Sad To Hear

A hiker dies in Utah.

A California woman died after falling at least 1,000 feet while hiking in Zion National Park Sunday.

Nancy Maltez, 55, of Glendora, apparently stumbled on the north side of Angels Landing, a high peak above Zion Canyon, said park spokesman Ron Terry.

My condolences to her friends and family.

Do Not Feed The Animals

A lady was killed by bears after years of feeding them.

The story of Donna Munson’s tragic death last week is a sad one. She was mauled to death by a bear at her home outside of Ouray.

The 74-year-old woman had been feeding bears on her 40-acre property for almost a decade, despite repeated warnings that she stop.

Bears, it turns out, don’t care how soft your heart is or how much you appreciate them. They care primarily about food and will attack people who get between them and their dinner.

It is sad she was killed but please do not feed the wildlife.

Smokey The Bear

Smokey the Bear Sign, originally uploaded by Neato Coolville.

Happy 65th Birthday Smokey!

August 9th is officially Smokey Bear's, or Smokey the Bear's, birthday. Today, he turns 65 years old.

Back in the early forties, the United States Forest Service used Disney characters to educate the public about the importance of fire safety. However, these characters were only on loan from Walt Disney, so in 1944, a new symbol was needed. Smokey the Bear was born.

June Carter

Ring of Fire.

More Johny Cash Show

Andy Kaufman.

Ring Of Fire

Ray Charles Style. From the Johny Cash show.

The Barefoot Sisters

Have a book out about their 2000 Southbound thru-hike. They hiked north in 2001, the year I thru-hiked the Appalachian Trail. It seemed I was always a day behind them. I did occasionally see barefoot prints, however from the pictures in the video you can see Teva tan lines on their feet. I suspect they hikrd in Teva's alot.

The book can be purchased through the AT Store.

Special Comment

The republicans are owned by corporate profits. So are many of the democrats. 1.4 million a day to kill health care reform. That money is not going to health care. Health Insurance companies do not provide health care.

I Am Simple

I was looking for something much more raunchy, but found this,

Beer Summit

Obama and VP Biden, had Gates and Crowley over for beers.

1. Obama Bud Light
   
2. Biden Buckler
3. Gates Sam Adams Light
4. Crowley Blue Moon

Buckler is almost non alcohol beer. Is Biden a teetotaler?

Just Wrong

Canning a woman for drinking beer. We should encourage such behavior. Damn fundemetalist religions.

Bad Gravy

OK. It really was not that bad of a gravy. I had no stock. So when I over thickened, I added some wine. But did not let the gravy get hot enough to burn off the alcohol. A little strange.

Sad To Hear

A hiker dies on Longs Peak in Colorado.

The hiker who died yesterday in Rocky
Mountain National Park has been identified as Maynard Brandsma, 61, of
Durango.
Brandsma died from an apparent heart attack near the summit of Longs
Peak on Monday morning. The Boulder
County coroner will conduct an autopsy today to determine an official cause
of death.
Brandsma was hiking with a family member when he fell ill in the
Homestretch area of 14,259-foot Longs Peak.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Good Beer Month

New York has declared July good beer month.

July is a month of cycling bliss. The weather is perfect for
long rides and, for much of the month, the world’s best riders battle for the
yellow jersey in the Tour de
France.
July is also a big month for beer; good beer, to be exact. This
month, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg officially proclaimed July to be Good Beer Month
in New York City. Approved good beer bars will get a Good Beer Seal.
As a part
of the month of good beer cheer, bar owners are encouraging patrons to Bike to the Bars, where they can enjoy
artisanal beers, in moderation, of course.

Good stuff!

Why Do Today What You Can Put Off Till Tomorrow?

My foot is still mysteriously swollen. I came home to Baltimoe, to have it checked out but have not yet called the doctor.

Deep Thought

The journey is the destination.

Toe Is Better

My infection has gone away with the help of anti- biotics, rest and cleaning. Much better.

It's Bad You Know

It seems my toe is infected. If antibiotics do not work, the toe nail will have to come off. Butch, one of the guys at the Mayor's House, has volenteered to remove it. It will take a bottle of bourbon and a needle nose pliers. Ouch! Go anti-biotics go!

Sad News

Several Hikers have died since I last had access to a computer.

In Washington

A
Mukilteo man reported missing on Tuesday was found dead on Cedar Creek
Trail, west of Mazama.
Cory A. Hubbard, 48, drove across the Cascades
Mountains for a day hike Saturday. When he did not return home or report to work
on Monday, his family called the Okanogan County Sheriff's Office, said Sheriff
Frank Rogers.

In The Grand Canyon.

Grand
Canyon, Ariz. – A body, presumptively identified as 69 year old Robert (Bob)
A. Williams, was found today by park search and rescue personnel in the Hermit
Basin area of Grand Canyon National Park.
On May 26, park rangers received a
report that Mr. Williams was overdue from his Memorial Day weekend plans which
had included hiking in Grand Canyon National Park. On May 27, after finding Mr.
Williams’ vehicle on the South Rim, park rangers began searching a broad
area—from Hermit Basin to the South Kaibab area—that could easily be accessed on
foot or via shuttle from the point where Mr. Williams’ vehicle was found. On May
29, park rangers were able to narrow their search to the Hermit Basin area based
on information received after issuing a public request for assistance to anyone
who had hiked in the park’s back country during the Memorial Day weekend.

Also in Washington.

Medical
examiners have identified the hiker who fatally fell from Rattlesnake Ledge
near North Bend on Saturday.
Officials say Ruben Maldonado, 28, of Snohomish
County, fell more than 100 feet from the popular hiking area above Rattlesnake
Lake about 12:15 p.m. Rattlesnake Ledge is in Iron Horse State Park, in the
Cascade foothills southeast of Seattle.

