The Divinely Guided Boot of Upward Inspiration

ATTENTION: This blog is in the process of being moved. Weirdness may ensue, specifically strange and/or disappearing posts. I will be disassembling the blog as I export it, so expect postings to evaporate backward in time. Please excuse my dust while the remodeling is being accomplished.

Please come visit me in my new digs at http://sonipitts.com/blog. I'll leave the porch light on for you!






sonipitts
My name is Soni Pitts. I'm a professional copywriter and marketing geek, among other things.

This is my personal blog, a place for me to hang out and discuss whatever interests me, which at this moment seems to be stupid human tricks, weird science, mild geekery, zombies, food, myself and a few other bits and pieces of life.

Read at your own risk. Confronting new ideas without sufficient preparation can be dangerous! The author cannot be held responsible for paradigm shifts, cognitive dissonance, sneaking suspicions, throbbing temple veins, blood pressure spikes and/or fits (epileptic or apoplectic) caused by irresponsible ingestion of the materials presented herein.

About Me
Everything you ever wanted to know about me, and probably more. Also, the house rules and other random tidbits.

My Squidoo Lenses
Soni's Place - All Soni, all the time. Your basic vanity lens.
Write Livelihood - The home base of my freelance writing empire. Such as it is.
The Basics of Article Marketing - A lens on using web articles as a marketing platform.

Blogs
Write Livelihood - A blogfolio of my writing clips and samples.
NEW! Getting Things Done: A Year of Service - A blog I've set up to journal about my Americorps service.






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Blogroll

Business Info

Seth Godin's blog
ProBlogger: Make Money Online

News and Current Events

Wikinews Latest News
Donklephant
archy

Sustainability and Inspiration

WorldChanging
Worthwhile
Treehugger


Fun and Entertainment

ze's blog and Ze's Daily Knowledge
Cute Overload
Overheard In New York
LiftPort Staff Blog
WWdN: In Exile

Writing Industry

Personal fave author (John Scalzi) and his blogs

By The Way...
Whatever

Others

westerblog
Smart Bitches Who Love Trashy Novels Note: not generally worksafe.
Miss Snark's Blog


My Links

My webpage
Social Capital and Networking Community of Coachville, where I am the Assistant Community Coach.


Connect with me

My Ryze Online Networking Page
My LinkedIn profile




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Monday, June 20, 2005
(G)O Canada

Showing the rest of the world that it is possible to provide clean and green power and support a hydrogen-based fuel economy in one slick economic dance move, Canada is slicing a new cutting edge in energy production by developing a wind/hydrogen hybid system that uses wind to power the grid and to electrolyze hydrogen from water for fuel.

One of Canada’s remote eastern provinces has launched a project integrating wind energy with hydrogen production as a demonstration of one path to the possible "hydrogen economy" of the future.

The wind farm will continue to generate electricity into the province’s grid, but it also will power electrolysis equipment to produce hydrogen from water. The hydrogen will be used in fuel cells for industrial, farm and household needs. It also will be stored as a fuel for an internal-combustion engine to generate backup and primary electricity and for a small fleet of shuttle buses, say project officials.


Ladies and gentlemen, I think we've just been served. Daaaammn.


Congress to cut funding to PBS - time to make some noise

This really, really sucks. I mean, with all that "No child left behind crap, you'd think the one thing Congress wouldn't want to endanger is a source of free educational programs - sometimes the only educational programs poorer children get. And really, the only source of crapless tv that any of us have to fall back on when cable and the networks keep producing line-ups that are filled with inane variations on the same crapalicious themes.

Cut-n-paste plea from Move On:

You know that email petition that keeps circulating about how Congress is slashing funding for NPR and PBS? Well, now it's actually true. (Really. Check at the bottom if you don't believe me.)

Sign the petition telling Congress to save NPR and PBS

A House panel has voted to eliminate all public funding for NPR and PBS, starting with "Sesame Street," "Reading Rainbow," and other commercial-free children's shows. If approved, this would be the most severe cut in the history of public broadcasting, threatening to pull the plug on Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch.

The cuts would slash 25% of the federal funding this year—$100 million—and end funding altogether within two years. The loss could kill beloved children's shows like "Clifford the Big Red Dog," "Arthur," and "Postcards from Buster." Rural stations and those serving low-income communities might not survive. Other stations would have to increase corporate sponsorships.

Already, 300,000 people have signed the petition. Can you help us reach 400,000 signatures today? (Same link as above)

Thanks!

P.S. Read the Washington Post report on the threat to NPR and PBS



Thursday, June 16, 2005
Of the people, for the people

Sometimes we get lucky and the people do what is right for everyone involved, even when they have to work around rather than with the Federal Government to do so. The US Conference of Mayors provided just such a success story when they unanimously passed a resolution requiring their cities to meet or beat the emissions standards set by the Kyoto Protocol.

