Eco Pedal

I dig it!

TOKYO (Reuters) - Nissan Motor Co said on Monday it has developed an accelerator pedal that can push back on the driver's foot when it detects excess pressure and poor fuel efficiency.

Japan's No.3 automaker said it would install the "ECO pedal", which can be switched on or off by the driver, in its cars from next year. It didn't specify which models would be equipped with the new technology.

Internal research showed that the system, which comes with real-time fuel consumption levels displayed in the instrument panel, could improve fuel efficiency by 5-10 percent depending on driving conditions.

Some people do not know how their driving affects their fuel mileage. Some just do not care, but for those that do this will help until we go electric or air.

So Many Lies, So little Time

The anthrax killer or killers are being flushed down the memory hole. The news comes out on a Friday. How convenient. Journalists or are they mere agents of propaganda at ABC and other mainstream outlets are covering the republican governments lies. The republican government wants the investigation over before a Democratic Attorney General comes into office. That could be embarrassing for Cheney and his minions. Go read Glen Greenwald for the details.

The death of government scientist Bruce Ivins has generated far more questions about the anthrax attacks than it has answered. I want to return to the role the establishment media played in obfuscating the anthrax investigation for so long and, at times, aiding in what was clearly the deliberate deceit on the part of Government sources. This is yet another case where the establishment media possesses -- yet steadfastly conceals -- some of the most critical facts about what the Government has done, and insists on protecting the wrongdoers. Obtaining these answers from these media outlets is as important as obtaining them from the Government. Writing about ABC's dissemination of the false Iraq/anthrax story, The New Republic's Dayo Olopade wrote yesterday: "Pressure on ABC to out their sources should be swift and sustained."

The Washington Monthly's Kevin Drum argued yesterday that despite the need for journalists to use confidential sources, "the profession -- and the rest of us -- [are] better off if sources know that they run the risk of being unmasked if their mendacity is egregious enough to become newsworthy in its own right." Drum added: "I'd say that part of [Ross'] re-reporting ought to include a full explanation of exactly who was peddling the bentonite lie in the first place, and why they were doing it." Nonetheless, Drum said: "In practice, most journalists refuse to identify their sources under any circumstances at all, even when it's clear that those sources deliberately lied to them."

No read it all.

K2

A glimpse of K2 at Sunset, originally uploaded by Siriustar.

Nine climbers are believed dead in an avalanche on K2.

ISLAMABAD (AFP) — At least nine mountaineers died near the summit of K2 when a huge chunk of ice sheared off the mountain and hit them, and several more climbers are missing, Pakistani tour operators said Sunday.

Three South Koreans, two Nepalis, a Dutch, a Serb, a Norwegian and a Pakistani climber were killed on the notoriously treacherous Himalayan peak, the world's second highest mountain after Mount Everest.

"I can confirm nine dead and three missing," Nazir Sabir, a celebrated Pakistani climber and chief of Nazir Sabir Expeditions, told AFP.

My condolences to their friends and family.

Not Right

Bears and people look very different.

ROCKPORT, Wash. - A 54-year-old woman was shot and killed Saturday by a boy who was hunting bear in Skagit County, sheriff's deputies said.[...]
According to a preliminary investigation, the woman was stopped on the trail putting something into her backpack when the hunter mistook her for a bear and fired one shot, which killed her.

It is hard to believe that someone putting things in their pack looks remotely like a bear.

The hunter is a juvenile from the Concrete area and was accompanied by at least one adult. He is talking with investigators and no one is in custody at this time.

Detectives from the Skagit County sheriff's detectives, as well as an officer from the state Department of Fish and Wildlife, are investigating.

Update an article about Pam Almli, the hiker that was shot.
My condolences to her friends and family.
Update 2: The shooter a 14 year old was with his 16 year old brother. Not an adult as previously reported. The article goes on to state that they were knowingly overlooking a hiking trail.
Another article. 120 yards or 360 feet. It is hard to believe it was a mistake.
Another article.

"You look into a scope, you know what you are firing at -- and really and truly that's all I got to say," said Almli’s neighbor, Freda Slack.

Also:

Washington State law requires all individuals born after Jan. 1, 1972, to show proof of basic hunter education training before purchasing a hunting license, said the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife.Classes are offered year-round and there is no minimum age required to enroll in hunter education, but instructors may require a parent or guardian to attend all classes if students are under 12 years of age.Non-resident hunters must also provide evidence that they have completed hunter education training before purchasing a hunting license.In 2007, the Washington State Legislature approved a measure that allows a one-year, once-in-a-lifetime deferral of hunter education training. The deferral option is available to individuals who are accompanied by an experienced hunter who has held a Washington hunting license for the previous three years.

Did the kid get a deferral and not hunt with someone that had a license for three years.

Sad To Hear

A hiker dies in Oregon.

