Today, one of our favorite Scotsman turns 36: Ewan McGregor. Though the star of many a fine film (Big Fish, Moulin Rouge, Black Hawk Down), for my money McGregor will always be remembered best for his role as Renton in Trainspotting.

“It’s shite being Scottish! We’re the lowest of the low. The scum of the fucking Earth! The most wretched, miserable, servile, pathetic trash that was ever shat into civilization. Some hate the English. I don’t. They’re just wankers! We, on the other hand, are colonized by wankers. Can’t even find a decent culture to be colonized by! We’re ruled by effete assholes. It’s a shite state of affairs to be in, Tommy, and all the fresh air in the world won’t make any fucking difference!”

Besides just turning you into a complete douche, cocaine it turns out, is also very eco-unfriendly:

A panel of scientists meeting at the Natural History Museum in London last week detailed how the production of the drug and its trafficking affect biodiversity and contribute to climate change. The production of a gram of cocaine means the destruction of four square metres of Colombian forest, they said, raising the question of which supermodels, popstars and city types should be lined up with hummer drivers and big game hunters in the environmental most-wanted stakes. Colombia is one of the most biodiverse countries in the planet, and also the biggest cocaine producer. Bad combination.

Cocaine production is a threat to environment is all its stages, said Liliana Davalos, lecturer in Molecular Ecology at the Open University, UK. The first step of the cycle is the destruction of forest to plant coca. Every year, 100 thousand hectares of Colombian forest is destroyed for this end. The plantations also use tons of herbicides that are forbidden in many other countries. Since the UK is one of the world’s largest consumption markets for cocaine, it makes concerns about organic tomatoes and pesticides seem futile.

The more eco-friendly stimluant choice, said the scientists is coffee:

Coffee from shade trees cultivation farms, where the bushes are grown in the shadow of native taller trees, is a much more eco-friendly option. “Biodiversity in these plantations is almost as high as in primary forests,” said botanist Sandy Knapp from the Natural History Museum.

Besides, research has shown that coffee and cocaine act on your body in basically the same way. Guess you just have to drink a lot more of it.

Though her recent albums have been pretty awful, Liz Phair’s Exile in Guyville still stands the test of time. To celebrate its 15th anniversary, Dave Matthews’s ATO Records is releasing a special edition of the landmark, out of print album with four unreleased B-sides and a DVD, Guyville Redux, a 60-minute making-of documentary.  Guyville Redux will also feature an introduction by Matthews and look at the early ’90s Chicago indie music scene that also featured bands such as Urge Overkill and Smashing Pumpkins. Phair herself interviews local rock luminaries such as super producer Steve Albini and Matador Records‘ Gerard Cosloy and Chris Lombardi as well as actor John Cusack and NPR’s Ira Glass.

The Guyville reissue will be out June 24th and will prelude Phair’s new studio album, which purports to see the songwriter getting back into “the DIY spirit” (we’ll have to wait and see), this fall.

I saw this while perusing the Mesh blog, and given that I’ve been playing Pinback’s “Good To Sea” (off their last album, Autum of the Seraphs) on repeat, I thought I’d share this hilarious (and loving) spoof of Pinback, made by this Chicago dude.

If you love Pinback like I do, you’ll dig this. if you have no idea what a Pinback is, educate.

Research in Britain has shown that up to 53% of mobile phone users suffer from “no mobile phobia,” or nomophobia, the fear of being without cell phone service for any reason:

They have become so dependent on their mobile that discovering it is out of charge or simply misplacing it sends stress levels soaring. More than one in two said this is why they never switch it off. One in ten said they needed to be contactable at all times because of their jobs, while 9 per cent said that having their phone switched off made them anxious.

Experts say nomophobia could affect up to 53 per cent of mobile phone users, with 48 per cent of women and 58 per cent of men questioned admitting to experiencing feelings of anxiety when they run out of battery or credit, lose their phone or have no network coverage.

However, perhaps people should be a little more afraid of the cell phones themselves.  Another British study claims that longterm cell phone use is worse for your health than “smoking and asbestos”:

The study, by Dr Vini Khurana, is the most devastating indictment yet published of the health risks. It draws on growing evidence that using handsets for 10 years or more can double the risk of brain cancer. Cancers take at least a decade to develop, invalidating official safety assurances based on earlier studies which included few, if any, people who had used the phones for that long.

Noting that malignant brain tumours represent “a life-ending diagnosis”, he adds: “We are currently experiencing a reactively unchecked and dangerous situation.” He fears that “unless the industry and governments take immediate and decisive steps”, the incidence of malignant brain tumours and associated death rate will be observed to rise globally within a decade from now, by which time it may be far too late to intervene medically.

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t, I guess.

Tonight at 8pm it’s Earth Hour - take some action, leave the lights off for an hour.

On March 29, 2008 at 8 p.m., join millions of people around the world in making a statement about climate change by turning off your lights for Earth Hour, an event created by the World Wildlife Fund.

Earth Hour was created by WWF in Sydney, Australia in 2007, and in one year has grown from an event in one city to a global movement. In 2008, millions of people, businesses, governments and civic organizations in nearly 200 cities around the globe will turn out for Earth Hour. More than 100 cities across North America will participate, including the US flagships–Atlanta, Chicago, Phoenix and San Francisco and Ottawa, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver.

We invite everyone throughout North America and around the world to turn off the lights for an hour starting at 8 p.m. (your own local time)–whether at home or at work, with friends and family or solo, in a big city or a small town.

What will you do when the lights are off? We have lots of ideas.

Join people all around the world in showing that you care about our planet and want to play a part in helping to fight climate change. Don’t forget to sign up and let us know you want to join Earth Hour.

One hour, America. Earth Hour. Turn out for Earth Hour!

Watch the Earth Hour movie narrated by Jeremy Piven

Why don’t we start doing this weekly?