In California.

As
many as 30 horrified onlookers saw a male hiker plunge hundreds of feet to
his death Saturday as he was climbing Yosemite's world-famous Half Dome, park
rangers said.

In Arizona.

The chief pilot for the New Mexico State Police and a lost hiker died when a rescue helicopter crashed in stormy weather high on a mountain near Santa Fe late Tuesday, authorities announced today. A second officer was seriously injured

My condolences to their friends and families.

I can not figure out the html to fix the way this post looks. Sorry.

Chance Meetings

In Delaware Water Gap, I ran into Mary from NH. I had not seen her since Damascus, Virginia, during my 2001 thru hike. We are both still hiking the Appalachian Trail In large sections. Althogh her sections are linear. When she ends one section, she starts again at the same spot. There is no method to my madness.

Moving Slow

I am not in great shape. My feet and ankles hurt more than they have on other trips. I am currently staying at the Mayor of Unionville, New York's house. I am going to start writing up stories and posting them. Short internet time now.

Update: I had a nice long talk with the Mayor. He is no longer the Mayor, but was when he started taking in hikers. He takes in hikers as a labor of love. His wife was sick for many years, and died in 2006, if I recall correctly. He would tell his wife about the hikers he met in town and how interesting they were. And his wife would always say wouldn't it be nice if some one would show us kindness on our travels. If we were far from home and needed a shower or laundry. Wouldn't it be nice. Of course the Mayor said it would be nice. Out of love for his highschool sweetheart, a lady he was married to for 44 years, he takes in hikers.

It is really his story to tell. If you find yourself on the Appalachian Trail in New York, stop by the Mayors house. It will bring joy to your life and his.

Stinky Boy Rides Again!

Yellow Indian Springs, originally uploaded by cheflovesbeer.

Stinky Boy(my pack) will be riding on the Appalachian Trail starting tomorrow. Starting in Port Clinton, Pennsylvania and heading north.

Sad To Hear

A hiker falls to his death near Niagara Falls, New York.

A man hiking in the Niagara gorge fell to his death Sunday evening near Devil's Hole in Niagara Falls. State Park Police say 33-year-old Michael Cooper of Niagara Falls was heard screaming for help just before 6:00 p.m. roughly a quarter of the way down into the gorge where he had landed on some rocks. Other hikers led first responders to Cooper who was still conscious at the time. He was taken up and out of the gorge on a backboard with multiple injuries, rushed to a nearby hospital where he died in the emergency room.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Packing Heat In The National Parks

There is no good reason for this.

WASHINGTON — Here's a list of stuff the typical American family can legally carry into national parks this summer: sleeping bag, toothbrush, change of underwear . . . loaded guns.

Thanks to a 279-147 vote Wednesday in the House of Representatives , visitors to the nation's parks and wildlife refuges will be able to carry weapons there if they abide by state weapons laws.

The bill is on its way to President Barack Obama , who faces a dilemma: Gun rights advocates attached the provision to a sweeping overhaul of the credit card industry, an initiative Obama strongly supports, so he has little choice but to let the gun section become law.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said only that Obama "looks forward" to signing the bill "as quickly as possible," and didn't mention the gun provision.

Gun control advocates howled Wednesday, but to little effect. Rep. Carolyn McCarthy , D- N.Y. , protested "the bill has been hijacked," and Rep. Maxine Waters , D- Calif. , maintained, "American taxpayers ought to be incensed."

Scot McElveen , the president of the Association of National Park Rangers , predicted that the measure would provoke problems at the parks.

"Members of the ANPR respect the will of Congress and their authority to pass laws, but we believe this is a fundamental reversal from what preceding Congresses created the National Park System for. Park wildlife, including some rare or endangered species, will face increased threats by visitors with firearms who engage in impulse or opportunistic shooting."

The people with guns will not legally be able to use them. You can not shoot the wildlife in a National Park. You can not shoot the other park visitors. You are not allowed to fire guns in the National Parks. I have never felt the need to have a gun in the wilderness. This will allow people who are scared to bring guns into the parks where they will be used illegally. Nothing good will come of it.

Ouch!

Four hikers are injured by lightning on the Appalachian Trail in New Jersey.

Rescuers in Warren County are working to remove the last of four hikers injured tonight when lightning struck nearby during a severe thunderstorm in Delaware Water Gap National Recreation Area.

Three had been removed from the Appalachian Trail in Worthington State Forest by 7:30 p.m.; a fourth hiker with a head wound had yet to be taken off the mountain, said Deb Nordeen, a public information officer with the National Park Service.

Rescuers reached the group at 6:15 p.m., about an hour after the National Park Service's emergency communications center received a report of the lightning strike.

"They were not directly struck by lightning," Nordeen said. "Lightning apparently hit the ground near them and they subsequently received injuries."

Nordeen said she was uncertain of the extent of the injuries or the ages of those involved.

They were about a mile south of Sunfish Pond in Hardwick Township, which is about two to three miles from the Pennsylvania line.

Hope everybody recovers well.

History Of Weed

Kind of fun.

Sad To Hear

A hiker dies in California.

A hiker died Sunday after he was found unconscious earlier that day on Skyline Trail in Palm Springs, a fire official said Thursday.
The man, whose name was not immediately available, was 28 years old and from Orange County.

He had been hiking since 6 a.m. and rescuers arrived at 1:30 p.m. to find him 100 feet up on the trail.

He was unconscious, unresponsive and had a core body heat of 108 degrees, officials said.

