Texan cattle rancher Mike Baca seems an unlikely evangelist for the American green revolution. When he voices a visceral dislike of the ‘Washington liberals’ there seems to be little hint of the environmentalist beneath the cowboy hat and saucer-sized belt-buckle. But Mike is proof that renewable energy now unites the partisan debate on climate change. Many Republicans sceptical of climate science support a major expansion of renewables to ease their nation’s dependence on foreign oil. In Mike’s case, the tantalising prospect of pocketing hundreds of thousands of dollars from wind turbines on his ranch proves an extra incentive. The sprawling ranch lies in the Texas panhandle on the high plains near Amarillo. Mike will not say how much land he owns but it stretches way beyond the horizon in all directions. These high plains were considered low-grade land until engineers developed the fan-shaped wind pump to suck water from the shallow Ogallala aquifer and create cattle country. The aquifer is running dry but engineers have again harnessed the wind to bring income to the relatively small number of people who own these vast empty spaces. Mike is one of them. His nearest […]
NEW YORK — Newfound signs of stability in the housing market could still be threatened by rising foreclosures and slow efforts to stop them, according to two reports released Tuesday. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of 20 major cities showed the smallest monthly decline since June 2008. The index tumbled by 18 percent in April from the year before, but for the third month in a row it was not a record decline. Yearly losses in 13 metros improved compared to March. ‘It seems that some stabilization may be appearing in some of the regions,’ said David M. Blitzer, chairman of the S&P index committee. But rising foreclosures fueled by layoffs could derail a meaningful turnaround. The number of homeowners at least two months behind or in foreclosure jumped in the first quarter from the previous quarter, a Treasury Department report said Tuesday. Defaults from borrowers with good credit contributed to much of the increase in seriously delinquent loans, echoing data last month from the Mortgage Bankers Association. As the recession claims more jobs, borrowers in good standing are more likely to miss their mortgage payments. Efforts to modify home loans have been slow and […]
Vegetarians are generally less likely than meat eaters to develop cancer but this does not apply to all forms of the disease, a major study has found. The study involving 60,000 people found those who followed a vegetarian diet developed notably fewer cancers of the blood, bladder and stomach. But the apparently protective effect of vegetarian did not seem to stretch to bowel cancer, a major killer. The study is published in the British Journal of Cancer. Researchers from universities in the UK and New Zealand followed 61,566 British men and women. They included meat-eaters, those who ate fish but not meat, and those who ate neither meat nor fish. VEGETARIANS GOT NOTABLY FEWER OF THESE CANCERS: # Stomach # Bladder # Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma # Multiple myeloma Overall, their results suggested that while in the general population about 33 people in 100 will develop cancer during their lifetime, for those who do not eat meat that risk is reduced to about 29 in 100. Special protection? The researchers said they found marked differences between meat-eaters and vegetarians in the propensity to cancers of the lymph and the blood, with vegetarians just […]
At a hearing on Capitol Hill in May, James Moroney, the publisher of the Dallas Morning News, told Congress about negotiations he’d just had with the online retailer Amazon. The idea was to license his newspaper’s content to the Kindle, Amazon’s new electronic reader. ‘They want seventy per cent of the subscription revenue, Moroney testified. ‘I get thirty per cent, they get seventy per cent. On top of that, they have said we get the right to republish your intellectual property to any portable device. The idea was that if a Kindle subscription to the Dallas Morning News cost ten dollars a month, seven dollars of that belonged to Amazon, the provider of the gadget on which the news was read, and just three dollars belonged to the newspaper, the provider of an expensive and ever-changing variety of editorial content. The people at Amazon valued the newspaper’s contribution so little, in fact, that they felt they ought then to be able to license it to anyone else they wanted. Another witness at the hearing, Arianna Huffington, of the Huffington Post, said that she thought the Kindle could provide a business model to save the beleaguered newspaper industry. Moroney disagreed. ‘I […]
DENVER — The next time you book a flight, make sure your name on the ticket is exactly the same as your ID. Otherwise it could take some time to get on the plane. The federal Transportation Security Administration is introducing a requirement that passenger names on tickets be exactly the same as the name on a government issued ID, reported the Denver Post. The move is designed to reduce the amount of travelers incorrectly identified with names similar to those on terrorist watch lists. ‘We’re doing some testing now, but we won’t roll out the first phase until August,’ Frontier Airlines spokesman Steve Snyder told the Post. About 58,000 travelers have filed complaints with TSA’s Traveler Redress Inquiry Program, claiming in many cases they were denied or delayed boarding because of watch-list problems, or were chosen for secondary screening. Elizabeth Davis of Boulder is one example of a passenger who might be delayed with the new rules. Her ticket read ‘Elizabeth Davis’ but her driver’s license says ‘Elizabeth Van R. Davis.’ ‘It’s going to take time for people to get used to this,’ Davis said told the Post. ‘They need to […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
