Day: November 17, 2008

Bark Beetles Kill Millions of Acres of Trees in West

The New York Times reports on something we in the Rocky Mountain states know all too well — the loss of our forests. An excerpt:

From New Mexico to British Columbia, the region’s signature pine forests are succumbing to a huge infestation of mountain pine beetles that are turning a blanket of green forest into a blanket of rust red. Montana has lost a million acres of trees to the beetles, and in northern Colorado and southern Wyoming the situation is worse.

. . .

In Wyoming and Colorado in 2006 there were a million acres of dead trees. Last year it was 1.5 million. This year it is expected to total over two million. In the Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta, the problem is most severe. It is the largest known insect infestation in the history of North America, officials said. British Columbia has lost 33 million acres of lodgepole pine forest, and a freak wind event last year blew mountain pine beetles, a species of bark beetle, over the Continental Divide to Alberta. Experts fear that the beetles could travel all the way to the Great Lakes.

In the next three to five years, Mr. Kyhl said, virtually all of Colorado’s lodgepole pine trees over five inches in diameter will be lost, about five million acres. “Already in many places, every lodgepole over five inches is dead as far as the eye can see,” he said.

Campgrounds closed, ski resorts deforested, views blighted in every direction by rust colored trees.

There’s a video with the article.

Just in case you think the Government shouldn’t get into business’s business

In 2006, the federal government spent more than sixty billion dollars on aircraft manufacturers. Boeing received $20.8 billion, according to Government Executive magazine. (Lockheed-Martin received $27.3 billion, and Northrup-Grumman $16.7 billion.)

Why does the United States have one of the most sophisticated, innovative electronics industries in the world? Raytheon’s take from the Pentagon in 2006: $10.4 billion; Computer Sciences, $2.7 billion. And so on. General Motors received $806 million dollars that year, mostly from the Army, enough to make it the fortieth largest defense contractor on the list, just ahead, startlingly, of Johns Hopkins University, which received more than seven hundred million dollars, most of it from the U.S. Navy.

Think Tank: Steve Coll

Just the companies listed add up to $80 billion (in one year). That puts some perspective around the bail out numbers.

Personal DNA analysis and research for health, family, ancestry, and genealogy

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Health and Traits – List of Conditions

Ancestry

100+ miles per gallon

If GM isn’t around to build it, let’s hope someone does.

The Volt, which the company plans to begin selling in November 2010, should easily double the fuel economy rating of today’s mileage hero, the Toyota Prius. The Prius, which carries a 46 m.p.g. rating in combined city and highway driving, is a conventional hybrid that uses modest amounts of electricity to minimize the fuel consumed by its gasoline engine.

The Volt takes the opposite approach, relying mainly on electric power, with its gasoline engine running only when needed to stretch the driving range. The 100 m.p.g. automobile, which once seemed an impossible dream, will become an official E.P.A.-rated reality with the Volt’s arrival.

G.M. calls the car an extended-range electric vehicle, or E-REV. For the first 40 miles after leaving home with a fully charged battery, the Volt will consume no gas at all, according to G.M.; when the gas engine does fire up, it will only drive a generator — the engine is not connected to the wheels. Owners will recharge the battery overnight from a wall socket, which brings the Volt into the category of plug-in hybrids.

Read more about the Volt from The New York Times.

The Motor City

I am a native Detroiter, and though I moved to Arizona at the start of high school, I remained in touch with the Motor City in a personal way well into my twenties.

As a little kid I can remember the thrill of seeing the Cadillac assembly plant on the way to Grandma’s. Or the blast furnaces making the sky glow orange on cloudy nights. Or seeing the latest models in the lobby of the General Motors Building on West Grand Boulevard (and the cool tunnel under the Boulevard to the Fisher Building across the street). Or the introduction of new car models each September, searchlights piercing the sky.

Later, while in graduate school, I had a summer job with a Ford supplier that took me to the executive suites of Ford and to the Lincoln-Mercury Division too, headquartered then in the wood-paneled hallways of Ford’s first Dearborn office building. As I noted here a few days ago, I once even applied for a job on the Dodge assembly line.

People in Detroit didn’t work at Ford, they worked at Ford’s, possessive as if they worked for Mr. Ford (because in many cases their fathers had worked for Mr. Ford). Even the freeways in Detroit told you who the important people were — the Edsel Ford, the Walter P. Chrysler, the Fisher (it was the Fisher Brothers that built GM car bodies), the Walter P. Reuther (the great United Auto Workers leader).