Rescuers transported him to a local hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Sunday's death was the second incident in just over a week in which a hiker on that same trail apparently misjudged the Coachella Valley heat.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Do Not Feed The Animals

Most bear humans encounters occur because humans are careless about food.

No national numbers of conflicts were presented at the Nevada workshop, but participants said the number is growing. They said more regulations requiring bear-proof trash containers and improved public education of people living in bear-prone areas is needed to avoid potentially deadly encounters.

In the East, more than 70% of jurisdictions are reporting an increase in black bear populations, said Hank Hristienko, a big-game biologist for the Canadian province of Manitoba. And from Florida to New Hampshire and into Canada, there are increasing problems, he said.

"On almost 80% of the eastern part of the continent, you have an increasing trend of human-bear conflicts," he said.[...]

Bottom line: "People need to lock up their trash," said Carl Lackey, a Nevada Department of Wildlife biologist. "People really don't take notice until a bear is knocking on their front door."

Bears do not always knock on your door. When I lives in Truckee, CA, I had a bear come through the screen door. No knocking just ripping and tearing. Not really much of an impediment to a full grown bear. Let me tell you, a bear looks a whole lot bigger when your cooking breakfast in your boxers and it is less than five feet from you.

And then there is this idiot, feeding bears in the Alaskan wilderness.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — After 20 years of enticing bears into a remote compound tucked away in a little visited corner of Alaska’s Yentna River valley, retired Anchorage school teacher Charlie Vandergaw said last fall he was ready to end his bear-taming shenanigans.

Filmmaker Richard Terry, the man to whom Vandergaw made the statement, didn’t know whether to believe it or not.

Now skeptical state officials have taken action to make sure it happens. They have charged the 70-year-old Vandergaw with 20 counts of illegally feeding game. Two friends accused of assisting him were also charged.

Wavy Gravy

Today is Wavy Gravy's Birthday. Happy Birthday Wavy!

Good!

US to burn less coal.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. power plants will burn about 2.3 percent less coal in 2009 than they did last year as the recession trims electricity demand, the government's top energy forecaster said on Tuesday.

Power plants will burn about 1,017.49 million short tons of coal in 2009, down from 1,041.6 million tons burned in 2008, the Energy Information Administration said in its monthly short-term outlook.

This month's EIA forecast called for the burning of a bit more coal in 2009 than last month's outlook, which expected U.S. power plants to burn about 2.6 percent less coal.

Hopefully, we will build solar and wind.

Sad To Hear

A hiker dies on the Florida Trail.

COLLIER COUNTY — He was a beloved son devoted to his twin sister, an Advanced Placement scholar who was planning to enter the University of Florida, and a determined Boy Scout striving to attain the rank of Eagle Scout.

Today, his parents and twin sister Elisabeth struggled to deal with the tragedy of Michael Sclawy-Adelman's unexpected death this weekend. The 17-year-old Nova High School senior died Saturday during a sweltering, 20-mile hike on The Florida Trail in Big Cypress National Preserve in Collier County.

"He was a sweetheart. He was everyone's dream kid," said his mother Judith, of Weston, choking back tears. "He was the kind of kid everyone would love to have."

The cause of his death is pending toxicology reports, according to the Collier County Medical Examiner's Office. The teen's family requested no autopsy be conducted.

The Collier County Sheriff's Office said his death may have been the result of a medical condition but his family today declined to discuss any possible cause.

It could be heat related.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Get Up Stand Up!

Bob Marley died on this day in 1981. He is missed.

Sad To Hear

A hiker dies in Arizona.

The 52-year-old woman, whose name has not been released by the Surprise Police Department, was reported missing by family at about 11 p.m. when she didn't return from a hike. Officers searched a nearby mountain near 157th Avenue and Dynamite Road that the woman was known to frequent. They found her body about 40 minutes later.

It is believed to be accidental.

My condolences to her friends and family.
The hiker has been identified as Sharon Berman of Surprise. Police believe it was an accidental fall.

I Will Act Selflessly This Afternoon

All for the good workers at the Sierra Nevada Brewery.

"Sometimes when I reflect back on all the beer I drink I feel ashamed - Then I look into the glass and think about the workers in the brewery and all of their hopes and dreams. If I didn't drink this beer, they might be out of work and their dreams would be shattered. Then I say to myself, 'It is better that I drink this beer and let their dreams come true than be selfish and worry about my liver.'"
-Deep Thought, Jack Handy

Green Chill

How green is your grocer?

Last night Keilly Witman from EPA's GreenChill Advanced Refrigeration Partnership, the program that attempts to get grocery stores to reduce ozone-killing refrigerant leaks, talked at EcoTuesday in DC. What I thought might not be our most exciting topic turned out to be one of the most interesting I've heard in the 8 months of co-hosting these events.

Ozone-depleting refrigerants are also potent greenhouse gases. One pound of the most commonly used HFC refrigerants has the same impact as about 4000 lbs of CO2. This is why Witman calls the reduction of refrigerant leaks the low-hanging-fruit of emissions control. There are 35,000 supermarkets in the US and each typically carries about 4000 lbs of refrigerant and leaks about 25% of that. So, you do the math: 1000 lbs of high global warming gas from each of 35,000 supermarkets = 35,000,000 lbs leaked each year. And its pretty simple and cheap to cut that number in half, which is where most GreenChill partner markets come in.

According to a 2008 GreenChill press release:

Compared to the rest of the supermarket industry, GreenChill partners are already emitting fewer ozone-depleting refrigerants and greenhouse gases than their competitors, and saving money at the same time. The partners’ savings in operating costs equal almost $13 million.

