1. The Liebster Award
This blog was nominated for a Liebster Award earlier in the week. The Liebsters are a pay-it-forward kind of blogging award designed to help others find new and interesting small-readership blogs in the vast, unexplored reaches of the Internet.
The good thing about the Liebsters is that being nominated means that someone’s reading your blog, and that they like your work. By participating in the process, you can pass that love along and help others find readership, too.
Bloggers participate by:
1. Posting ten things about themselves.
3. Nominating ten new blogs of their own, preferably with 200 members or less.
4. Posing ten new questions to the new nominees.
Dan and Sally’s Digital Domain was nominated by Axel from Iron Rogue. You can follow the nomination process via the links above. I’ll be posting my own nominees and my ten questions for them tomorrow.
If you’re wondering, I’m really happy about this Liebster thing, and I like the way that the project has turned out. If you’re interested in knowing more about me and/or my philosophy on swimming and triathlon, the nomination posts are worth reading.
2. Coal and the Clean Air Act (NY Times)
“In a major victory for the Obama administration, the Supreme Court on Tuesday upheld the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate the smog from coal plants that drifts across state lines from 28 Midwestern and Appalachian states to the East Coast.
The 6-to-2 ruling bolsters the centerpiece of President Obama’s environmental agenda: a series of new regulations aimed at cutting pollution from coal-fired power plants. Republicans and the coal industry have criticized the regulations, which use the Clean Air Act as their legal authority, as a ‘war on coal.’”
I thought that this was a revival of the EPA’s Cross-State Air Pollution Rule when I first saw it, but it’s not. That would have been a big deal. But unless I’m reading this wrong, this particular ruling is only saying that the Clean Air Act makes it legal for the Federal government to regulate poisons emitted from coal-fired smokestacks across state lines. That’s not exactly news. Nor is it particularly relevant to global warming and climate change.
Without at least basic regulations on coal, we’d have nearly unlimited SO2 and mercury emitted into the air, and no matter what your politics, you can’t possibly think that’s a good idea unless you’re a complete fucking idiot.
EDIT: After I drafted this, I sat in a meeting where the chairman of the committee I'm on said that this ruling does reinstate the CSAPR--or at least parts of it. That's a potentially huge deal. The CSAPR is a nationwide cap-and-trade system that is pretty stringent, if want to know my personal opinion. This is not to say that I'm against it, but it will most likely force change in the generation sector. I'm not sure exactly what the status of this is going to be going forward, and as I'm looking, I see that I'm not the only one.
EDIT: After I drafted this, I sat in a meeting where the chairman of the committee I'm on said that this ruling does reinstate the CSAPR--or at least parts of it. That's a potentially huge deal. The CSAPR is a nationwide cap-and-trade system that is pretty stringent, if want to know my personal opinion. This is not to say that I'm against it, but it will most likely force change in the generation sector. I'm not sure exactly what the status of this is going to be going forward, and as I'm looking, I see that I'm not the only one.
3. The Rise of the Drone Master (NY Times)
“In Marvel’s latest popcorn thriller, Captain America battles Hydra, a malevolent organization that has infiltrated the highest levels of the United States government. There are missile attacks, screeching car chases, enormous explosions, evil assassins, data-mining supercomputers and giant killer drones ready to obliterate millions of people.
Its inspiration?
President Obama, the optimistic candidate of hope and change.”
Pop culture finally seems to have noticed that our “liberal” president likes to assassinate people. I’m wondering if I’m the only one who finds that kind of funny. The guy’s got at least three combat stars on his Nobel Peace Prize, and he’d have more if his political effort to bomb Syria had succeeded domestically.
4. New Godzilla Trailer, imported from Asia
Umm… *SPOILERS*
Looks like a pretty interesting flick. But there’s a lot going on there, and that’s just in the trailer, so I hope the script is good. I mean, I’m counting at least three separate plotlines, and that’s in a popcorn-disaster movie about giant monsters fighting in Manhattan.
5. The NFL Draft is right around the corner
Believe it or not, I find myself rooting for Johnny Manziel. His Pro Day was an inspired piece of personal marketing, and I think he has all the talent that a team could ask for. I don’t know if that’s enough to make him a super-successful pro, but I feel good about saying that he can come in and both win some games and sell some t-shirts for a team like the Jacksonville Jaguars. You ask me, that’s exactly what the Jags need right now, and if I’m them, that’s the way I go.
Manziel has done more to help himself during his private mtgs, workout w teams than any QB in this draft FAR!!! He's flown up boards but...
— Jay Glazer (@JayGlazer) May 1, 2014
Of course, you can never trust pre-Draft talk, but this is the most interesting storyline of the draft to me. We’ll see how it goes.
***
That’s all I got.
We’re running again at Tri Practice tomorrow. I only just got my bike back from the shop, and it seems like it's a little late to change plans now. But a couple of my athletes have asked me to teach them to swim butterfly, so we’re gonna start working on that after the run tomorrow. Wish them luck!
After that, Sally, the girls, and I are going to see The Amazing Spider-Man 2.
Have a good weekend.
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