We made 550 miles today and are west of Chicago tonight. Pennsylvania and Ohio were a nice drive on I-80 with well maintained roads and state-run restaurant and fuel areas. By contrast, Indiana had way too many potholes and bumps. Their infrastructure seems to be crumbling, as witness the transition overpass from I-80/90 West to I-80 West. It was ancient and decrepit to the point of being dangerous. judging from the amount of smashed areas on the concrete block guardrails, lots of accidents have already happened on it.

Having an iPod is great. We’ve been listening to music and podcasts all day, and I just loaded it up with more podcasts for tomorrow.

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Israel has now cut off fuel to Gaza and forced the UN to stop distributing food.

This Israeli government action is an unvarnished war crime. It is known as collective punishment. There was already hunger and malnutrition among Palestinian children, which will now be worsened

Let’s make war just for the combatants. Why should the innocent, women and children, have to suffer? This includes Israeli women and children killed by suicide bombers just as much as their counterpart Palestinians. There’s lots of collective punishment being done by all sides here.

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Live from a TV show. One of the most amazing of the 60’s psychedelic bands. After some hard decades, lead singer Roky Erikson is currently performing again and getting good reviews.

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Most are in the Mojave desert. The biggest project, eSolar, is partly funded by Google and will product a whopping 1 GW when completed. They bill themselves as “utility-scale solar power.”

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Bandos are squatters who live in foreclosed homes, which often still have the lights and water on. Vandos like to party in such places, trashing them as they go.

What happens to neighborhoods after several months (or several years) of this? Will they ever come back? Or just become wastelands?

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