If every supermarket in the nation joined GreenChill and reduced their emissions to the current GreenChill average, the industry could prevent the release of 13 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent and 157 ozone-depleting potential tons annually.

Click on the link to find out which chains participate.

Full Moon!

Full Moon Over DC, originally uploaded by jbhaber.

Full Moon!

52%

The percentage of Americans that think Marijuana should be legal.

3,937 voters were asked: “Scarce law enforcement and prison resources, a desire to neutralize drug cartels and the need for new sources of revenue have resurrected the topic of legalizing marijuana. Proponents say it makes sense to tax and regulate the drug while opponents say that legalization would lead marijuana users to use other illegal drugs. Would you favor or oppose the government’s effort to legalize marijuana?”

52 percent came out in favor, with 37 percent against. The poll was commissioned by the conservative-leaning O’Leary report.

Via Blue Girl. I think it is time to end the prohibition.

Eco Friendly Beers

An article via MattY on green beer.

Several breweries are employing environmentally sound practices in everything from ingredients to distribution. The common denominator among these companies is a set of corporate values that make sustainability the highest priority. And many of these breweries have significantly modified their entire manufacturing process to produce a beer you can enjoy guilt free.

These breweries take a “big-picture” approach that makes many of them leaders in corporate environmental ethics. New Belgium Brewing, for example, meets 30 percent of its energy needs by putting its water waste in enclosed pools with anaerobic bacteria. The bacteria feed off the nutrient-rich water to produce methane gas, which is converted into energy for the factory. The remaining 70 percent of the energy they consume comes from renewable sources.

New Belgium Brewing also conducts Life Cycle Assessments of its beers to determine the material and energy flows at each stage in the brewing process. “It’s a tool to improve not just the sustainability of our company, but of our industry, too,” say founders Kim and Jeff. A six-pack of their Fat Tire label produces 35 percent fewer emissions than the industry average.

Read it all. It has some good ideas.

Good!

Obama is sticking to his guns.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's $3.55 trillion budget, released on Thursday, retains his plan to cut climate-warming carbon dioxide emissions by auctioning off 100 percent of emission permits to industries.

That is at odds with some in Congress, including members of Obama's own Democratic Party, who are pushing for 50 percent or more of those emissions to be given away in the early stages of the plan to ease the transition to a lower-carbon economy.

Opponents fear that charging companies for the carbon they emit would put unnecessary pressure on an already struggling economy.

Selling all the emission permits is projected to bring $646 billion in revenue over the first years of the program, and White House budget director Peter Orszag said that would not change when more details about the administration's budget request are released next week.

We need a 100% auction otherwise it is just a large gift to the polluters.

Loosing Their Religion

Americans are becoming less religious! 18-29 year old 31% are unaffiliated to a religion. 30-49 year old. 40% are unaffiliated. These are the groups that are most likely to be having and raising children. If they have no religion, it seems that their children are less likely to be religious.
The article does not contain these numbers. You must click on Appendix 1. Select age pdf from menu,

Stimulate This

Wind power needs a hand.

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Lost financing, low prices for natural gas and political uncertainty have stymied a potential boom in the U.S. wind power industry this year.

Investment in new wind power capacity that exploded from $3 billion in 2005 to $17 billion in 2008 was projected to fall to $13 billion this year. The fallout for the U.S. industry, the world's largest producer of wind power at 28,000 Megawatts, could usher in a period of consolidation, analysts said.

Financial institutions no longer provide credit to wind farms based on the tax incentives and projected electricity revenues, and natural gas prices have tumbled from $12 per million BTU to under $4.

The industry is now counting on a government bailout of a different sort -- legislation that would mandate that 25 percent of the country's electricity be generated from renewable sources by 2025, up from around 7 percent now, with wind making up 1.5 percent.

"To get to the levels of energy that we're talking about, we have to produce a wind turbine every 15 minutes for the next 20 years," Vic Abate of General Electric Co, the largest U.S. wind turbine supplier, said in an interview on Tuesday on the sidelines of an industry conference.

Why we are not trying to build wind farms and solar farms as a way to get the economy back on track is beyond me. We need to get off coal.

It Is Ok

To leave the lime in the bottle.

Trader Joes

The Trader Joe's song. Shamelessly stolen from Susie.

Go Hawkeye!

Hawkeye is doing a fund raiser for the Telluride Adaptive Sports Program.

TELLURIDE – Longtime Telluride Adaptive Sports Program volunteer Hawkeye Johnson will hike the Pacific Crest Trail from Mexico to Canada to raise money for the program.

Johnson will hike the 2,900-mile trail in two sections, starting in Campo, Calif. (on the Mexico border) and hiking the first 1,700 miles to the California/Oregon border.

In 2010, he will hike the remaining 950 miles from Oregon through Washington to Canada.

Johnson was named a Triple Crown hiker after his October 2007 completion of the 3,000-mile Continental Divide, a trip during which he raised $17,000 for TASP to help support program costs and purchase a high definition video camera for movement analysis training and promotional purposes. This year’s hike of the Pacific Crest Trail will give Johnson, who has been involved with TASP for eight years as an instructor, staff trainer and representative for the program, his second Triple Crown. His support for the disabled community through TASP is “truly an inspiration,” said Courtney Stuecheli, TASP’s executive director. “We are so fortunate to have Hawkeye as an involved volunteer. He gives to the program on so many different levels. We can’t thank him enough for his commitment to TASP.”

To support Johnson on his trek (and benefit Telluride Adaptive Sports Program), visit his website at www.gohawkeye.com to pledge a donation amount per mile or make a flat donation.

I hiked with Hawkeye and a few other people in Maine of 01. He is a good guy even if he did 20 years in Connecticut's penal institutions.

