Keep Your Pants On!

When hiking in Switzerland.

Authorities in the canton of Appenzell Innerrhoden plan to introduce fines for anyone found walking in the picturesque mountain region without any clothes.

They decided to act before this year's hiking season began, after noticing a sudden influx of nudists last year - many of them from Germany.[...]

We were forced to introduce the legislation against this indecent practice before the warm weather starts," said Melchior Looser, justice minister in the canton in north-eastern Switzerland.

About Time

The FDA has launched a criminal probe of the Peanut Corporation of America.

Federal health officials have begun a criminal investigation into the actions of the Peanut Corporation of America, which they said knowingly sold contaminated peanut butter and peanut products to major food makers.

The investigation is being conducted by the Food and Drug Administration and the Justice Department, according to Dr. Stephen F. Sundlof, director of the food center at the F.D.A.

The agency rarely discloses criminal investigations that are in progress, but did so in this case after several influential members of Congress demanded a criminal investigation in recent days.

I am not opposed to people making a profit. I am opposed to people who worship profit so much that they kill. I am opposed to people who worship profit so much they injure and kill their workers. I am opposed to people that worship profit so much they destroy the environment. I believe workers should be able to profit from their labor.

Monument To Bush

Monument to Bush shoe-throwing shines at Iraqi orphanage(CNN), originally uploaded by MashGet.

I remember in the beginning of Bush's illegal war in Iraq, the republican tools on the TV saying that there would be Bush statues in Iraq. Well there is a monument to the man who thew a shoe at him. It is a perfect symbol of republican rule.

Picture Is Worth

Jill at Feministe has two pictures of presidents signing womens rights bills. Go over and compare and contrast.

We Must Move Faster

It is time to increase spending on renewable energy.

DAVOS, Switzerland (Reuters) - Clean energy investment needs to more than triple to $515 billion a year to stop planet-warming emissions reaching levels deemed unsustainable by scientists, the World Economic Forum said in a report on Thursday.

The hefty investments required in renewable energy sectors such as solar and wind energy need to be made between now and 2030, the report, which was co-written by research group New Energy Finance, said.

"Clean energy opportunities have the potential to generate significant economic returns," the World Economic Forum said in a statement accompanying the report.

Clean energy investments were $155 billion last year, up from $30 billion in 2004 but still far below the $515 billion the report's authors say is needed to combat climate change.

We need to convince the Democratic majority in congress that it is necessary to move now. Republicons are be lead by the drug addled delusions of Rush Limbaugh. Republicons are the problem. They should not be consulted for a solution.

Mercury In High Fructose Corn Syrup

If high fructose corn syrup was not bad enough all ready, now it has mercury. But as we all know mercury is all natural. Jill at La Vida Locavore is on the case.

So how does this play out in a food like Coca-Cola? I checked Coca-Cola's nutrition info and found that 8 fl oz of Coke contains 27g of carbs - which I assume means 27g of HFCS. At its worst - with .570 micrograms per gram - those 8 oz of Coca-Cola could contain 15.39 micrograms of mercury.

However, the tests showed that the sample of Coca-Cola Classic tested "only" contained 62 ppt mercury - which I believe (if my math is right) means that an 8 oz serving contains 0.015 micrograms of mercury. But who drinks 8 oz. of Coca-Cola? McDonalds sells 42 oz of it at a time! With 62 ppt mercury, 42 oz of Coca Cola contain 0.08 micrograms of total mercury.

Of course, as the report points out, heavy users of fast food and processed food probably wouldn't stop with a Coke. The problem with HFCS is its ubiquity - salad dressings, ketchup, bread, soda, candy, yogurts, almost ANYTHING can have HFCS.

Death Penalty?

I am not a fan of the death penalty but sometimes I think it may be appropriate. Every executive at the Peanut Corporation of America who knew about the salmonella in their peanut butter should be sentenced to death. They knowingly sent out millions of pounds of contaminated peanut butter. And not just to anybody but the most vulnerable among us: children in schools and homes for the elderly. I would be willing to bet each of them is a morally bankrupt republican.

A report by the FDA released Wednesday revealed 12 instances between June 2007 and September 2008 where the plant’s testing discovered its products were contaminated by salmonella. However, the company still shipped the product.

Sad To Hear

Authorities in Tennessee have recovered the body of a hiker.

Hamilton County (WRCB) - The body of a hiker has been recovered on Suck Creek Mountain. A call came in to the Marion County Sheriff's Department around 5:00 pm that a body had been found. The next six or so hours proved challenging for recovery crews. "The rugged terrain and steep ridges they are having to climb," says Sgt. Dusty Stokes, Hamilton County Sheriff's Department.

Update: The hiker has been identified.

The victim is 23-year-old Jesse David Brude, and authorities say he's an experienced rock climber. The Hamilton County Sheriff's Office says he fell to his death on Suck Creek Mountain. So, we dug deeper to try to find out exactly what went wrong.

