Savage River

Savage River, originally uploaded by hoodwinks.

Two hikers are missing in the Savage river section of Denali National Park.

ANCHORAGE, Alaska -- The National Park Service has launched a search for two women missing on what was supposed to be a short backpacking trip in Denali National Park.

Abby Flantz, 25, of Gaylord, Minn., and Erica Nelson, 23, of Las Vegas, were last seen Thursday at the Savage River check station. The women had picked up a wilderness permit earlier that day and planned to return Friday.

They were reported overdue Saturday when they did not report to work at the Denali Princess Wilderness Lodge, a hotel outside the park.

A search Sunday was suspended for the evening and the Park Service planned to resume Monday.

Searchers focused on the Savage River drainage north of the Denali Park Road. Park officials said that was route the women likely would have taken to reach the Mount Healy wilderness unit, the area for which they had a permit.

Hopefully they just got to the wrong side of the drainage and are waiting for the river to go down.

Update: Rangers are asking for help (Monday June 16, 2008)from anyone who was in the area.

As part of the investigation supporting the search effort, search managers would like to speak with anyone who was hiking in the Savage River drainage between Thursday, June 12th, and Sunday, June 15th. Anyone who may have information to share is asked to call 907-683-9648. [Submitted by Kris Fister, Public Affairs Officer]

Prescription Drugs Kill

Prescription drugs kill far more people than illegal drugs.

The Florida report analyzed 168,900 deaths statewide. Cocaine, heroin and all methamphetamines caused 989 deaths, it found, while legal opioids — strong painkillers in brand-name drugs like Vicodin and OxyContin — caused 2,328.

Drugs with benzodiazepine, mainly depressants like Valium and Xanax, led to 743 deaths. Alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug, appearing in the bodies of 4,179 of the dead and judged the cause of death of 466 — fewer than cocaine (843) but more than methamphetamine (25) and marijuana (0).

The study did not include non recreational legally prescribed pills. Or the discrepancy would be higher.

Update Libby's opinion.

As an aside, it's useful to note that at 4,179 incidences, "alcohol was the most commonly occurring drug" found in bodies of the dead, although listed as the sole cause of death in only 466, but marijuana remains the only so-called dangerous drug which has not been attributed as a cause of a single fatality in 5,000 years. Yet in 2007 there were 44,640 Americans imprisoned at the state and federal level solely for offenses related to this natural herb. There's no count on the numbers held in local and county jails.

America's real drug problem is its addiction to prohibition. It hasn't worked in the last 40 and more years and it won't ever work. For a fraction of the billions we spend on failed policies that rely on eradication, interdiction and incarceration, we could invest in treatment facilities that would actually solve the problems of addiction and abuse, which are the only real dangers of drug use and allow responsible substance consumers to live in peace and productivity. [h/t Tits McGee]

The Desert Portion

Katherine "Moon Pie" Becksvoort from Chattanooga is Going through the desert portion of the Pacific Crest Trail.

Walking through the desert is really all about the race for water and the race for shade. After leaving the Mexico border and learning the hard way that hiking at high noon in the desert is not a good idea, I’m strategizing my daily schedule for the 10 by 10 policy ... which means 10 miles by 10 a.m.

That sets things up well for the rest of the day, with an afternoon siesta in the shade around lunchtime. It’s necessary to do about 20-mile days, on average, to get through the desert before the hot summer days really settle in and the water sources dry up, as well as giving a hiker enough time to cover the 700 miles of desert before Kennedy Meadows, the official entry point into the Sierras.

If a hiker gets there too early, then the snows haven’t melted enough to cross through the high mountain passes at 14,000 feet. And if a hiker is too late, the water sources in the desert are too far apart to be passable. Needless to say, this makes for a tricky window of six weeks or so to plan your hiking time between the desert and the Sierras.

She writes well. Read it all. First installment here.

Interesting Accommodations

Craig who is walking across Japan found a place to sleep on his trek.

None of the stores I asked in knew of any and everyone suggested the same place when I said I’d take a camp site. It was where I had planned on heading when I started this morning and it is were I am now. But it’s not what I expected. The baseball field is in use, quite loudly, so I retreated into the forest and found some flat ground next to an interesting shrine. You’ll have to see the photo because I’m not describing it. Certainly an amusing end to a very trying day.

It is much funnier if you click the link.

Birth Control

Remember republicans are not only against abortion but are opposed to birth control.

Monday Is Free Float Day

LOUISVILLE, Ky.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A&W™ restaurants is treating Americans to a sweet deal on Monday, June 16 – a free root beer float and no purchase is necessary.

With gas prices at all time highs, 30 percent higher than a year ago, and grocery food prices increasing by double digits, A&W thought it was high time to provide Americans some sweet relief.