Sad To Hear

A young lady from Baltimore was killed in a hiking accident in Ohio.

A Muskingum College student fell from a cliff yesterday while hiking at Salt Fork State Park and died early this morning, park officials said.

A witness called 911 at 2:26 p.m. to report that a woman fell from a cliff at Hosak's Cave, said George Ayers, assistant park manager.

A spokeswoman for Muskingum College identified the woman as Amy Adams, a junior biology major from Baltimore, Md. Adams was flown to Akron General Hospital and park officials were notified that she died at 1:15 a.m. today, Ayers said.

My condolences to her friends and family.

Happy Birthday Pete!

Today is Pete Seeger's 90th birthday.

Green Box

When I start my Pizza Farming cult, I am going to use these pizza boxes.

Watch Out!

A suspected murderer may be on the Appalachian Trail.

Hikers were warned Wednesday that a University of Georgia professor who has been missing since Saturday's triple slaying in Athens, Ga. may head for the Appalachian Trail.Authorities nationwide have been searching for George Martin Zinkhan III, who is wanted in the fatal shooting of his wife, Marie Bruce, Clemson University economist Tom Tanner and Ben Teague.

“Mr. Zinkhan was a hiker in the past and did hike on the Appalachian Trail,” U.S. Park Ranger Eric Barron said.

Federal authorities have also explored the possibility that Zinkhan, 57, could be headed to Amsterdam, where he is an adjunct professor at a university.

A notice posted on the Appalachian Trail Conservancy's Web site warns that Zinkhan may have a gun and advises people to call 911 if he is spotted.

Picture at the link.
Update: Zinkhan has been found dead.

May The Farm Be With You!

Young Cuke Skywalker learns about the Farm in this short movie Store Wars.

North Country Trail

The New York Times has an article on the North Country Trail.

At 4,600 miles in length, the North Country National Scenic Trail bisects a large part of the continent, slicing through seven states — from glacier-scoured landscapes in Adirondack Park to prairies on the Great Plains — and snaking a distance twice as long as the Appalachian Trail.

“If you want to see a huge cross-section of the U.S.A., the North Country is it,” said Mr. Skurka, a 27-year-old who has hiked the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails, as well as a transcontinental trek he completed in 2005 that included the entire North Country Trail.

On course to someday become one of the longest footpaths on the planet, the North Country Trail is among eight original National Scenic Trails designated by Congress, including the Continental Divide Trail, the Ice Age Trail in Wisconsin, the Appalachian and Pacific Crest, and the Natchez Trace, among other routes. (Two new trails, the Arizona National Scenic Trail and the Pacific Northwest National Scenic Trail, received the designation this year.)

North Country Trail Association. National Park Service page.

More Melting

An ice shelf breaks up in the antarctic.

TROMSOE, Norway (Reuters) - An area of an Antarctic ice shelf almost the size of New York City has broken into icebergs this month after the collapse of an ice bridge widely blamed on global warming, a scientist said Tuesday.

"The northern ice front of the Wilkins Ice Shelf has become unstable and the first icebergs have been released," Angelika Humbert, glaciologist at the University of Muenster in Germany, said of European Space Agency satellite images of the shelf.

Humbert told Reuters about 700 sq km (270.3 sq mile) of ice -- bigger than Singapore or Bahrain and almost the size of New York City -- has broken off the Wilkins this month and shattered into a mass of icebergs.

She said 370 sq kms of ice had cracked up in recent days from the Shelf, the latest of about 10 shelves on the Antarctic Peninsula to retreat in a trend linked by the U.N. Climate Panel to global warming.

The new icebergs added to 330 sq kms of ice that broke up earlier this month with the shattering of an ice bridge apparently pinning the Wilkins in place between Charcot island and the Antarctic Peninsula.

Nine other shelves -- ice floating on the sea and linked to the coast -- have receded or collapsed around the Antarctic peninsula in the past 50 years, often abruptly like the Larsen A in 1995 or the Larsen B in 2002.

It is ging to be an interesting couple of decades.

Swiss Ban Naked Hiking!

It appears that one section od Switzerland has banned naked hiking,

Anyone found wandering the Alps wearing nothing but a sturdy pair of hiking boots will now be fined.

Appenzell is considered one of the most conservative regions of Switzerland; it gave women the vote only in 1990.

It is just childish. It is not like the people even see the hikers.

Interestingly, however, no-one actually seems to have seen a naked hiker.

"No, I've never seen one," said a local farmer. "Thank goodness, because if I had they would certainly have got a piece of my mind."

On hike naked day on the Appalachian Trail, cops sit at road crossing in the hopes of seeing naked hikers. They are just perverts. But if you are seen naked by children, you will probably be charged with a sex crime by an overly zealous prosecutor. So be careful if you want to hike nude.

What A Finish!

Amazing, that Carl Edwards gets out of the car and sprints across the finish line.

Sad To Hear

A hiker dies in South Carolina.

GREENVILLE, S.C. -- An Upstate man fell to his death Saturday while hiking near the Foothills Trail in Mountain Rest.John Erich Gistinger, 20, of Fountain Inn, Laurens County, died after falling more than 90 feet near Oconee County State Park, according to Oconee County Coroner Karl E. Addis.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Matt Kenseth Goes For A Wild Ride

Good Beer Is Good Business

Craft brewing industry has rising sales.

Craft beer sales continue to rise even as the beer industry feels the pinch from frugal consumer spending and higher costs. Today there are more than 30 craft breweries and brewpubs in Massachusetts, from industry heavyweights such as Boston Beer Company, the brewer of Samuel Adams beers, to small start-ups whose owners deliver their own kegs to local pubs.