They say his brother found him, after he'd been gone several days on a rock climbing trip by himself. Rescuers say he fell as much as 60 feet to the bottom of a cliff. Authorities say while they're not sure whether Brude slipped while hiking on top or fell while climbing, they did find rock climbing gear near the area.

My condolences to his friends and family.

Agua Caliente Park, Tucson Arizona

Agua Caliente Park, Tucson, originally uploaded by sjb4photos.

A hiker is missing near Agua Caliente Park in Arizona.

Crews from the Southern Arizona Rescue Association were expected to head out early Wednesday morning in search of a missing man.

Crew were meeting at 8am at Tanque Verde and Tanque Verde loop.

It is unknown how long exactly he has been missing. But crews say it has been a least a few days.

Lucy And The Football

Lindsay Beyerstein has an article in the Washington Independent about Obama wanting to remove the birth control from the economic stimulus bill. He wants to make republicans happy.

If Democrats concede to Republicans on the issue, which appears likely according to the AP, many Democratic powerhouses, like Planned Parenthood — which endorsed Obama — will feel betrayed. Women’s advocates and health groups lobbied aggressively to convince the White House and Congress to include money for expanded birth control coverage in the stimulus bill. The groups had early success last week when the House Energy and Commerce Committee approved a version of the stimulus bill that included such language.

It just goes to show how little republicans care about abortion. People who use birth control are less likely to get pregnant and have an abortion. They are less likely to have a child in poverty. But republicans believe sex should have consequences and not good ones.

Oh and republicans are still going to complain and not vote for the bill.

The Little Engine That Couldn't

The Christian Science Monitor has an op/ed on the shortsightedness of the stimulus bill.

Mass-transit supporters are tooting a warning over the Obama-backed stimulus bill. Here's an industry that's light on carbon, oil, and congestion, and all it may get is a $9 billion coach seat on the $825 billion train to economic recovery. Wasn't this recession-ending spending supposed to be a "down payment" on America's infrastructure and clean-energy needs?

There's a danger in expecting too much from a down payment. When it comes to transportation – mass transit, roads, rail, air, and freight – the country's requirements are so vast and interconnected they can't possibly be met in a bill meant for short-term job creation.

The transport sector, so vital to US competitiveness, should be gearing up for what comes after the stimulus. Its many players should be pressuring the new administration and Congress for nothing short of a new approach to moving people, goods, and ideas within and outside America's borders.

We need to build not one but two rail systems for the future. One for freight that is partly in place but needs to be made more efficient. And an all new high speed rail. We can not just build more roads. Especially in the northeastern part of the country. There is no room to make more roads. The sky is already full of planes. It will create a massive amount of construction jobs and many permanent railroad jobs. And if they were powered by electricity it would meet our national security needs. And if the electricity was made by wind, solar, hydro, and geothermal it would meet outr global warming needs.

Pelicans Are Falling From The Sky

Brown Pelican searches for the bait, originally uploaded by merigan.

It seems on the west coast pelicans are falling from the sky.

SANTA ANA, Calif. — Pelicans suffering from a mysterious malady are crashing into cars and boats, wandering along roadways and turning up dead by the hundreds across the West Coast, from southern Oregon to Baja California, Mexico, bird-rescue workers say.

Weak, disoriented birds are huddling in people's yards or being struck by cars. More than 100 have been rescued along the California coast, according to the International Bird Rescue Research Center in San Pedro.

Hundreds of birds, disoriented or dead, have been observed across the West Coast.

The scientists are not really sure why.

Via Biomes.

Bad Faith

Paul Krugman writes in the New York Times about the republicans arguing in bad faith about the economic stimulus package. I just have to say republicans never argue in good faith. It is nice to see someone in the mainstream media say it.

As the debate over President Obama’s economic stimulus plan gets under way, one thing is certain: many of the plan’s opponents aren’t arguing in good faith. Conservatives really, really don’t want to see a second New Deal, and they certainly don’t want to see government activism vindicated. So they are reaching for any stick they can find with which to beat proposals for increased government spending.

Some of these arguments are obvious cheap shots. John Boehner, the House minority leader, has already made headlines with one such shot: looking at an $825 billion plan to rebuild infrastructure, sustain essential services and more, he derided a minor provision that would expand Medicaid family-planning services — and called it a plan to “spend hundreds of millions of dollars on contraceptives.”

But the obvious cheap shots don’t pose as much danger to the Obama administration’s efforts to get a plan through as arguments and assertions that are equally fraudulent but can seem superficially plausible to those who don’t know their way around economic concepts and numbers. So as a public service, let me try to debunk some of the major antistimulus arguments that have already surfaced. Any time you hear someone reciting one of these arguments, write him or her off as a dishonest flack.

Good News

Science is back! Obama is going to reverse a Bush decision to not grant a waiver to California and 13 other states suing to regulate tailpipe emissions.

WASHINGTON — President Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emission and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday.

The directive makes good on an Obama campaign pledge and signifies a sharp reversal of Bush administration policy. Granting California and the other states the right to regulate tailpipe emissions would be one of the most emphatic actions Mr. Obama could take to quickly put his stamp on environmental policy.

