Nothing But Streets

Street View

Data visualization guru Ben Fry has created a unique map of the United States by displaying all of the nation’s 26 million roads—and nothing else

The iPhone Of Cars

TDI killed the ethanol star.

See the NYT: A High-Mileage Masterpiece

After my long 48-m.p.g. run, I started over and switched personalities, transforming into a late-for-school Autobahn instructor. Never dipping below 75 m.p.h., flogging every curve, the Jetta still returned a reasonable 36 m.p.g. When I flowed with traffic at 65 to 70 m.p.h., and made no effort to goose the mileage, the VW posted 42 m.p.g. And in city driving, the Jetta hit 32 m.p.g, again topping its official rating.

Yet my thrift was no match for Helen and John Taylor. In September, the Taylors, from Australia, drove a production Jetta TDI to a Guinness world record, averaging an incredible 58.8 m.p.g. for a 9,400-mile run through the 48 contiguous American states. The Taylors used just 11 tanks of fuel over 20 days, averaging 850 miles for each tank.

Real American Hero

Via SeriousEats: Grilled Doughnuts, Better Than Regular Doughnuts

Jawbreaker + Crimpshrine = Are You F'ing Kidding Me!?

God bless you Blake.

See Exclaim.ca: Ex-Jawbreaker/Jets to Brazil Front-man Blake Schwarzenbach Reveals Thorns of Life

Suburbs Are Not Intrinsically Evil

It is how they're usually built that is so bad.

See:

MJ: How to Build Smarter Suburbs

Greener Prospects - "a unique consulting firm that bridges the gap between land-use planning and land conservation"

Recent Links About Neuroscience

Alternet: Are Human Beings Hard-Wired to Ignore the Threat of Catastrophic Climate Change?

The researchers also found that when proposed solutions to global warming clash with people's worldviews, those people are more likely to reject evidence of the problem altogether. For example, in one experiment, Kahan and his colleagues gave two groups of people two contrasting newspaper articles about global warming. Both reported the problem in similar terms: temperatures were rising, human behavior was the cause of climate change, and global warming could lead to disastrous environmental and economic consequences if left unaddressed. But the articles then went on to offer different solutions: one called for increased regulation of pollution emissions, while the other called for revitalization of nuclear power.

When people with a hierarchical worldview received the article that called for increased regulation-policies currently associated with a more egalitarian and liberal worldview-they were more likely to reject that global warming was a problem than when they received the article that called for a revitalization of nuclear power.

FT: Entrepreneurship is all in the mind

Scientists have shown what many have always suspected – that entrepreneurs’ brains are different to those of managers.

A study at Cambridge university, published on Thursday in the journal Nature, found that entrepreneurs’ brains were more active in the region responsible for taking “risky or hot” decisions.

WSJ: Journey to the Center of Warren Buffett's Mind

This detachment, I think, is one of Mr. Buffett’s greatest strengths. He has the ability to hover over his own actions and judgments, as if he were having an out-of-body experience, looking down and evaluating the man who made them as if he were someone else entirely.

In person, Mr. Buffett is as warm and empathetic a person as anyone I have ever met — but he also seems, in Ms. Schroeder’s telling, to be forever observing himself from a distance as well. There is, in her portrait of him, a streak of something at least mildly reminiscent of autism: a photographic memory, an effortless command of complex mental computations, an enduring obsession with collecting and measuring everything imaginable

Peanut Allergy News

This makes sense to me.

Early exposure to peanuts may prevent allergy

The researchers analyzed the prevalence of peanut allergy and diet histories for 5,171 Jewish children from the UK and 5,615 Jewish children from Israel.

They found that children from the UK had a prevalence of peanut allergy that was 10-fold higher than that of children from Israel...

"The most obvious difference in the diet of infants in both populations occurs in the introduction of peanut," they note. Approximately 69 percent of infants in Israel consume peanuts by 9 months of age, compared with just 10 percent of those in the UK.

Likewise, when compared with the UK mothers, the Israeli mothers consumed significantly more peanuts during pregnancy, Du Toit and colleagues point out.