“In the mid-’90s, people still didn’t know whether this was a fad or not,” said Dan Kenary, president of South Boston-based Harpoon Brewing Co. “There were a lot of people flocking in, trying to make a quick buck. Now there are people who have grown up with this industry their whole life.”

The Boulder, Colo.-based Brewers Association defines craft brewers as those with annual production of less than two million barrels, that have less than 25 percent ownership by a non-craft alcohol beverage company, and that avoid the use of adjunct ingredients to lighten flavor.

The industry has enjoyed steady growth over the last five years, as craft beer’s share of the $100 billion U.S. beer market rose from 2.7 percent in 2003 to 4 percent in 2008. The Brewers Association estimated craft beer sales last year at $6.3 billion in 2008, up from $5.7 billion the previous year.

Over all beer sales are down. If you make a great product, people will buy it.

Bodies Everywhere?

Hikers have found bodies or the remains of bodies in Nevada, Kentucky, and Georgia.
Nevada

RENO - Police say a body found in the hills on the northwest side of Reno is that of a 61-year-old Reno woman who had been missing for a month.

Gail Duncan's husband reported her missing on March 23 after she
failed to return from her regular morning walk.

Kentucky

An investigation is underway in two southern Kentucky counties after a hiker stumbled across a body.

The remains were found in eastern Grayson County, not far from the Hardin county line .
a

Georgia

Douglas Lee Layton first saw a tooth.

He didn’t think much of it, maybe someone above at Rock City threw it down for luck.

But as he walked down the hill, he started seeing other pieces of bone.

When he saw what looked like a ragged pair of blue jeans, he knew — this was a human body.

That’s how the 52-year-old hiker from Graysville, Tenn., found the remains of an unidentified body that police say may have decomposed for nine to 15 months.

My condolences to their friends and family. I have never found a body in all my years of hiking and hope I never do.

Sad To Hear

A hiker died in Arizona.

A man in his 40s was found dead on a mountain at Thunderbird Park near 59th Avenue and Pinnacle Peak Wednesday evening.

A hiker found the man around 5 p.m. on one of the trails, about a half of a mile into the trail. The man was not breathing and didn't have a heartbeat, said Capt. Shelly Jamison with the Phoenix Fire Department.

My condolences too is friends and family.

Go California Go!

Regulate the crap out of carbon emissions.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Democrats in Congress worked on Thursday to win over U.S. lawmakers skeptical of climate change legislation, while climate leader California took another major step with low-carbon rules on fuels that could be copied nationwide.

The two moves signaled growing political momentum behind efforts to curb greenhouse gases, which President Barack Obama, a Democrat, has made a policy priority after years of slow going by his Republican predecessor, George W. Bush.

U.S. Special Envoy for Climate Change Todd Stern told Reuters in an interview Thursday that "what happens in our own legislative process" will determine the country's commitment to cutting emissions in a global climate deal.

In California, where climate change legislation was passed in 2006, regulators on Thursday adopted a landmark rule to slash carbon emissions in motor fuels and spur the market for cleaner gasoline alternatives.

It marks the first attempt by a government anywhere in the world to subject transportation fuels -- as opposed to the cars and trucks they power -- to limits on their potential for releasing greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Remember it is not just California that uses California emissions it is California and 13 other states. They make up 37% of the US population. Schwarzenegger is saying 16 states in this article. It could be for half the population, and that should make California emissions standard across the country.

Drying Up

The global climate crisis is causing some rivers to dry up.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Rivers in some of the world's most populated regions are losing water, many because of climate change, researchers reported on Tuesday.

Affected rivers include the Yellow River in northern China, the Ganges in India, the Niger in West Africa, and the Colorado in the southwestern United States.

When added to the effects from damming, irrigation and other water use, these changes could add up to a threat to future supplies of food and water, the researchers reported in the American Meteorological Society's Journal of Climate.

"Reduced runoff is increasing the pressure on freshwater resources in much of the world, especially with more demand for water as population increases," Aiguo Dai of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, who led the study, said in a statement.

"Freshwater being a vital resource, the downward trends are a great concern."

You can live without oil. You will die without water. It is going to be an interesting couple of decades.

Where Is The Beer?

Via La Vida Locavore we find an interactive map of Americas breweries. North Dakota only has one. Portland no surprise has the most breweries per capita.

The Devil Is In The Details

White House chief of staff thinks there will be a energy bill this year.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. lawmakers will pass major energy legislation, possibly including measures to address climate change, by the end of this year, a top White House official said on Sunday.

"I do know this, at the end of this first year of Congress there will be an energy bill on the president's desk," White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel told ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

When asked whether the bill would include a controversial cap-and-trade system aimed at curbing emissions of carbon dioxide, Emanuel said "our goal is to get that done. We will see."

Democrats in the House Energy and Commerce Committee will begin hearings this week on proposed legislation that would limit greenhouse gas emissions and require companies to acquire permits to release carbon into the atmosphere.

Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman has said he wants the bill, which includes measures to boost energy efficiency and develop clean energy technology, to pass the committee in late May and the House of Representatives later in 2009.

My bold. I would have said necessary cap and trade with 100% auction of carbon credits. The media will always give the advantage to the conservatives.

No Longer Permanent

The arctic ice is going.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - The head of a British team walking to the North Pole on a mission to gauge how fast Arctic ice sheets are melting said on Friday he was surprised by how little permanent ice he had found so far.

Pen Hadow and two other adventurers set off in early March on a 1,000-km (620-mile) trek from Canada's Arctic to the North Pole. The team was set down in an area where scientists had been sure there would be permanent multiyear ice.

