“Straw is a viable building alternative, plentiful and inexpensive. Straw-bale buildings boast superinsulated walls, simple construction, low costs, and the conversion of an agricultural byproduct into a valued building material. Properly constructed and maintained, the straw-bale walls, stucco exterior and plaster interior remain water proof, fire resistant, and pest free. Because only limited skill is required, a community house-raising effort can build most of a straw-bale house in a single day. This effort yields a low-cost, elegant, and energy-efficient living space for the owners, a graceful addition to the community, and a desirable boost to local farm income. This booklet offers an in-depth look at one such community house-raising, in addition to a general overview of straw-bale construction.”

Published by the U.S. Department of Energy Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. Check this site for lots of straw building resources.

Trade cards are a “single piece of medium weight paper slightly smaller than a post card, printed with decorative images which directly or indirectly promote a commercial product, service, or event. Trade cards were used widely from the 1870s to the end of the 1890s, and were commonly distributed to the public at store counters, expositions, and through the mail.” The Daniel K.E. Ching Collection of the Chinese Historical Society of America has over four hundred trade cards produced in the United States and Europe that contain racist depictions of Chinese and Chinese Americans. Several images have been posted online. For a bit of context read the essay.

Found via American Samizdat.

On July 9, a Paris judge ordered Greenpeace to stop using a parody of the Esso logo in its StopEsso campaign in France, pending a full hearing of the case.

“Stephanie Tunmore, Greenpeace climate campaigner said, ‘This court case is just another attempt by Esso to use its money as a means of continuing its dirty business unhindered.’ Esso claimed that the dollar signs Greenpeace has used in place of the “SS” in the logo linked the company to the infamous Nazi “SS” and damaged Esso’s reputation. Appropriately, the French judge Justice Binoche categorically rejected this claim. And although Esso was seeking 80,000 Euro per day if Greenpeace did not comply, the judge reduced this sum to 5,000 Euro per day. The judge also rightly ruled that Greenpeace can continue to use the term ‘StopEsso’.... StopEsso is a coalition of groups, including Greenpeace, campaigning around the world to stop Esso from sabotaging international action to address climate change, such as the Kyoto Protocol.”

Exxon had also asked for Greenpeace to remove all the meta-tags from their site because the StopEsso campaign site was coming up third when you searched for “Esso” on Google. They should have read the FAQ. Because of all the interest in the court case, StopEsso is currently the number one search result.

Pilot projects in Fife, Scotland and on the South Downs outside Brighton, UK are building low-cost housing from old tires. 40 million tires are discarded each year in Britain alone “enough free building material to construct 20,000 low-cost homes a year.” Known as “earthships” The new houses are “capable of functioning entirely independent of mains services such as electricity, water and sewage.” Read more from the Low Carbon Network and the Craigencalt Farm Ecology Centre, the organizations working the projects.

Found via Also Not Found in Nature.

“The banned Falun Gong spiritual movement jammed one of China’s main television satellites for eight days and briefly beamed a video into millions of homes during last month’s World Cup soccer finals.... [Falun Gong] has survived a three-year campaign of repression; it also marked the most sophisticated challenge so far to the Communist Party’s control of the media.”

See the Washington Post.

The Greasecar runs on on 100% used vegetable oil. “Where do you get your vegetable oil? We get our oil from local restaurants; we recommend that you establish a relationship with a restaurant in your area.” For $795 you can order a kit to convert your existing diesel car into a greasecar.

“The purpose of this website is to provide information related to the ongoing work of the U.S. House of Representatives in relation to the eXtensible Markup Language (XML). Under the direction of the Senate Committee on Rules and Administration and the House Committee on Administration, the Secretary of the Senate and the Clerk of the House have worked together with the Library of Congress and the Government Printing Office to create Document Type Definition files (DTDs) for use in the creation of legislative documents using XML. As this is an ongoing project, it is important to note that the DTDs presented here have not been finalized, and may change over time.”

“The web is providing a way for women in Iran to talk freely about taboo subjects such as sex and boyfriends. Over the past few months there has been a big jump in the number of Persian weblogs which are providing an insight into a closed society.... ‘I could talk very freely and very frankly about things I could never talk about in any other place, about subjects that are banned,’ said one of the first women to start a blog in Iran.”

From BBC News.

“An HIV-positive puppet character is to be introduced to the South African version of long-running children’s favourite Sesame Street. The character has not yet been named or designed but is expected to be a female ‘monster’ similar to Grover or Elmo.” Says a spokesman of The Terence Higgins Trust, “half of the new HIV infections worldwide are now occurring among those aged between 15 and 24.” Read more at The Guardian. Update, August 9: After news of the character was announced, five U.S. Congressmen wrote to PBS saying “the Muppet would be unwelcome on American TV.” One PBS exec “won’t rule out an appearance of the character.”

“The Alameda County Computer Recycling Center is a 501c3 nonprofit computer recycling organization that provides computers to those on the Earth who would not otherwise have access to them. We help disadvantaged, undereducated, and disabled humans gain access to technology, computers, and the Internet. We teach... unskilled workers how to build and maintain computers. We give computers to underprivileged peoples, including citizens and governments..... We give computers to physically disadvantaged individuals. We donated over 5000 computers last year, all at no cost to the recipients. We are a 100% Microsoft Free organization. Every computer we donate runs a full and legitimate copy of SuSe Linux. The computers that we place with our recipients are refurbished through our Computer Repair Internship Program. In the process, we ensure that obsolete, non-working, or no longer usable electronic equipment does not end up in landfills.”