A 60-year-old man died hiking Saturday morning at Smith Rock State Park, according to initial reports from the scene.

Redmond Fire and Rescue was called to the park around 10:30 a.m. on a report of someone unconscious and not breathing.

The man was located about ¾ of a mile up "Misery Trail," dispatch reports indicated. Bystanders reported he had a light pulse and had a serious head injury.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Update: It appears he fell to his death.

Carl Jackson Martens of Salem was hiking with family members and friends on the rugged Misery Ridge Loop Trail, according to a Deschutes County Sheriff's Office report. Martens stopped on the trail and the rest of the party continued. Later, the group couldn't find Martens and contacted the Smith Rock State Park camp host.

Investigators believe Martens fell from a rock outcropping just below the north face of Misery Ridge, tumbling 275 feet down a steep slope to just above the loop trail.

Dishonest

Paul Krugman.

A McCain campaign ad says that gas prices are high right now because “some in Washington are still saying no to drilling in America.” That’s just plain dishonest: the U.S. government’s own Energy Information Administration says that removing restrictions on offshore drilling wouldn’t lead to any additional domestic oil production until 2017, and that even at its peak the extra production would have an “insignificant” impact on oil prices.

What’s even more important than Mr. McCain’s bad economics, however, is what his reversal on this issue — he was against offshore drilling before he was for it — says about his priorities.

Back when he was cultivating a maverick image, Mr. McCain portrayed himself as more environmentally aware than the rest of his party. He even co-sponsored a bill calling for a cap-and-trade system to limit greenhouse gas emissions (although his remarks on several recent occasions suggest that he doesn’t understand his own proposal). But the lure of a bit of political gain, it turns out, was all it took to transform him back into a standard drill-and-burn Republican.

Some might say McCain is a liar.

Hiker Missing

In Utah.

Tooele County has called off its request for searchers to help find a 40-year-old man who went missing Wednesday morning. The county has been overwhelmed by the number of people who have come to seek Jay Adamson, the husband and father of six who went hiking alone in the West Desert. He is described as 6-foot-one with dark blond hair and weighs about 160 pounds.

Lets hope he makes it out OK

Update: Bad news. It seems Jay Adamson fell to his death.

Those efforts culminated Saturday, when a family friend found Adamson's body at the bottom of a cliff about 11 a.m., said Tooele County Sheriff Frank Parker. Investigators believe Adamson died from injuries after he fell off a cliff, Parker said.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Cheesus Christ On A Cheeto!

Via The Impolitic

Anthrax Killer May Have Committed Suicide

Or maybe Cheney's minions helped him along. Either way the FBI will not have to tell us what really happened. They could have arrested him long ago if they wanted. But like what happened on September 11, 2001, the republicans are going to hide and obfuscate the truth as best they can. Of course, there alias in the media will aid and abet them.
Glenn Greenwald:

ABC News already knows the answers to these questions. They know who concocted the false bentonite story and who passed it on to them with the specific intent of having them broadcast those false claims to the world, in order to link Saddam to the anthrax attacks and -- as importantly -- to conceal the real culprit(s) (apparently within the U.S. government) who were behind the attacks. And yet, unbelievably, they are keeping the story to themselves, refusing to disclose who did all of this. They're allegedly a news organization, in possession of one of the most significant news stories of the last decade, and they are concealing it from the public, even years later.

They're not protecting "sources." The people who fed them the bentonite story aren't "sources." They're fabricators and liars who purposely used ABC News to disseminate to the American public an extremely consequential and damaging falsehood. But by protecting the wrongdoers, ABC News has made itself complicit in this fraud perpetrated on the public, rather than a news organization uncovering such frauds. That is why this is one of the most extreme journalistic scandals that exists, and it deserves a lot more debate and attention than it has received thus far.

Avedon's take on the anthrax killer.

Someone working for the US government tried to assassinate two members of the Democratic leadership - the two who were best placed to stop Bush's extraordinary power-grab - and some members of the media. People in the government were warning people (such as Richard Cohen) to take Cipro before the attacks. It's unsurprising that these legislators and journalists were scared to death - indeed, scared into supporting madness in response - but it's still considered beyond the pale to put two and two together.

This Will Be Awesome

If MIT can pull it off.

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (Reuters) - A U.S. scientist has developed a new way of powering fuel cells that could make it practical for home owners to store solar energy and produce electricity to run lights and appliances at night.

A new catalyst produces the oxygen and hydrogen that fuel cells use to generate electricity, while using far less energy than current methods.

With this catalyst, users could rely on electricity produced by photovoltaic solar cells to power the process that produces the fuel, said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor who developed the new material.

MIT has been doing a lot on the solar front.

Missing Hiker

This time in the Sierra's.

The Madera County Sheriff's Office said retired Air National Guard Lt. Col. James Arthur, 67, suffered health problems that made the search more urgent.