But so far, the average depth of the ice has been just under 1.8 meters (6 feet), suggesting they are finding predominantly new first-year ice that is likely to melt in summer months.

"My surprise is guided by the scientific community's expectations of what the ice should be here," Hadow told Reuters via satellite phone from about 620 km from the North Pole.

"In the opening section of the (journey), most would have anticipated multiyear ice, ice certainly more than 2 meters and really more than 3.5 meters thick."

The team said in a statement that the findings pointed to an ever-smaller summer ice covering around the Pole this year.

It is going to be an intersting couple of decades.

Sad To Hear

A hiker falls t her death in Utah.

Mount Olympus » A 49-year-old woman died and two 14-year-old boys were injured after falling Saturday during a hiking trip on Mount Olympus, police said.

Karin Vandenberg, of Olympus Cove, died after sliding at least a thousand feet down the mountain.

Her friend, Christine Holding, was stuck about two miles up the mountain for much of the day with a dog, said Salt Lake County Sheriff's spokesman Don Hutson, and was rescued by helicopter about 5 p.m.

My condolences to her friends and family.

Should They Be Prosecuted?

Still A Bunch Of Traitors

The conservatives in the south are still a bunch of treasonous racists. They like to say the stars and bars is about heritage not hate. The heritage they are talking about is both racist and treasonous. These are not fringe people. It is the governor of Texas talking about secession. Their hatred of America knows no end.

Uh Oh!

This is not good.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The world's forests are at risk of becoming a source of planet-warming emissions instead of soaking them up like a sponge unless greenhouse gases are controlled, scientists said.

Deforestation emits 20 percent of the world's carbon dioxide when people cut and burn trees, but standing forests soak up 25 percent of the emissions.

If the Earth heats up 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees F) or more, evaporation from the additional heat would lead to severe droughts and heat waves that could kill wide swaths of trees in the tropics of Africa, southern Asia and South America. And emissions from the rotting trees would make forests a source of global warming.

It is going to be an intersting couple of decades.

Sad To Hear

A hiker dies in New Hampshire.

PLYMOUTH — Police still have not released the name of a man who died in the woods at Pearson’s Corner last week.

Officer Robert Ugliaroli of the Plymouth police department said Wednesday the medical examiner’s office is still looking into the cause of death and next of kin have not yet been notified. But some new details had come to light since the April 9 incident.

“The man was a hiker who either fell or had a medical issue,” Ugliaroli said. “There was some speculation that he might be a missing man from Waterbury, but that’s not the case.”

My condolences to his friends and family.

Not Surprising

Advertisers lie.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Just 2 percent of the growing number of self-proclaimed green products on store shelves make completely legitimate claims on their labels, a report by consulting firm TerraChoice Environmental Marketing said on Wednesday.

The remainder commit "greenwashing" sins, that is they mislead consumers about the environmental benefits of a product or the practices of a company, said TerraChoice, which runs the Canadian government's eco-labeling program and counts companies as diverse as Canon and Husky Energy among its customers.

It is good that people want green products. It sucks that corporations lie.

Too Funny!

Fox News and the conservative movement are having a tea bagging party tomorrow. David Shuster last night on Countdown.

The people who came up with it are a familiar circle of Republicans, including former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, both of whom have firm support from right wing financiers and lobbyists. … We can only speculate why widespread tea bagging made [Neil] Cavuto think of the Million Man march, unless he got them confused with Dick Armey. And in Cavuto’s defense, if you are planning simultaneous tea bagging all around the country, you’re going to need a Dick Armey.

Sad To Hear

A hiker is found dead in California.

SUNOL — A man found dead over the weekend along a hiking area in Sunol Regional Wilderness has been identified as a 39-year-old Antioch resident, the Alameda County Coroner's Office said.

Anthony Wallace was found about 4 p.m. Saturday by a hiker near Alameda Creek, downstream from the park's popular Little Yosemite area, East Bay Regional Parks Police said.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Sad To Hear

A hiker fell to his death in the Smokies.

TOWNSEND — A 73-year-old hiker died Friday after a fall in Great Smoky Mountains National Park, according to park authorities.

Robert Lyons of Louisville, Ky., was hiking the Chestnut Top Trail with his wife around 5:30 p.m. when thunderstorms rolled in and the couple turned back toward their car, park spokesman Bob Miller said in a news release. Lyons stumbled and fell about 20 feet, tumbling down a steep slope, Miller said.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Solar City?

In Florida, a developer and utility are claiming to build the first solar powered city.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Florida utility and a real estate developer are aiming to bring the country's first solar-powered city to the Sunshine State.

FPL Group Inc's utility Florida Power & Light is working with the realty group Kitson & Partners to construct what the utility says will be the world's largest photovoltaic solar plant in a planned, environmentally friendly city near Fort Myers in southwestern Florida.

Called Babcock Ranch, the city will aim to build 19,500 houses and about 6 million square feet of retail, light industrial, and office space when it is completed, the developers said.

It will have a photovoltaic solar plant. So, it will use power from somewhere else at night.

You Can Take It With You

When you die. A bookshelf that can be reconfigured into a bookshelf.

More Melting

More first year ice.

Arctic ice continued its decline this winter, with hearty old ice increasingly being replaced with quick-to-melt young ice, according to a new report by NASA and the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

This winter's maximum Arctic sea ice extent was 5.85 million square miles (15,150,000 square kilometers)—about 278,000 square miles (720,000 square kilometers) less than the Arctic average between 1979 and 2000.

"That's a loss about the size of the state of Texas," said Walter Meier of the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) in Boulder, Colorado.

