New post up on Gristmill

Carbon trading: a carbon tax, blindfolded and handcuffed, with its shoelaces tied together

----------------------------

"Mommy, where do carbon offsets come from?"

"Well, you see sweetheart, when a major polluter and a consultant love money very, very much, they express that love in a special way. Nine months later, the consultant produces an extremely large paper packet." ---------------------------------------------

In theory, carbon taxes and carbon trading yield similar results.(Carbon taxes raise the price of fossil fuels by taxing it. Permits raise the price of fossil fuels by requiring people to buy permits for each unit burned) So why do so many people who support carbon taxes oppose carbon trading? Because in practice they differ catastrophically, something we have good reasons to expect.

Read the rest on Gristmill [link]

Today (December 6), Planned Parenthood locations in various cities across the country (NOT all locations, however) are offering FREE Plan B emergency contraception.

At the bottom of this page is a list of the locations that are participating.

Feel free to pass this info on to others far and wide.

Slacker Secret Santas: all of you who e-mailed me should have an e-mail with a giftee name and snail-mail address. Please let me know if there's any problem. Thanks for playing!

Not-so-tiny Jewish not-Santa.

Really only of practical interest to Somervillains (i.e. that they could actually take advantage of it):

Jonathan Coulton will be appearing at Pandemonium Books on December 12th, for a one hour appearance at 5 pm. He will perform for about half an hour, then be available for questions, signing, and meeting and greeting until 6pm (when he must be whisked off, superstarlike, to his soundcheck for his appearance at Johnny D's).

I've been told that he'll have box sets of Thing a Week available for purchase & signing.

This just occurred to be in reading a story about gift cards.

Advice on mailing gift cards:

When I did post office customer support, we got lots of complaints about greeting cards arriving with one end of the envelope slit open and the gift card inside missing. Heaven only knows where in the entire mail handling chain the crook grabbed the card.

So, consider taping the gift card to the greeting card itself. Also, mail the card in an envelope that's not so obiviously a greeting card--this also applies to birthday cards.

F2F Poll!

We've gotten proposals for Atlanta and Durham. Information is at Hil R. "F2F 4: Too Much Candy, Never Enough Mojitos." Dec 11, 2006 3:07:41 pm PST , and the poll is at [link] . It will stay open until Sunday night at 9 eastern time.

Hey Boston-area Buffistae.

If you're heading to the Bazaar Bizarre today at the Cyclorama in the South End, I'll be performing 20 minute sets of theremin carols & punk/new wave tunes at 2:00, 3:20 and 5:40.

Looking ahead, I'll also be playing at First Night on the steps of the Boston Public Library! The art school new wave band U.V. Protection are playing a couple of sets from 10pm to Midnight and I'll be providing between set entertainment, as well as playing a little bit with them.

There's a lot of poetry-world buzz about my essay, Serving Neither Master: Notes Toward A New Poetry, published on GotPoetry.com. Now, it seems I'm embroiled in a fight to get it published in print (which is so not the way this is usually done.)

So ... yeah ... I know Lit Critique isn't to everyone's taste, but if you've got a second, give it a look.

Latest Grist Post is up. This one deals with how the U.S. could get up to 95% of it's electricity from wind - reliably and fairly inexpensively.

[link]

Apple selling refurbished iPods as low as $99 (20 gb), with free shipping before Christmas if bought today.

[link]