The researchers suggest that recommendations to avoid peanut in early infancy could be behind the increase in peanut allergy in the UK, Australia and the US.

Won't Someone Please Think About The Children?

There are reports of wealthy New Yorkers pulling their children from private schools. Is there no God?

See: Pricey Schools Prepare for Problems

New Study Shows Health Benefits Of Urban Parks

Interesting British study showing that access to green spaces and parks improves people's health and also "counteracts the effects of poverty on deprivation".

See TH: Urban Parks Help Defeat Inequality

IEA Says Oil Production Will Peak By 2030

See: Energy agency sees oil price rising to $200 a barrel

The era of cheap oil is over, the International Energy Agency warned yesterday as it predicted crude values would soon rebound to above $100 a barrel and double again by 2030 as fields in the North Sea and elsewhere in the world declined faster than expected.

Watching Nader Become Irrelevant

I never cared for Ralph Nader politics. Now as his influence wanes he's become shrill and revealed as a one-trick pony.

See:
Nader: Obama might not protect consumers

Nader Defends Obama Slur

Revisiting McVeigh

Vanity Fair re-posted an article by Gore Vidal : The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh

Red, Blue, And Purple

Professor Newman has his 2008 Presidential Election Results Maps up.

2004


2008


CSMonitor has maps at Patchwork Nation.

WashingtonPost.com has 2008 Presidential Election results by county too.

Autism = Genes + Environmental Trigger

Scientist are now looking to identify the environmental triggers.

See:
Study showing evidence of a major environmental trigger for autism

Emasculation

I think this is a story we'll be hearing more about soon.

See: The disappearing male

More and more boys are being born with genital defects and are suffering from learning disabilities, autism and Tourette's syndrome, among other disorders.

Male infertility rates are on the rise and the quality of an average man's sperm is declining, according to some studies.

But perhaps the most disconcerting of all trends is the growing gender imbalance in many parts of heavily industrialized nations, where the births of baby boys have been declining for many years.

Vanity Fair's Latest Kate Winslet Interview

Isn’t She Deneuvely?

For someone whose résumé includes five Oscar nominations—at 31, she became the youngest actress to have achieved that milestone—Winslet exhibits a refreshing lack of pretension.

"It's Blowing Peace And Freedom"

Great Lakes states are getting ready for windfarm proposals.

See: Great Lakes eyed for offshore wind farms: 100,000 turbines could provide third of electricity needs for entire U.S.

The New Presidential Vehicle

See NYT: Presidential Power on the Road

Rolling Stone's 2005 Profile Of Rahm Emanuel

Ballet dancer and the basis for the West Wing's Josh Lyman.

See: The Enforcer

Serious Eats Second Alton Brown Interview

See: Chewing the Fat: Alton Brown on Race, Class, and Food

Also available as a video podcast.

Static, No. Dynamic, Yes.

I never was much of a stretcher and had my own routing of jumping rope before sporing events. Now I have been vindicated by science.

See NYT: Stretching: The Truth

Researchers now believe that some of the more entrenched elements of many athletes’ warm-up regimens are not only a waste of time but actually bad for you. The old presumption that holding a stretch for 20 to 30 seconds — known as static stretching — primes muscles for a workout is dead wrong. It actually weakens them.

The Winner

Some great pictures at Boston.com: The next President of the United States

Additional insight from Newsweek:
Highlights from NEWSWEEK's special election project.

- The Obama campaign was provided with reports from the Secret Service showing a sharp and disturbing increase in threats to Obama in September and early October, at the same time that many crowds at Palin rallies became more frenzied. Michelle Obama was shaken by the vituperative crowds and the hot rhetoric from the GOP candidates. "Why would they try to make people hate us?" Michelle asked a top campaign aide.
- On the Sunday night before the last debate, McCain's core group of advisers—Steve Schmidt, Rick Davis, adman Fred Davis, strategist Greg Strimple, pollster Bill McInturff and strategy director Sarah Simmons—met to decide whether to tell McCain that the race was effectively over, that he no longer had a chance to win. The consensus in the room was no, not yet, not while he still had "a pulse."
...
- The debates unnerved both candidates. When he was preparing for them during the Democratic primaries, Obama was recorded saying, "I don't consider this to be a good format for me, which makes me more cautious. I often find myself trapped by the questions and thinking to myself, 'You know, this is a stupid question, but let me … answer it.' So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I f---ing changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'."