"We used to have a winter ice maximum about twice the size of the lower 48 United States," Meier added.

This year's ice cover was not a record low, but it did continue a dubious streak. The past six years (2004-09) have seen the least Arctic ice at the time of maximum cover, in winter, since satellite records began in 1979.

The new ice melts faster than old ice. When the ice around Greenland disappears, their glaciers are going to melt faster. Meaning more warming, melting, and sea rising. It is going to be an interesting couple of decades.

More Going

The Wilkens ice shelf has broken off Antarctica.

OSLO (Reuters) - An ice bridge which had apparently held a vast Antarctic ice shelf in place during recorded history shattered on Saturday and could herald a wider collapse linked to global warming, a leading scientist said.

"It's amazing how the ice has ruptured. Two days ago it was intact," David Vaughan, a glaciologist with the British Antarctic Survey, told Reuters of a satellite image of the Wilkins Ice Shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula.

The satellite picture, from the European Space Agency (ESA), showed that a 40 km (25 mile) long strip of ice believed to pin the Wilkins Ice Shelf in place had splintered at its narrowest point, about 500 meters wide.

"We've waited a long time to see this," he said.

The Wilkins, now the size of Jamaica or the U.S. state of Connecticut, is one of 10 shelves to have shrunk or collapsed in recent years on the Antarctic Peninsula, where temperatures have risen in recent decades apparently because of global warming.

It will be an intersting couple of decades.

Cut Crime In Half!

Legalize marijuana. From Joe Klein's article in Time magazine.

But there are big issues here, issues of economy and simple justice, especially on the sentencing side. As Webb pointed out in a cover story in Parade magazine, the U.S. is, by far, the most "criminal" country in the world, with 5% of the world's population and 25% of its prisoners. We spend $68 billion per year on corrections, and one-third of those being corrected are serving time for nonviolent drug crimes. We spend about $150 billion on policing and courts, and 47.5% of all arrests are marijuana-related. That is an awful lot of money, most of it nonfederal, that could be spent on better schools or infrastructure — or simply returned to the public.

Gone!

One ice shelf down more to go.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One Antarctic ice shelf has quickly vanished, another is disappearing and glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought due to climate change, U.S. and British government researchers reported on Friday.

They said the Wordie Ice Shelf, which had been disintegrating since the 1960s, is gone and the northern part of the Larsen Ice Shelf no longer exists. More than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square km) have broken off from the Larsen shelf since 1986.

Climate change is to blame, according to the report from the U.S. Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey, available at pubs.usgs.gov/imap/2600/B.

"The rapid retreat of glaciers there demonstrates once again the profound effects our planet is already experiencing -- more rapidly than previously known -- as a consequence of climate change," U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.

The less ice there is at the poles the faster the melting will be. Ice reflects the heat back to the atmosphere. Water sucks up the heat.

Notable Quotable

Paul Krugman:

The paranoid wing of the Republican Party promptly warned of a dastardly plot to make America give up the dollar.

Small Island States

Small Island, originally uploaded by ] slowhands [.

Are urging the rich nations to cut green house gas emissions.

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Small island states have sharpened their calls for the rich to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, saying low-lying atolls risk being washed off the map by rising ocean levels.

An alliance of 43 island states, backed by more than a dozen nations in Africa and Latin America, urged developed countries at U.N. climate talks in Bonn on Thursday to cut greenhouse emissions by "at least 45 percent below 1990 levels by 2020."

"The scientific findings about climate change are frightening," M.J. Mace, a legal advisor to the Federated States of Micronesia who presented the demands at the March 29-April 8 meeting, told Reuters.

No one in the US is trying to cut emmissions this much. It really is a global climate crisis for these peoples. Humans can swim but they can not live in the water.

Just How Much?

Does the war on drugs cost? I have been wondering. Reading Libby Spencer's blog I find this quote from Jack Cafferty.

What do you suppose the total price tag is for this failed war on drugs? One senior Harvard economist estimates we spend $44 billion a year fighting the war on drugs. He says if they were legal, governments would realize about $33 billion a year in tax revenue. Net swing of $77 billion. Could we use that money today for something else? You bet your ass we could. Plus the cartels would be out of business. Instantly. Goodbye crime and violence.

People are using illegal drugs the war does not work.

Wow!

I am not really surprised that coke would try an advertising campaign that is total BS, I am surprised that Australia called them on it.

The newspaper ads, which ran nationally last October and were targeted at mothers, said it was untrue that Coke could make you fat, rot your teeth or was packed with caffeine, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said.

"Coke's messages were totally unacceptable, creating an impression which is likely to mislead that Coca-Cola cannot contribute to weight gain, obesity and tooth decay," it said.

Hey, coke is still fat free! Now, the high fructose corn syrup may cause your body to produce fat. But, coke is fat free!

Baby Steps

Mickey Ds is claiming they will reduce pesticide use.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - McDonald's Corp, the largest purchaser of potatoes in the United States, has agreed to take preliminary steps to reduce pesticide use in its domestic potato supply, shareholder groups said on Tuesday.

Following the agreement, the Bard College Endowment, Newground Social Investment and the AFL-CIO Reserve Fund withdrew a shareholder proposal that, if approved, would have required the company to publish a report on options for cutting pesticide use in its supply chain.

The investors said McDonald's has agreed to survey its U.S. potato suppliers, compile a list of best practices in pesticide use reduction and recommend those best practices to global suppliers. It also will share its findings with investors and include the findings in its annual corporate social responsibility report.

McDonald's, the world's largest fast-food chain, said the process would support ongoing efforts to make its supply chain sustainable.

It will be interesting to see how sustainable they will become.