It was the quintessential American industry and it was the “Arsenal of Democracy.” During the last year of World War II, Ford was assembling one B-24 every 63 minutes. The assembly line was over a mile long. Chrysler made Sherman tanks and anti-aircraft guns.

You grow up in Detroit, the automobile industry is in your blood. At least it’s still somewhere in mine.

So what has happened that makes so many Americans willing to let the American auto industry go down the drain? Not only that, but as commenter Eric notes, with a “vindictiveness that pervades” so much of the discussion.

How in fact is stiffing Detroit any different than the way New Orleans has been treated?

Healthiest, Unhealthiest U.S. Cities

Lincoln, Neb. is the healthiest city in the U.S., and Huntington, W.V. is the least healthy, 2007 CDC data reveal.

The CDC’s city-by-city report is based on annual health surveys. Residents were asked to rate their health as excellent, very good, good, fair, or poor.

Topping the list was Lincoln, Neb., where 92.8% of residents say their health is good or better and only 7.2% report fair or poor health.

At the bottom of the list is Huntington, W.V., where only 68.8% of residents say they enjoy good or better health, and a whopping 31.2% report only fair or poor health.

WebMD

Fargo was second, Boulder third.

Albuquerque ranked 95th of 184 cities ranked. Santa Fe 88th.

All 184 cities ranked.

Only in New Mexico

Jim Baca discusses some of the local New Mexico merchants who contributed to the passage of proposition hate in California. If you’re a local who believes in civil rights, you might want to see the places you should boycott.

Update: Some of the information was incorrect. I have deleted the comments which mentioned some of the names.

Another kind of maverick

The Securities and Exchange Commission said Monday that it had charged Mark Cuban, the billionaire Internet entrepreneur and owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, with insider trading for selling 600,000 shares of an Internet search engine company.

The S.E.C. said Mr. Cuban sold the stock in the company, Mamma.com, based on nonpublic information about an impending stock offering. The commission asserted that Mr. Cuban avoided losses in excess of $750,000 by selling his stock prior to the public announcement of the offering.

DealBook – New York Times

Update: Insider Trading, or Political Persecution?

November 17th is the birthday

… of Senator James Inhofe (R-OK). Inhofe is the senator who has said, “man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.” He’s 74, his age having finally matched his IQ.

… of Gordon Lightfoot. The singer is 70.

I can see her lyin’ back in her satin dress
In a room where you do what you don’t confess
Sundown, you better take care
If I find you bin creepin’ round my back stairs
Sundown, you better take care
If I find you bin creepin’ round my back stairs

… of Martin Scorsese. The Oscar-winning director is 66.

… of Danny DeVito. The actor/director/producer is 64. Very early in his career DeVito played Martini in “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.”

… of Lorne Michaels. The producer of Saturday Night Live is 64.

So he moved back to Canada, where he formed a comedy duo with Hart Pomerantz, and they had a television variety show on Canadian television, The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour. They contracted their talents to comedic acts in the United States, writing for Phyllis Diller, Lily Tomlin, Joan Rivers, and Woody Allen. They also wrote for the NBC show Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In, and then NBC asked Michaels to come up with a comedy show to replace the Johnny Carson reruns that aired Saturday nights at 11 p.m.

Michaels recruited talent from all sorts of places. Dan Aykroyd was a fellow Canadian, and Chevy Chase, John Belushi, and Gilda Radner had worked on the National Lampoon show. Muppet creator Jim Henson created sketches for the show, and recent Harvard grad Al Franken was signed on as a writer. And so Michaels put together the first season, 1975–1976, and won an Emmy for it.

The Writer’s Almanac

Tom Seaver Plaque
… of Tom Seaver. Tom Terrific, the baseball hall-of-famer is 64.

… of Elvin Hayes. The basketball hall-of-famer is 63.

… of Howard Dean. The physician politician is 60.

… of Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio. The actress is 50. Mastrantonio was nominated for a best supporting actress Oscar for “The Color of Money.”

… of Daisy Fuentes, 42. Sophie Marceau is 42, too.

Rock Hudson was born on this date in 1925; he died in 1985. Hudson got a best actor Oscar nomination for “Giant.”

Soichiro Honda was born on this date in 1906; he died in 1991. Honda started as an auto mechanic at age 15.

It was on this day in 1558 that Queen Elizabeth I acceded to the English throne. She reigned for 45 years. She took over after the death of her sister, Queen Mary, and so Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, and William Shakespeare are known as Elizabethan authors, and not Maryan authors.

The Writer’s Almanac