Mr. Obama’s presidential memorandum will order the Environmental Protection Agency to reconsider the Bush administration’s past rejection of the California application. While it stops short of flatly ordering the Bush decision reversed, the agency’s regulators are now widely expected to do so after completing a formal review process.
Auto makers complain that they will have to make two different types of cars. This is not true.

The car makers could do the right thing and make all the cars to the California standard.
Update: Here is a list of the fourteen states. CA(11.95%), NY(6.31%), PA(4.06%), NJ(2.84%), WA(2.52%), AZ(2.07%), MA(2.11%), MD(1.84%), OR(1.23%), CT(1.15%), NM(0.64%), ME(0.43%), RI(0.35%), VT(0.20%). They make up 37.7% of US population. If you add the six states that Kos diarist populista says are considering joining, you get 51.87% of US Population. Those states are FL(5.97%), NC(3.08%), MN(1.70%), CO(1.59%), IA(0.98%), UT(0.87%). The population percentages come from this wikipedia page.

The Trees Are Dying

In the American West trees are dying faster than before due to global warming.

More trees are dying in the West's forests as the region warms, a trend that could ultimately spell widespread change for mountain landscapes from the Sierra Nevada to the Rockies.

Scientists who examined decades of tree mortality data from research plots around the West found the death rate had risen as average temperatures in the region increased by more than 1 degree Fahrenheit.
"Tree death rates have more than doubled over the last few decades in old-growth forests across the Western United States," said U.S. Geological Survey scientist Phillip van Mantgem, coauthor of a paper published in today's issue of the journal Science and released Thursday.

The researchers found rising death rates across a wide variety of forest types, at different elevations, in trees of all sizes and among major species, including pine, fir and hemlock.

"Wherever we looked, mortality rates are increasing," said Nathan Stephenson, a study coauthor and USGS research ecologist.

The faster the trees die the less carbon is stored and the trees die faster. It is going to be an interesting couple of decades.

It Is Time

To build wind farms.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Environmentalists claimed on Friday that a new era regarding coal-fired power plants had arrived with the Obama administration after the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency turned back South Dakota's approval of a big coal-fired power plant in that state because of pollution concerns.

"EPA is signaling that it is back to enforcing long-standing legal requirements fairly and consistently nationwide," said Bruce Nilles, head of the Sierra Club's effort to stop coal power plants.

The EPA on Friday said the timing of the objection letter to South Dakota officials -- sent on Thursday in the third day of Barack Obama's administration -- was not related to the new president.

North Dakota is a prime site for windmills. Some DC power lines so you do not loose the energy in transition. and were in business.

Got Peanut Butter?

It amazes me that so much peanut butter is made in one place.

Investigators linked the plant to the outbreak after tracing the salmonella found in two tainted samples, one an open container of peanut butter from a Minnesota nursing home and the other from an unopened container at a Connecticut school.

Both were labeled King Nut, an institutional brand produced by the Georgia company. Both samples genetically match Salmonella typhimurium, the strain of salmonella associated with the outbreak, food agency officials said.

The plant, which is closed, packed peanut butter in bulk ranging from 5 to 1,700 pounds, much of which was shipped to institutions. Many school districts have pulled peanut butter from menus, with some substituting more commonly recognized supermarket brands. New York City school officials said they had not bought any peanut butter or products with ingredients that originated at the Georgia plant.

The plant also produced peanut paste, a more concentrated product used in candy, crackers and many other kinds of foods. Tracking how the paste travels through the food supply can be challenging, because several companies can be involved in making the final food. For example, one manufacturer might coat the paste in chocolate and make a peanut butter cup, which is then sold to another company that mixes it into ice cream that may or may not also contain peanut butter. A grocery chain might buy that ice cream and sell it under a private label.

The FDA thinks that peanut butter is low risk for food poisoning so they inspect the factories every decade or so. Who is going to pay for the food that consumers bought? I know the consumers paid for them but are the companies going to reimburse the consumer?

A long list of tainted products is here.

Time For A

White House Farmer.

For A Cause

Three guys from California are going to hike the Pacific Crest Trail to help combat veterans. And a gut from Wisconsin is going to hike the Appalachian Trail to raise awareness for safe water in the developing world.

Just once I would like to see someone hike a trail to raise money for the trail. I am not saying either of these causes are unworthy. Just that the trails need money too.

Wow

CANBERRA (Reuters) – Two Myanmar fishermen have survived for almost a month in shark-infested waters by floating in a large ice box after their boat sank, rescue officials said.

The men, both aged in their 20s, were on a 12-meter Thai fishing boat with 18 others when it sank in heavy seas off Australia's north coast on December 23, said Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Tracy Jiggins.

"They had no safety equipment, no beacons, no means of communication and they'd been drifting for 25 days," Jiggins told Reuters Tuesday, describing the ice box as "desk sized."

"For them to have even been spotted in a huge body of water is amazing," she said.