Chapter 1: How He Did It

Yes. We. Can. - the music video made from Obama's South Carolina post-primary speech.

Mother Earth Interviews Michael Pollan

The Michael Pollan Prescription: How to Eat Better and Avoid the Industrial Diet

Obama's Leadership and Experience

Most people who are reluctant to vote for Obama, despite their sympathies, usually argue that he lacks experience and/or has never led. However, key people in key industries are trusting in his abilities.

Deployed troops are giving by 6 to 1 to Obama.

And CIA folks want Obama in charge. See: Why CIA Veterans Are Scared of McCain and The Spies Who Love Obama

As has become painfully clear since 9/11, intelligence is only as good as the worldview of the person receiving it. The team of former intelligence professionals who have come together to advise Barack Obama describe a candidate who they believe is open-minded and intellectually inclined to absorb information—not just the recognized current threats (terrorism, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, a resurgent and more belligerent Russia), but the ones on the horizon (nuclear terrorism, water wars, climate change and the conflicts it could generate).

Investors are hoping for an Obama presidency too. See: Obama Bests McCain Among Bush-Backing Bankers

My Palin Problem

Before the Republican convention I didn't think Sarah Palin would be chosen because the Republicans would want to avoid the Senator Stevens connection. However, once she was named as the Vice Presidential pick I initially gave governor Palin the benefit of doubt. But that soon changed.

It wasn't because she is incurious and duplicitous.
See: Letter from Anne Kilkenny
What about that Anne Kilkenny e-mail?A: The facts in the e-mail message about Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin are mostly correct.

It wasn't because Tom Brokaw of all people found her debate treatment of the moderator disturbing.
See: http://wamu.org/programs/dr/08/10/16.php#22989

It wasn't that McCain's own treatment of her seems odd.
See: Is McCain's Treatment of Palin Sexist?

It was not because she needed to use notes during her interview with Katie Couric.
See: Sarah Palin used cliff's notes

It was not because she is a compulsive liar.
See: The Truth About Sarah Palin

It was not because she acts as though she is above the law.
See: Group Posts E-Mail Hacked From Palin Account and State funded Palin kids’ travel and Palin’s response to Troopergate report is ‘downright Orwellian

No, it is because as a parent, I could never imagine subjecting a child who was going through a difficult time to worldwide media scrutiny. And this is what Governor Palin did by accepting the VP nomination. She put her own child through a magnifying glass no parent should ever subject a minor child to, no matter what that child may say. If Governor Palin is willing to do this to her child what will she do to the country?

Fortunately Senator Obama put an end to the media coverage of Palin's pregnant daughter by telling his staff that anyone who discussed the issue would be fired. That immediately made it a non-issue. I am not sure McCain/Palin would have treated the Obama's the same way.

Full Palin coverage at the Anchorage Daily News Special Sarah Palin section

John McCain 2008 Is Not John McCain 2000

McCain's change from 2000 is what has most bothered me about his campaign. In July I was looking forward to a presidential election with two pleasing candidates; but then McCain changed.

People have compiled lists of his changes
See:
John McCain’s 44 Flip-Flops

Jukebox John keeps changing his tune: The John McCain Flip Flop list

So why do McCain’s flip-flops matter? Because all available evidence suggests his reversals aren’t sincere, they’re cynically calculated for political gain. This isn’t indicative of an open mind; it’s actually indicative of a character flaw. And given the premise of McCain’s presidential campaign, it’s an area in desperate need of scrutiny.

The perception people have of McCain is outdated, reflective of a man who no longer has any use for his previous persona. What’s wrong with a politician who changes his or her views? Nothing in particular, but when a politician changes his views so much that he has an entirely different worldview, is it unreasonable to wonder whether it’s entirely sincere? Especially when there’s no other apparent explanation for six dozen significant reversals?

