Hallie to appear in HBO documentary

Hallie, Travis, and Nora on the HBO website

Hallie and Travis on the HBO website

Hallie’s climate change work last year with iMatterYouthNC.Org was filmed by HBO as part of a documentary they made about kids and climate change. We found out that documentary is airing Monday, December 15th at 7 PM on HBO. The film, called Saving My Tomorrow, features kids from all over, speaking about their planet. It’s really inspiring!

We don’t know how much of Hallie will appear in the film but the image the producers chose for their HBO webpage is a shot from Hallie’s march through downtown Raleigh, flanked by Travis and Hallie’s friend (and co-organizer), Nora. I’m hopeful we might see Hallie’s speech from the rally but we’re not sure what they used or not.

I’m hoping I can finagle a way to record the film as we don’t have cable. Any assistance out there would be greatly appreciated!

Questions raised over Queen’s ancestry after DNA test on Richard III’s cousins

Isn’t this interesting.

The bones of the king under the car park have delivered further shocks, 527 years after his death and more than two years after his remains were discovered in Leicester: Richard III was a blue-eyed blond, and the present Queen may not be descended from John of Gaunt and Edward III, the lineage on which the Tudor claim to the throne originated.

Five anonymous living donors, all members of the extended family of the present Duke of Beaufort, who claim descent from both the Plantagenets and Tudors through the children of John of Gaunt, gave DNA samples which should have matched Y chromosomes extracted from Richard’s bones. But none did.

Since Richard’s identity was proved by his mitochondrial DNA, handed down in an unbroken chain through the female line from his sister to two living relatives, the conclusion is stark: there is a break in the claimed line of Beaufort descent, what the scientists described as “a false paternity event”, which may also affect the ancestry of their distant cousins, the Windsors.

via Questions raised over Queen’s ancestry after DNA test on Richard III’s cousins | UK news | The Guardian.

Putin’s failures leave Russia reeling | MSNBC

Great, quick read on Putin’s failures.

It was poised to be the biggest arms deal ever between a NATO country and Russia. France had a deal worth more than 1 billion euros to deliver a warship to Russia, and given Europe’s economy and the number of jobs involved, French President Francois Hollande really wanted the deal to go forward. But it did not. President Obama urged Hollande to leave Vladimir Putin isolated and the French president agreed, announcing last week that the warship delivery was off “until further notice” in light of Russia’s aggression towards Ukraine. Late yesterday, Putin suffered yet another failure.

“President Vladimir V. Putin said Monday that he would scrap Russia’s South Stream gas pipeline, a grandiose project that was once intended to establish the country’s dominance in southeastern Europe but instead fell victim to Russia’s increasingly toxic relationship with the West.”

The New York Times characterized this as a “rare diplomatic defeat” for Putin, though I’m not sure why. Indeed, diplomatic defeats appear to be the only thing the Russian president has accomplished lately.

via Putin's failures leave Russia reeling | MSNBC.

Kicking gas

Our Ford Focus Electric

Our Ford Focus Electric

Kelly and I have finally gotten sick of the cars we own. With the Odyssey’s transmission bound to fail again within the next three years, it was time to check out other alternatives. We hate buying cars, though, and can’t stand car payments. Thus, when we buy cars we tend to drive them for a while.

We wanted a car that’s more efficient than the ones we have, so we went to the local Carmax to check out a Prius V (in other words, a Prius wagon). Having taken it around the block, we weren’t impressed with its feel for the road nor its space. As we were deciding whether to leave the lot or not, I noticed that a Ford Focus Electric was parked next to us. I’d only driven an electric vehicle one time before (which ended disastrously), so I thought it might be fun to take the Focus out for a test drive. After a short spin around the neighborhood and I-540, we were hooked. We became the owners of a Focus Electric last week.

Unlike my electric car experience of eight years ago, the Focus has some pickup! We tooled around I-540 with ease, merging into the fast-moving traffic and being able to pass anytime we needed. Plus, it’s super quiet. You get the sound of the tires and wind, with the electric motor making a slight, futuristic whirring sound. It turns out it was much more fun to drive than the Prius.
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