The people of the United States, and the rest of the world: 1
Federal Government: 0 (with mud on their faces)

GO TEAM!


Losing heart

Under the heading of things we already knew, but it's not official until someone in a white lab coat says it's so - crappy jobs can literally break your heart:

Dull, steady, unexciting jobs may make the heart beat in an unchanging, rapid rhythm, which in turn could lead to heart disease, British researchers reported.

The effect was clear even after taking into account factors such as smoking, poor diet and lack of exercise, all of which also can adversely affect heart rate, Hemingway said.

It may be possible to help prevent heart disease by changing workplace conditions, Hemingway said.


Much to the surprise of scientists, it turns out that that soul-sucking job of yours may literally be sucking the life out of you. Is it just me, or is anyone else wondering if all those years of college are wasted on the scientific community? (Or maybe the scientific community was just wasted during all those years of college)

Edit: Now that you're feeling all chipper about the effect crappy jobs have on your heart, check out the latest research that shows how being overweight actually makes you physically older. I tell you, that Dance, Dance Revolution game is looking better by the day.


Wednesday, June 15, 2005
MSN helps China censor users

As if the folks at the Gate's Estates don't control enough of our behavior, now MSN is helping China stifle bloggers who use such inciteful language as freedom, democracy and human rights in their blog headings.

Chinese bloggers, even on foreign-sponsored sites, had better choose their words carefully - the censors are watching.

Users of the MSN Spaces section of Microsoft Corp.'s new China-based Web portal get a scolding message each time they input words deemed taboo by the communist authorities - such as democracy, freedom and human rights.


Yeah, thanks guys. That's great. How about a round of Bronx cheers for MSN, your bastion of free trade (warning:Prohibited language in text, please delete) and globalization (warning:Prohibited language in text, please delete) for everyone - except their users.

Does anyone still need a reason to loathe Microsoft?


Up for sale on Ebay - the last shreds of human dignity

How ironic is it that a concert aimed at raising awareness of the pitfalls of greed and exploitation on a global scale is now falling prey to...greed and exploitation on a global scale.

Live 8 organizer Bob Geldof has condemned as "sick profiteering" the sale of free charity concert tickets on auction Web site eBay.

Tickets to the star-studded London show, which aims to pressure world leaders into fighting poverty, were given away to the winners of a text lottery. But they immediately started appearing on eBay for hundreds of pounds.

Geldof branded the site an "electronic pimp" and called for a worldwide boycott.


Full article

Yes, it's legal. Yes, we sort of expect it to happen. But come on folks. We can do better than that. This is the same sort of mentality that has people going through their family snapshots looking to see if there's a picture of their sister that they can put up on a pay-per-download site.

Believe it or not, the world will not come to a screetching halt if we as a people do not haul of every last piece of our lives that isn't nailed down to the floor out into our particular yard sale to see if we can make a few bucks off of it.

In other words, just because someone will buy it doesn't mean you have to sell it to them. Just say no.

Update 6.16.05: Bowing to overwhelming pressure and waves of pissed-off fans flooding the site with ridiculously high bids and false offers of tickets (to prevent sales and to confuse ticket buyers) Ebay has canned the sale of Live 8 tickets. Woohoooo!


Ominous sign on the road of life

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading."

--Lao Tzu




Raising Cain

What's done to children, they will do to society. -Karl A. Menninger,
psychiatrist (1893-1990)


Sunday, June 12, 2005
Yeah, but can I get reserved parking?

A nugget of wisdom from my inbox today -

"The purpose of life is to stand for something, to have made some difference. So don't ask yourself what does the market need or what skills do I have. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and give yourself to that.

-Mark Albion, Author, Making a Life, Making a Living

Friday, June 10, 2005
God on CD

One of the coolest downloads I've found to date:

OCEAN - a downloadable, searchable database of over 1000 books of religious literature from 10 world religions that allows you to search for and find out about what the world's various religions have to say on whatever topic you need.

You can download the database to your hard drive and/or create your own CDs, to keep or hand out to your friends, with their easy-to-follow instructions and special CD-creation files (they even have a nice downloadable CD label image you can use) - all for free. Or you can have them mail you the whole shebang already wrapped up on a CD for $5.00 (their cost).

The group that put this together hopes that by giving this generous gift to the world, they can help bring people together as the users discover that...
...the core message of all the world's religious writings is the same: ethical integrity, honesty, sincerity, compassion, tolerance and non-violence.


Kewl.

Enjoy. I know I'm going to.


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