Berkeley, California, USA.

Berkeley, California, USA.

Image by 350.org
Insert caption for your photo here. Use your city and country as the subject line of your email, using the following format: City, Country. Thanks

Berkeley, California, USA.

Prof. Richard Krooth shows the 'Double "O" ZERO' 1973 Porche all-electric car built by inventor Paul Cooper. An original gas-guzzler, the electric conversion was sponsored by Krooth's Harvest Publishers and Cooper's Pipe Spy.

* Road worthy June 2001
* Driven daily
* First battery pack 15,000 milers driven; working second pack
* No regenerative braking
* Original 4 disc brakes
* Rebuilt suspension for added battery weight
* Member: East Bay Electric Auto Association ebeaa.org

>

Berkeley, California, USA.

Image by 350.org
Insert caption for your photo here. Use your city and country as the subject line of your email, using the following format: City, Country. Thanks

Berkeley, California, USA.

Prof. Richard Krooth shows the 'Double "O" ZERO' 1973 Porche all-electric car built by inventor Paul Cooper. An original gas-guzzler, the electric conversion was sponsored by Krooth's Harvest Publishers and Cooper's Pipe Spy.

* Road worthy June 2001
* Driven daily
* First battery pack 15,000 milers driven; working second pack
* No regenerative braking
* Original 4 disc brakes
* Rebuilt suspension for added battery weight
* Member: East Bay Electric Auto Association ebeaa.org

>

darling starling

Image by emdot
This morning I did a very non-emdot type of thing. I went to the grocery store right when it opened.

I didn't mean to. I mean, I was going to go to a different grocery store (Scolaris, or as KB and I like to call it, Scolarlar) that opened at normal hours, thus would have been open for awhile before I got there.

But I was out of coffee and I really wanted some French Roast, and for that I typically go to Traders because you can git a boatload of French for about 10 smackers.

My car clock is set ahead about 7.5 minutes because it runs fast and I'm notoriously late, so I figure, why set it back? It'll just be fast again and anyway this way I can trick myself for being on time.

But for some reason I forgot to use car-clock math when I checked the time and thought "oooh, Trader's is opening right now." Only I got there 7.5 minutes early. And that's embarrassing. Standing outside the locked doors with the rabid early morning grocery shoppers and all.

But I did what I had to do, cuz, c'mon: coffee was involved.

Anyhow. Finally they open the doors and the early morning crowd push their way in and right about that time I hear a very interesting bird song.

A bird song I'd never heard before. But lord knows if I could imitate it now or even tell you what it sounded like. Alls I know is that it was a different bird song to me. It sounded somehow intelligent, even. And me, being a very non-impressive but interested street-type of birder, looked up into the Trader Joe's rafters to see if I would be lucky enough to spy the little singer.

And there he was. Proud. Immodest. Blatant. Perched. Singing boldly. Brashly. As if it made perfect sense that he lived on top of the Trader Joe's T.

About the size of a robin (maybe just a smidge smaller), dark and seriously speckled this guy sang with the bravado of a mocking bird.

I've tried to look him up online, but to no success. He's a bit wren-like, except that he is very dark. And he seems to big to be a songbird, but sing he did.

Does anyone know what he is?

(And just in case you were wondering, as soon as I walked into TJs I realized I needed way more than coffee, so spent an hour and a hundred dollars. Also ran into Nick B. who drove to LA after Katrina to rescue family and got to hear his crazy story "I've never had so many guns pointed at me in my life!!" And also experienced grumpiest checker in the world who I swore pitched my groceries into their prospective bags with masochistic checker glee.)

games

Image by bunnyhero
stacks of my old games still at my parents' place, god bless'em

in this photo:
- psi world
- gammarauders
- tekumel source book
- superworld
- gangbusters
- universe
- cyborg commando
- dungeons & dragons basic set
- car wars deluxe edition
- time & time again
- living steel
- judge dredd the roleplaying game
- star traders
- sniper!
- lords of creation
- air superiority
- top secret
- swordbearer
- twilight: 2000
- mercenaries, spies & private eyes
- merc
- traveller: 2300
- top secret/s.i.
- stormbringer
- worlds of wonder
- crime fighter
[game books i haven't bothered to identify yet]
- chainsaw warrior
- clue

Khimki Forest

Image by Daniel Beilinson
Attention! Our activists were attacked on this night. Few of activists were severely beaten by unknown men.
The police didn't caught the criminals, but suspended deforestation work.
--
Today we came to the Khimki forest.

