Congress Asks NASA To Protect Us

via SPACE.com - Asteroid Defense: NASA to Formulate Planetary Protection Plan

B+ Gets Co-opted

Via
some wacko at VaccineTruth.org - Vaccines don't work

Reminds me of something I read on the Onion once - "rouge scientist develops own scientific method".

The Best Of Franklin

via YouTube - Arrested Development - Franklin

Finding Walleye In The Grand Traverse Region

via Dave Richey - Tapping Some Of The Area's Top Walleye Lakes

Specifically Lake Leelanau and Long Lake.

Where To Find Smallmouth Bass In Grand Traverse Bay

via Dave Richey - Catching Smallmouth Bass Near Home

The End Of McMansions?

via This Blog Sits at the Intersection of Anthropology and Economics: McMansion trend

I could hope that it was this:
"6) the fact some people now prefer higher quality contruction to bigger spaces."

Or maybe there are still people who like brick on the front and vinyl siding on the sides and rear.

More Places to Live

via Kiplinger - 50 Smart Places to Live

Only two Michigan towns?? And Ithaca is in the top 10? "Come On!"

"Diesenol"

via Green Car Congress: XcelPlus Acquires Rights to E95 Ethanol Blend for Use in Diesels

The Diesenol blend consists of 95.2% ethanol and 4.8% proprietary petrochemical additive, and will burn, according to XcelPlus, in unmodified diesel engines.

Coyotes In The East

via National Geographic - Coyotes Trade U.S. Western Plains for East's Urban Jungle

Interesting tidbits:

- there are coyote-wolf hybrids
- coyotes in the eastern U.S. are becoming genetically distinct
- urban coyotes have a better survival rate

Green Plus Blue

Politics makes strange bedfellows. Christians have become more environmentally aware as a way of 'protecting God's creation' and now the United Steel Workers and the Sierra Club are cozy.

via the New York Times - Steelworkers and Sierra Club Unite

Other links of interest:

Americans and Climate Change: From science to values

Creation Care Magazine

Statement of the Evangelical Climate Initiative -> Human-Induced Climate Change is Real

Union Of Concerned Scientists On Biomass

How Biomass Energy Works

[via AutoblogGreen]

Creationists Vs. The Vatican

via Scotsman.com - Creationism dismissed as 'a kind of paganism' by Vatican's astronomer

"Religion needs science to keep it away from superstition and keep it close to reality, to protect it from creationism, which at the end of the day is a kind of paganism - it's turning God into a nature god. And science needs religion in order to have a conscience, to know that, just because something is possible, it may not be a good thing to do."

Who knew the Vatican had an official astronomer or a meteorite collection?

Forearm Forklift

via Cool Tool - Forearm Forklift:

Official web site for Forearm Forklift



This is something that can be very useful, especially at $20.

Google Maps Mashup Showing Up To 14m Sea Level Rise

Flood Maps

With a 3m rise Lake Pontchattrain will be saltwater.

Worldmapper

Worldmapper: The world as you've never seen it before

Worldmapper is a collection of world maps, where territories are re-sized on each map according to the subject of interest.

Yellowstone To The Yukon Wildlife Corridor Being Worked On

via New York Times - Home on the Range: A Corridor for Wildlife

Yellowstone To Yukon Conservation Initiative

Looks like a Lake Superior to Yukon corridor could be done too. That'd be great.

Kitchen Knife Sharpening

eG Forums - Knife Maintenance and Sharpening

Total CEO Predicts Peak Oil In Less Than 20 Year

via Reuters.com - Total sees 2020 oil output peak, urges less demand

Constitutional Respect?

The Unclassified Media Project - Democracy or Despotism

60 Minutes Profiles Stephen Colbert

Crooks and Liars - Colbert on 60 Minutes

Earth Sandwich

the show with zefrank - 05-16-06

If the Earth were a sandwich, we'd all get along so well...

Roast Coffee At Home

43 Things - Roast My Own Coffee

I Need Coffee hosted articles

Sweet Maria's

Making Fair Trade A Commodity

Absolution in Your Cup:
The real meaning of Fair Trade coffee

“Fair Trade does not incentivize quality,” explains Geoff Watts of Intelligentsia Coffee, who has spent the last nine years training coffee farmers in Africa and Central America. Fair Trade co-ops are composed of hundreds of farmers producing vastly different qualities of coffee. Often their output is blended together for sale to roasters, masking any quality improvements one farmer may have felt motivated to implement. Money then flows back to the co-op, not the individual farmer, and is distributed equally among the members. “There is no reward for the guy who works harder than his neighbor,” says Watts. Nor is there much motivation for individual farmers to learn better farming techniques, experiment with new types of coffee, or seek new markets.

The Public Library Of Science

Provides open-access and peer-reviewed journals for free.

I learned of this after reading about Harold Varmus in Wired.

Know Your Music

RIAA Radar

The RIAA Radar is a tool that music consumers can use to easily and instantly distinguish whether an album was released by a member of the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA).

The Science Of Happiness

CBC Quirks and Quarks - Happiness

Heard the beginning of this interesting discussion last Saturday while in the U.P. I'm glad to see the CBC has the full audio available. The timing was quite prescient as Megan and I were debating joy vesrus happiness vis-a-vis which one was sustainable and which was a fleeting moment. I was correct in saying that happiness is a state of being.

Joy is defined as that which brings great happiness.