The search, now covering five square miles, initially was delayed because Arthur told family members Monday he was going to Stars Lakes, but his truck was found miles away at the trailhead to Iron Lakes in the rugged high Sierra Nevada of eastern Madera County, officials said.

Summer Job Does Not Pay Off

While police and rescue workers were searching for Lance Leage, they found 3,900 marijuana plants. The Mr Leage was not associated with the growing operation. Police estimate the plants to be worth $ 3,500 each. Authorities found a campsite but not the individuals responsible.

Putting It Together

Paul Krugman

As we all know, the Bush administration essentially brushed aside all notion of due process. It locked up and tortured people it said were “enemy combatants”; it engaged in warrantless wiretapping; and so on.

We weren’t supposed to worry our pretty little heads about this, because we were supposed to take it as a given that these were people we could trust not to abuse their power.

Meanwhile, the Justice Department was interviewing job candidates, and asking,

What is it about George W. Bush that makes you want to serve him?

In other words, there was a combination of power without oversight and a deeply creepy cult of personality (which was obvious long before we got the latest specifics.)

I think we were lucky to get out of this with democracy more or less intact.

Fast

A better article about Karl Meltzer who is going to attempt a speed record of the Appalachian Trail.

Running the Appalachian Trail won't be a walk in the park by any means. Meltzer says about 2,000 of the 2,200 miles are rough and rocky, more difficult to navigate than the smooth trails he knows in Utah and the West.
That's partly why he chose the trail.
"It's not necessarily running hard, it's a lot of hiking. The [trail] is technical, it's hard, it's hilly, and it's not going to work that way. It's time spent on your feet just moving forward," Meltzer said.

Best of luck to you Karl!

More Melting

An ice sheet broke off the ice shelf in the arctic.

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Giant sheets of ice totaling almost eight square miles broke off an ice shelf in the Canadian Arctic last week and more could follow later this year, scientists said on Tuesday.

Temperatures in large parts of the Arctic have risen far faster than the global average in recent decades, a development that experts say is linked to global warming.

The ice broke away from the shelf on Ward Hunt Island, an small island just off giant Ellesmere Island in one of the northernmost parts of Canada.[...]

Ellesmere Island was once home to a single enormous ice shelf totaling around 3,500 square miles. All that is left of that shelf today are five much smaller shelves that together cover just under 400 square miles.

Its going fast.

Oh Yes!

From Steve Benen

Fournier was also one of the journalists who, at a gathering of the nation’s newspaper editors, extended John McCain a box of his favorite donuts (”Oh, yes, with sprinkles!” McCain said).

John Sprinkles McCain.

Speed Attempt Of Appalachian Trail

Another fast kid is going to see how fast he can run the Appalachian Trail.

PARK CITY, Utah, Jul 30, 2008 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- At 5 a.m. on Aug. 5, 2008, at Mt. Katahdin, Maine, Backcountry.com athlete Karl Meltzer will begin his attempt to break the Appalachian Trail through-run speed record. To be successful, he must run 2,174 miles in 47 days - an average of more than 46 miles per day - over some of the roughest terrain and during the most sweltering, buggiest season on the Eastern Seaboard.

Not my thing. Hike your own hike, but remember, everyone will be judging you.

They Love Him!

Sign the Media Matters pledge here. Go on you know you want to.

Earl Shaffer Shelter To Be Moved

Original Shelter Peter's Mountain shelter, originally uploaded by cheflovesbeer.

The Appalachian Trail Society Museum is going to move this shelter in order to preserve it for the future.

Hikers from all over Pennsylvania will gather this Saturday for a ceremony marking the 60th anniversary of Earl Shaffer's pioneering Appalachian Trail thru-hike and to help preserve the Earl Shaffer Shelter.

Shaffer was a York County native, a 1935 graduate of William Penn Senior High School and World War II U.S. Army veteran. He achieved international notoriety in 1948, when he made the first solo thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail, which then stretched 2,050 miles from Mount Oglethorpe in Georgia to Mount Katahdin in Maine.

Shaffer died on May 5, 2002, at age 83.

The Earl Shaffer Shelter is a three-sided primitive shelter that is the last remaining one built by Shaffer that is intact and still being used by overnight hikers.

It is being preserved by the Appalachian Trail Museum Society and will be the featured artifact in its collection. The ceremony is being held in conjunction with the club maintaining the shelter, the Susquehanna Appalachian Trail Club. Also sponsoring the event is the Earl Shaffer Foundation, which is dedicated to preserving his writings, poems and songs.

The ceremony will be held at 11 a.m. at the shelter site along the Appalachian Trail, three miles north of the crossing of Route 225.

There is a nice shelter next to the one being removed. The water is a long way down off the ridge though.

Some People Should Not Be Cops

At the non violent critical mass bicycle rally, a cyclist is taken out by a cop and charged with resisting arrest.