McCain has been in Congress for more than a quarter-century; he’s bound to shift now and then on various controversies. But therein lies the point — McCain was consistent on most of these issues, right up until he started running for president, at which point he conveniently abandoned literally dozens of positions he used to hold. The problem isn’t just the incessant flip-flops — though that’s part of it — it’s more about the shameless pandering and hollow convictions behind the incessant flip-flops. That the media still perceives McCain as some kind of “straight talker” who refuses to sway with the political winds makes this all the more glaring.

And a small sampling of articles on how McCain has changed since 2000:
The New McCain: More Aggressive and Scripted on the Campaign Trail

For anyone who has covered Mr. McCain over the last decade, this new version of the candidate can be a striking sight.

Selling His Soul

In fact, America is weaker on almost all fronts today than we were eight years ago. I can't tell if McCain understands this or not, but I assume not since he doesn't propose to substantially change either the policies or the worldview that have gotten us here. However, I think McCain does realize that the American public understands this, which is why he's doing everything possible to distract them from it. Look over there! Barack Obama wants to teach your kindergarteners about sex!

And it might work. It has before, after all. But I continue to think that it won't this time. The public doesn't seem to have made up its mind yet about whether Obama can truly bring about serious change, but once the ur-distraction of Sarah Palin wears off they're almost certain to realize that McCain definitely won't. He's another Herbert Hoover, a once well-meaning man who never fully understood what he was up against — and when this election is over I wouldn't be surprised to see McCain suffer the same fate: lost to history as a symbol of a previous era, and ending his career with increasingly bitter denunciations of a public mood and a changing world that he can barely comprehend.

Looks like John McCain is McChanging his tune

Now that he has appropriated Barack Obama's theme of change, John McCain has become its most obvious victim. No one now knows what he stands for or what he believes.

Lie to Me

I am suggesting the McCain campaign is the first campaign, certainly in modern political history, that has decided that truth is entirely optional, and isn’t afraid to come right out and say it. And it’s working — and might well work all the way to the steps of the White House.

McCain opts out of hard truths

McCain's Integrity

Make-Believe Maverick [don't read this story if you are a McCain supporter as it will change your mind]

Few politicians have so actively, or successfully, crafted their own myth of greatness. In McCain's version of his life, he is a prodigal son who, steeled by his brutal internment in Vietnam, learned to put "country first." Remade by the Keating Five scandal that nearly wrecked his career, the story goes, McCain re-emerged as a "reformer" and a "maverick," righteously eschewing anything that "might even tangentially be construed as a less than proper use of my office."

It's a myth McCain has cultivated throughout his decades in Washington. But during the course of this year's campaign, the mask has slipped. "Let's face it," says Larry Wilkerson, a retired Army colonel who served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell. "John McCain made his reputation on the fact that he doesn't bend his principles for politics. That's just not true."

We have now watched McCain run twice for president. The first time he positioned himself as a principled centrist and decried the politics of Karl Rove and the influence of the religious right, imploring voters to judge candidates "by the example we set, by the way we conduct our campaigns, by the way we personally practice politics." After he lost in 2000, he jagged hard to the left — breaking with the president over taxes, drilling, judicial appointments, even flirting with joining the Democratic Party.

In his current campaign, however, McCain has become the kind of politician he ran against in 2000. He has embraced those he once denounced as "agents of intolerance," promised more drilling and deeper tax cuts, even compromised his vaunted opposition to torture. Intent on winning the presidency at all costs, he has reassembled the very team that so viciously smeared him and his family eight years ago, selecting as his running mate a born-again moose hunter whose only qualification for office is her ability to electrify Rove's base. And he has engaged in a "practice of politics" so deceptive that even Rove himself has denounced it, saying that the outright lies in McCain's campaign ads go "too far" and fail the "truth test."

