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by Teh Nutroots | At last, the 21st Century!--at least in Britain. Check out the photo of this bad boy. The Daily Mail reports:
The two-seater Riversimple Urban Car is able to travel 240 miles
without refuelling and weighs just 772lb or 55st. It could be put into
production as soon as 2013. A spokesman said they expected it to
achieve 300miles to the gallon (Daily Mail).
Of course, the 21st Century might move a bit slower than you were probably imagining back when you used to watch The Jetsons. The present version can reach speeds of "up to 50 mph." (Daily Mail) On the other hand: the cars are expected to have a 20 year lifespan.(Daily Mail) But....erm: hydrogen? How does that work? Won't...explosions be a problem?
by Teh Nutroots | The Daily Show's wily Brit, John Oliver, wants to know why anyone would want to recreate the Big Bang; thinks he knows what a kelvin is; and is pretty certain that Walter Wagner is on to something when he says there's a one in two chance that the LHC will convert the earth into a black hole. He asks, because somebody's got to: "Why the fuck would you recreate the big bang? Does that not sound a bit fucking dangerous?"
by Damozel | Panic...or don't? Panic...or don't? The New York Times reports:
Responding to what some health officials feared could be the leading edge of a global pandemic emerging from Mexico, American health officials declared a public health emergency on Sunday as 20 cases of swine flu were confirmed in this country, including eight in New York City.....
Top global flu experts struggled to predict how dangerous the new A
(H1N1) swine flu strain would be as it became clear that they had too
little information about Mexico’s outbreak — in particular how many
cases had occurred in what is thought to be a month before the outbreak
was detected, and whether the virus was mutating to be more lethal, or
less.
The Environmental Protection Agency on Friday formally declared
carbon dioxide and five other heat-trapping gases to be pollutants that
threaten public health and welfare, setting in motion a process that
for the first time in the United States will regulate the gases blamed
for global warming. The E.P.A. said the science supporting its so-called endangerment
finding was “compelling and overwhelming.”...
by Damozel | North Korea doesn't yet have the capability to load a nuclear warhead onto the missile. But the US believes that a so-called "communications satellite" which it says it plans to launch over Northern Japan is really a long-range Taepodong-2 missile that could reach North America. (ToL)
"I would say we're not prepared to do anything about it," said [Secretary of Defense Robert] Gates during an appearance on "Fox News Sunday."..."I don't know anyone at a senior level in the American government who
does not believe this technology is intended to mask the development of
an intercontinental ballistic missile," he said.....
Gates called the launch of the missile "very troubling" and a sign
that the series of meetings between the U.S., China, South Korea,
Russia, Japan and North Korea known as six-party talks have not made
any headway in getting North Korea to curb its nuclear program.
by Damozel | After one erroneous outburst in The Washington Post against "Dark Green Doomsayers", George Will has written yet another column. In case you were wondering, there's still no correction in sight.
I didn't bother about Will's initial global warming denial column, mostly for the reasons which emptywheel cites for staying out of the initial controversy: "There was not much way I could improve on ThinkProgress' and Media Matters'multi-partresponse to Will." But the response to the response interests me strangely.
Isabel Macdonald at HuffPost observes: "The ongoing controversy...offers a good case study in the impunity of the punditocracy."
by Damozel | You can't say Obama has hit the ground running on redeeming his campaign promises. The New York Times reports:
President Obama directed federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California
and 13 other states to set strict limits on greenhouse gases from cars
and trucks. (via Memeorandum)
The official residence of the vice president, obscured until Dick Cheney's last days in office and residence, now shines in satellite sunlight...Google Maps now showed a clear overhead image of One Observatory Circle
(below), the address which has served as the home of the vice president
since 1974. It's the first glimpse Google users have gotten of the
place....For the past four years, since Google first began introducing
high-resolution satellite imagery into Google Earth and Google Maps,
people have noticed that Cheney's house remained obscured (top photo),
even as the White House itself could be seen clearly.
So it seems that even Maureen Dowd is sometimes right. She wrote in 2005:
by Damozel | According to CNN, the current estimate of gallons of ash-infused slurry containing "concentrated levels of mercury and arsenic" at present stands at 1 billions. At least 300 acres are covered with the poisonous mess, "a bigger area than the Exxon Valdez oil spill." A TVA spokesman says that they've never had a spill of this magnitude and that they can no longer say how long the clean-up will take.