"We want to give people a great start to their summer and a little economic relief by treating America to one of their favorite sweets, the A&W Root Beer Float," said Ben Butler, President, A&W Restaurants. The free A&W Root Beer Float treat will be available at the national restaurant's nearly 700 stores. To learn more about A&W Restaurants visit www.awrestaurants.com.

America’s Favorite Float

The A&W Original Float is made with A&W Root Beer and topped off with proprietary A&W soft serve. A&W Root Beer is the world's number one selling root beer. It is mixed fresh and sold at hundreds of A&W restaurants. To this day, the formula of this favorite root beer made from a unique blend of 13 ingredients including roots, bark, herbs and naturally sweet sugar cane, remains a proprietary secret. It is caffeine free.

How Does Salmonella Get In Your Tomato?

Gourmet Magazine has an article on the subject. Their conclusion.

The CSPI is far less sanguine. Since 2006, that consumer advocacy group has been urging the FDA to require that all farms that feed the public adhere to written food-safety plans.

Good luck. The FDA has consistently shown that it is more interested in protecting the interests of the agriculture industry than the health of American consumers. Note the confusing, back-assward way it issued its warning, listing 16 states and countries whose tomatoes were considered safe to eat, but omitting regions that were possibly unsafe. I’ll make the warning a little more consumer friendly: Avoid red round, plum, and Roma tomatoes (though those sold attached to the vine are okay) from Florida (unless they have a certificate from the state department of agriculture) and Mexico.

The current system, says the CSPI, is ineffective. “All consumers can do is cross their fingers and hope.”

Via Slashfood.

Update: From Slate.

the Food and Drug Administration, which is charged with regulating produce, might inspect a vegetable packing facility once a year, and the number of inspections is shrinking. In 1972, the FDA inspected 50,000 farms and plants. By 2006, that number had dwindled to 10,000. Meanwhile, having increasingly centralized packing plants means that crops from a single contaminated field can mingle with clean produce and be shipped across a wider swath of the country than ever before.

Deregulating themselves out of business.

Green Beer

No, not the stuff with food coloring. Meredith Melnick at Eat, Drink Better has an article about the most sustainable breweries. I am glad to see my beloved Sierra Nevada on the list.

4. Sierra Nevada Brewing Company (Distribution: U.S.)
Sierra Nevada uses fuel cell technology to power their brewing and has won California’s highest award for waste reduction. In 2006, their website says, they diverted 97% of their total waste from landfills through a combination of waste reduction and creative recycling. Sierra Nevada also recovers both steam heat and carbon dioxide for reuse in the facility. Like the other eco-minded breweries, Sierra Nevada treats and reclaims its wastewater and sends its spent mash to local farms.

Bad Cow Disease

Or how the republicans ruined the food supply.

It started with ideology. Hard-core American conservatives have long idealized the Gilded Age, regarding everything that followed — not just the New Deal, but even the Progressive Era — as a great diversion from the true path of capitalism.

Thus, when Grover Norquist, the anti-tax advocate, was asked about his ultimate goal, he replied that he wanted a restoration of the way America was “up until Teddy Roosevelt, when the socialists took over. The income tax, the death tax, regulation, all that.”

The late Milton Friedman agreed, calling for the abolition of the Food and Drug Administration. It was unnecessary, he argued: private companies would avoid taking risks with public health to safeguard their reputations and to avoid damaging class-action lawsuits. (Friedman, unlike almost every other conservative I can think of, viewed lawyers as the guardians of free-market capitalism.)[...]

The moral of this story is that failure to regulate effectively isn’t just bad for consumers, it’s bad for business.

And in the case of food, what we need to do now — for the sake of both our health and our export markets — is to go back to the way it was after Teddy Roosevelt, when the Socialists took over. It’s time to get back to the business of ensuring that American food is safe.

Read it all. Its a good one.

H2O Power

Japanese scientists claim they can run a car on water.

TOKYO (Reuters Life!) - Tired of petrol prices rising daily at the pump? A Japanese company has invented an electric-powered, and environmentally friendly, car that it says runs solely on water.

Genepax unveiled the car in the western city of Osaka on Thursday, saying that a liter (2.1 pints) of any kind of water -- rain, river or sea -- was all you needed to get the engine going for about an hour at a speed of 80 km (50 miles).

"The car will continue to run as long as you have a bottle of water to top up from time to time," Genepax CEO Kiyoshi Hirasawa told local broadcaster TV Tokyo.

"It does not require you to build up an infrastructure to recharge your batteries, which is usually the case for most electric cars," he added.

Once the water is poured into the tank at the back of the car, the a generator breaks it down and uses it to create electrical power, TV Tokyo said.

Sounds good to me. Will it make it to market?

Damn!

Another hiker died. This time in Rocky Mountains National Park.