At 11:30 we came to the forest near the Klyzma river near SNT Druzhba, close to the camp of ecologists of June 23rd of 2010 (the place is on ecmo.ru).

The deputy Gudkov of the State Duma came with us.

We observed freshly cut down trees - birches with leaves and a huge harvester (a machine to cut down the trees or even to pick them out of the land) nearby.

We wanted to come closer, securities rushed and pushed Yaroslav Nikitenko. Everyone was oppressed, the deputy became furious and started to demand documents from the guards, and called the police. I was not made harm, but it was unpleasant and unlawful to touch me.

We demanded the documents. They said "none".

They said "the documents are in the office".

We called the police.

The director of the company clearing called Evgenia Chirikova.

He said "they have all the documents".

Later he said they don't have a permission for clearing and the permission for the construction.

Greenpeace lawyer Blatova, Save Khimki Forest movement lawyer Kozlov both agreed that the required by law documents are absent.

We called the Khimki police.

Sheruimov said the following: "we called for the documents, they are on way, before they come we can't say the works are illegal".

That is absolutely weird and it's ununderstandable how the trees are being cut down and the police "believes" the documents exist and does nothing to stop illegal works.

N.B. In Russia the law demands the documents to be on the place of works and not "in the office".

The activists called the investigating department and started to wait.

They did't come. Then they called the higher departments, said about the criminal undoing of the police officers. This is still happening till the late evening in Russia. We're calling higher and higher, complaining on the officers, but no one comes to the forest.

That's why we decided to make a camp in the forest and to stand to protect ourselves the trees.

During the presence on the first clearing, a call from the witness came that near Starbeevo, near the old pioneer camp, workers with chain-saws cut down trees.

Part of the activists and lawyers rest on the first place, and the major part led by Yaroslav Nikitenko came to investigate the second illegal felling.

When came to the spot, activists saw many trees fallen.

Big birches with the new fresh green leaves. Especially sad looked the oaks very wide, of a few hundred years old which lay down on earth split into a few chunks.

Near the fallen oak we found two bottles of dark yellow liquid, probably oil and the ribbons for the chain-saws.

We called the police and started to write the act.

Suddenly an activist Beilinson cried out: "Look! He hit him!"

We rushed to him.

A volunteer of Greenpeace Joseph Kogutko stepped a bit aside and wanted to look at the surroundings.

A guard came to him, hit his mobile out of his hands and wanted to make him more harm.

We ran closer. The guy went on me, I managed to make a photo of him from a close distance, he could't touch me though. Instead he severely hit Alesha Belikh in face. Immediately blood flew out of his nose, that was broken.

The photos from the action, the photos of Alesha and the gangster are now in my twitter @ynikitenko.

The guy ran away into the forest. The securities just laughed at us, and the FSB which constantly spies at us just stood with the securities.

The police came soon, surprisingly. We said about the beating. The officer looked round the clearing, looked at the bottles and came back to his car. He said the operative group will come.

We stayed there to wait for the arrival of the operative group to check so that the police does it work.

Most part of people left.

Then the officer departed after some time.

We left too. It was dangerous to stay there in a small group with the gangsters.

Alesha refused to go to hospital to fix traumas, he refused to write to the police saying that is vain.

The police didn't come anywhere, did not fix the traces of crime, did not prevent the works.

That's why we with the remaining activists came to the first place, where they already arranged the camp, to protect the trees ourselves.

We hope more activists will come and it will be more secure, though it's already dark.

In case something happens to us we'll try to write to you.
Please follow us in our twitters and ecmo.ru

P.S. During writing this letter we observed a beaver swimming on the river Klyazma, one of the three planned specially protected natural areas in the Khimki forest - planned before the construction of the road Moscow to St. Petersburg through the Khimki forest was decided.

P.P.S. The securities here behave very strange. Something may happen at night. In case they start to destroy the trees, we will stop them.
--
Yaroslav Nikitenko

Attention! The activists were attacked on the night. Few of activists were severely beaten by unknown men.
The police didn't caught the criminals, but suspended deforestation work.

See also www.change.org/petitions/save-khimki-forest-stand-with-ru... - the collection of signatures against Vinci's participation in the project. More than 20,000 already collected!

Coalition for the forests of Moscow region!
Greenpeace Russia
WWF Russia
Social-Ecological Union
Biodiversity conservation center
Russian birds conservation union
Movement for Khimki forest protection

Follow us!
Latest news about Khimki Forest from leading media VIA ecoradar
Yevgenia Chirikova, Leader of the Khimki Forest Defenders
Yaroslav Nikitenko

We will open an international site soon: www.khimkiforest.org