Video footage showed sludge as high
as 6 feet, burying porches and garage doors. The slide also downed
nearby power lines, though the TVA said power had been restored to the
area. An estimated 78,000 cubic yards, or 15.7 million gallons, of
sludge covered local railroad tracks and Swan Pond Road. (More at CNN)
by Damozel | The implications, The Washington Post suggests, are clear: "Obama plans to make a strong push for measures to combat global warming and programs to support energy innovation." (WaPo) All of his picks and potential selections are tried and tested warriors in the fight against global warming and for green technologies.
If you want to know what’s happening in the world, then Memorandum will
tell you – at least in a couple of areas. It’s an automated news
clipping service, known in the trade as a “news aggregator”. It
provides headlines and short texts updated every few minutes, with
links to the original sites, much like Google News.
Memeorandum is based on the idea of “memes” or ideas that spread
across the web (along with a pun on memorandum). Someone publishes an
interesting story, other people find it, discuss it, and link to it.
That’s how the web works. Small stories come and go quickly, while big
ones generate lots of comment and dominate the page for hours.
by Damozel | According to The Telegraph, he's being asked to do exactly that.
Desperate to see the US emulate the British Government and disclose reported "contact"
with UFOs, the enthusiasts have written to Mr Obama to ask that his
administration comes clean about the contents of America's "X-Files".
They believe they have good prospects of success after public statements of
support from both John Podesta, who is running Mr Obama's White House
transition team, and Bill Richardson, the Governor of New Mexico - a UFO
sighting hotspot - who is expected to secure a cabinet post.
by Damozel | Did you know that George W. Bush is still president? It's true. Fortunately--- according to The Washington Post--Obama's team is busily compiling a list of nearly 200 executive orders and Bush administration policies that they can quickly reverse.
by Teh Nutroots | More goofiness from Sarah Palin, who doesn't realize that a little knowledge is a very little thing. Here she mocks the earmarking of funds for fruit fly research while arguing for more spending on autism.
Science blog Pharyngula is a bit less polite than Maddow:
Ike was designated a tropical storm as it travelled inland. (BBC News) "Post-Ike analysis today presented one happy fact: The hurricane could have been a lot worse."(Houston Chronicle)
Bush has declared 29 counties of Texas a disaster area. (BBC News) Rescuers are going door to door to check on 20,000+ who refused to evacuate. (CNN) Now we just pray for the minimum loss of life.
Previously: The projections are grim. Experts are saying that Ike may dwarf Katrina in the devastation it wreaks. At Weather Underground, Dr. Jeff Masters says:
Hurricane Ike
is closing in on Texas, and stands poised to become one of the most
damaging hurricanes of all time. Despite Ike's rated Category 2
strength, the hurricane is much larger and more powerful than Category
5 Katrina or Category 5 Rita. The storm surge from Ike could rival
Katrina's, inundating a 200-mile stretch of coast from Galveston to
Cameron, Louisiana with waters over 15 feet high. This massive storm
surge is due to the exceptional size of Ike....
by Cockney Robin | In an area of the upper Xingu in Brazil, in an area once believed to be "virgin forest", anthropologists from the University of Florida have discovered the traces of an Amazon civilisation that predated European explorers. (BBCNews 30-8-08)
by Damozel |Climate change deniers who live on high ground may not be worried, but we all live in Florida.
The National Snow and Ice Data Center has reported that sea ice in the Arctic
now covers about 2.03 million square miles. The lowest point since
satellite measurements began in 1979 was 1.65 million square miles,
last September. With about three weeks left in the Arctic summer, this year could wind up breaking that record, scientists said. (NYT)
Posted by Cockney Robin | Lancet has reported on two successful facial transplants: one to a Chinese man savaged by a bear and the other to a man with a massive melanoma growing on his facial nerves.(BBC News 26-8-08; more)
by Damozel | Did you know that George W. Bush is still president? It's true. Fortunately--- according to The Washington Post--Obama's team is busily compiling a list of nearly 200 executive orders and Bush administration policies that they can quickly reverse.
by Cockney Robin | In an area of the upper Xingu in Brazil, in an area once believed to be "virgin forest", anthropologists from the University of Florida have discovered the traces of an Amazon civilisation that predated European explorers. (
by Damozel |Climate change deniers who live on high ground may not be worried, but we all live in Florida. 
Posted by Cockney Robin | Lancet has reported on two successful facial transplants: one to a Chinese man savaged by a bear and the other to a man with a massive melanoma growing on his facial nerves.
