one, but Sean Bean is looking especially fine in those ads.

I know that the bauxite mining companies in Jamaica blatantly flout the environmental laws, being as much as 50 years overdue on rehabilitating land that they've scoured. The laws have no effect on them--but something must. I mean, something external. I remain adamantly too naive to believe they're in such control of their worlds that they can fuck up my mother's home town and no one can make them even pay lip service to redressing the damage.

Now, I'm not saying that anyone cares to do it--just that there must be someone outside the company who can. If not investors, then who? Purchasers?

Anyway--just because the investors are separate from the grant-endowing people doesn't mean they still can't try to make a better world with their money. There's only so excited I can get about a charity that invests in ruining health and land. Not that they care, but I am also adamantly of the naive belief that charities and grant-givers should care.

Separate, as is its due:

Requested: Gin gimlet, straight up.

Received: 1) News that they didn't serve gin. 2) Vodka straight up. 3) Vodka with homemade lime syrup (with freshly squeezed lime) straight up.

Conclusion: Tasty! The rest of the table promptly ordered their own gimlets. Just lightly sweet, nice and juicy.

This would be the bar of Il Moro on Olympic in West LA.

And wow, this makes me seem like quite the lush. Well, I promise no gimlets tomorrow. It's just that people keep inviting me to dinner, and my migraines are concentrated early in the day.