The missing piece of this puzzle, says a former McCain confidant who has fallen out with the senator over his neoconservatism, is a third, never realized, campaign that McCain intended to run against Bush in 2004. "McCain wanted a rematch, based on ethics, campaign finance and Enron — the corrupt relationship between Bush's team and the corporate sector," says the former friend, a prominent conservative thinker with whom McCain shared his plans over the course of several dinners in 2001. "But when 9/11 happened, McCain saw his chance to challenge Bush again was robbed. He saw 9/11 gave Bush and his failed presidency a second life. He saw Bush and Cheney's ability to draw stark contrasts between black and white, villains and good guys. And that's why McCain changed." (The McCain campaign did not respond to numerous requests for comment from Rolling Stone.)

Indeed, many leading Republicans who once admired McCain see his recent contortions to appease the GOP base as the undoing of a maverick. "John McCain's ambition overrode his basic character," says Rita Hauser, who served on the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board from 2001 to 2004. But the truth of the matter is that ambition is John McCain's basic character. Seen in the sweep of his seven-decade personal history, his pandering to the right is consistent with the only constant in his life: doing what's best for himself. To put the matter squarely: John McCain is his own special interest.

"John has made a pact with the devil," says Lincoln Chafee, the former GOP senator, who has been appalled at his one-time colleague's readiness to sacrifice principle for power. Chafee and McCain were the only Republicans to vote against the Bush tax cuts. They locked arms in opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. And they worked together in the "Gang of 14," which blocked some of Bush's worst judges from the federal bench.

"On all three — sadly, sadly, sadly — McCain has flip-flopped," Chafee says. And forget all the "Country First" sloganeering, he adds. "McCain is putting himself first. He's putting himself first in blinking neon lights."

What America Has Lost In The Last Eight Years

Are these the measures of the world's greatest country?

- The United States ranks 42nd in the world for life expectancy.
- The US infant mortality rate is on a par with that of Croatia, Cuba, Estonia and Poland.
- The US has a higher percentage of children living in poverty than any of the world's richest countries.
- 14% of the population - some 40 million Americans - lack the literacy skills to perform simple, everyday tasks such as understanding newspaper articles and instruction manuals.
- The US has 5% of the world's people but 24% of its prisoners
- Life span of the average American is shorter now than in 2000
- Height of the average American is less now when compared to Europeans
- Broadband access and speed is less than other countries
- Fatalities per distance driven has increased since 2000
- the population of New Orleans in 2000 was 450,000; in 2008 it was 239,124
- In 2000 spinach was safe to eat
- In 2000 the 4th Amendment meant something
- In 2000 the United States didn't torture people
- In 2000 1000 civilian contractors in Afghanistan and Iraq were safe
- In 2000 the average price of gasoline was $1.51. In 2006 it was $2.59.
- The United States now has newborn death rate that is second worst of developed countries
- Life expectancy in the United States is 38th, right behind Cuba
- Real wages were less in 2005 than in 2000 (first time average income decreased since WWII)
- More measles cases in 2008 than in 1996
- The number of incarcerated persons has swelled from 1.9 million to 2.3 million
- Fewer countries are looking to the United States for legal guidance
- The national debt was $5.7 trillion in 2000. It is over $10 trillion now
- The US economy in 2008 is worse than in 2000

January 19, 2001: 10,587.59
September 29, 2008: 10,365.45

NASDAQ Jan 19, 2001 = 2770.38
NASDAQ September 29, 2008 = 1983.73

CPI, January 19, 2001: 175
CPI, September 29, 2008: 219

Dollar exchange with Euro, January 19, 2001: 1.068
Dollar exchange with Euro, September 29, 2008: .695

Sources:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/22/automobiles/22SAFETY.html
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/aer/txt/ptb0524.html
http://www.cnn.com/2006/HEALTH/parenting/05/08/mothers.index/index.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_life_expectancy
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/21/business/21tax.html
http://www.cdc.gov/media/pressrel/2008/r080821.htm
http://blog.aclu.org/2008/09/17/the-constitutional-aches-and-pains-of-over-incarceration/
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/18/us/18legal.html
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2008/09/29/the-bush-economy/
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/10/02/debt-10-trillion/
http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS160045+10-Jul-2008+BW20080710