A 70-year-old man died near Alberta Falls on Thursday after a physician and emergency medical technician crews performed artificial breathing on him for nearly an hour and a half.

The man, who was not identified in a release from the National Park Service, did not fall from the side of the mountain.

At 11:05 a.m. a visitor in the park called the park service to say the man, hiking with his wife about 1 1/2 miles from the Glacier Gorge Trailhead, was unconscious and breathing, but he stopped breathing shortly after the first report.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Sad To Hear

A hiker was found dead in the Catskill mountains in New York.

A hiking trip in the Catskills turns deadly for one man.

State Police and recovery crews spent much of Thursday afternoon on the scene in Tannersville, clearing a little before 5:00.

A 911 call brought crews to the Roaring Kill trailhead of the Indian Head Plateau Mountain Wilderness Area in Greene County.

A group of female hikers was up on the trail when they discovered the body of a man.

It's believed the man may have been there at least overnight.[...]

As of airtime, State Police had not released the man's identity yet.

People on the scene say it appears he was in his 50s and that he may have suffered a heart attack.

My condolences to his friends and family.
Update: The hiker has been Identified.

Police identified the man as Terry R. Finger, 59, of Columbia, Mo. His body was discovered near a wooded area in rough terrain off the Pecoy trail, about 3 miles from Roaringkill Road.

Why I'm Voting Republican

Via Warren Terra at Blue Girl, Red State

I'm Melting

A video of the polar ice shelf. It still has ice on the Greenland side. When the sheet is gone, Greenland's ice sheet will melt much faster. Notice how the ice shelf gets away from land it never really goes back. Just as a reminder there is enough water to raise the level of the ocean 22 feet. It may be green again in my life time.
Via TreeHugger.

Environment

The Boston Globe has a good op/ed on the presidential candidates and their policies.

McCain's record and recent proposals raise real questions about his commitment to the bold measures we need to combat global warming.

If McCain's version of straight talk on the environment means missing key votes for clean low-carbon energy, then we have a lot to worry about. Twice, in December and February, when the Senate failed by one vote to extend key production tax incentives for wind and solar power, McCain not only didn't vote but said subsequently he would have opposed these measures. Senator Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential candidate, voted for them.

Read it all.
Via Matt Yglesias.

Arkansas

Lion King is walking through Arkansas.

Beer Quote of The Day

"They who drink beer will think beer."
-Washington Irving

Solar Trees

When I saw a solar trees link, I thought of these ascetically pleasing street lights. But these solar trees are cool too. Solar panels over parking lots. The idea is so simple, I should have thought about it. I can see this being a big deal especially in the south west where they put covers like these over parking lots now, without the solar panels.

From the Jetson Green blog

As you can see above and below, Envision Solar plans to make parking lots into beautiful power plants with their Solar Groves and Solar Trees. Envision Solar takes the hassle out of designing structures for solar with their turn-key solutions. Although the company is working on a next generation design for the Solar Tree, the current iteration includes 64 Kyocera solar modules laid out in total measuring 30' x 40'. The panels sit at a five degree angle and provide shading for six vehicles, too. Envision Solar has found success installing these parking canopies near commercial buildings and retail parking lots because the energy can be sold to businesses through power purchase agreements.

Brain Food

I think a lot of people in the wilderness make bad decisions because they are hungry and tired. I have seen it on both the Appalachian and Pacific Crest Trails. From Slashfood.

This article in the Telegraph Online explains the tests that researchers put subjects to in order to get the results. Serotonin is a chemical the brain produces to make us feel good, but it is dependent on tryptophan (an amino acid we can only get through ingesting food). Turns out that you need to eat to make serotonin, so the best advice is to eat before you need to make big decisions.

Serotonin is also linked to cranky and aggressive behavior. If you have low serotonin levels, you'll probably be a little cranky. That means you should also eat if you need to stay in a good mood. I'm sure no one is suggesting that you gorge yourself constantly, but if you feel hungry then eating something could help. It would at least help prevent any afternoon office fights.

No Clue

He clearly does not understand Iraq. The Iraqi's will kill US troops as long as they are there Period.
Update: Steve Benen from the Carpet Bagger Report.

In fact, everything about McCain’s bizarre worldview is misguided. First, as recently as Monday, McCain reiterated his support for an indefinite war in Iraq. Coupled with this morning’s remarks, McCain believes the U.S. presence in Iraq has no end in sight, and bringing the troops home is “not too important.”

Second, his repeated comparisons to Germany, Japan, and Korea are not just foolish, they’re bordering on absurd. The more McCain makes the argument, the dumber it sounds. (Indeed, McCain himself has said his own comparison doesn’t apply well to Iraq.)

And third, there’s the pesky detail of the growing number of Iraqi officials who used to support a long-term U.S. security presence, but who are now ready to see Americans leave.