Uncategorized

Concept gym floats on the Hudson River.

In response to the "silly question" asked of Umbra about human-powered gyms, alert reader Erin B. directed us to architectural visionary Mitchell Joaquim.

Enter the Human-Powered River Gym For New York City, the name of which gives all the basic information about it, the pictures of which are worth a thousand words. Or at least the 167 words of this post.

As writes Joachim:

This training protocol will exploit the inherent disequilibrium of floatation devices.  Often the average urbanite exercising at the gym performs controlled repetitive single plane movements using industrial fitness equipment.  All of this energy is summarily dissipated and ultimately exhausted for the sake of a single individual's wellbeing.  Other potentials exist to harness this vast human expenditure of caloric energy.

Translation: Running on the treadmill is boring and pointless. Exercising in a pod in the middle of the Hudson River is awesome!

The concept for this water-purifying, commuter-hauling, calorie-burning bundle of clean energy won third place in New York Magazine's Create a Gym competition.

The Fries Have It

Boston diner gets its heat from used veggie oil Restaurant owner Don Levy geared up for this year’s chilly Boston winter by getting rid of his furnace. Wait, it’s not […]

F’d Troops

Whistle-blower says Halliburton supplied foul water to troops in Iraq Former employees of a subsidiary of Halliburton, the big military-services contractor once helmed by Vice President Dick Cheney, say the […]

Kid Tested, Mother Appalled

Bush admin to accept pesticide testing on humans, and in some cases kids Enviros, public-interest groups, members of Congress, and even some government scientists are criticizing soon-to-be-released U.S. EPA rules […]

Progress Report on energy and the environment

The Center for American Progress sends out a daily email, the Progress Report. Though obviously left-leaning, it's always fact-packed, and a great way to keep up on the day's news.

Progress Report is doing a series on the real state of the union, in advance of the President's speech.

Today's is on energy and the environment. Check it out -- lots of good stuff, familiar to Gristmill readers but nicely crammed into a few short paragraphs.

Enough is enough!

First melting polar ice caps. Then rising coastal waters. And then super storms. But enough is enough. Now, my Kentucky Bourbon is in jeopardy!

(Via TH)

Al at Sundance

As we all know, Al Gore is at the Sundance film festival as we speak, promoting his new movie.

"But Dave," you're wondering, "what's he wearing?"

I can help: Here are some photos -- set one, set two -- of Al at Sundance. Yeah, that's him ... two over from James Van Der Beek.

(via The Hotline)

Sunday’s West Wing was rather ham-handed with its nuclear critique

I just watched West Wing from this past Sunday. It was, to say the least, overtly anti-nuclear.

(Incidentally, WW is a strange case, TV-wise. It started out great under Sorkin, then declined precipitously once he left, hitting its nadir in last year's season, the sixth. But this season it's come roaring back, with a presidential campaign inserting new blood and pulling the action outside the White House. It's been absolutely top-notch television lately. Naturally, NBC, noting that quality was on the rise, cancelled it. Bastards. Now where was I?)

I have mixed feelings about nuclear myself -- mostly bad -- but I gotta say WW was pretty ham-handed with it. The Republican candidate, Vinnick, had a few lines to make the pro-nuclear case, but on the whole everyone on the show took it as accepted fact that nuclear is not safe to have in populated areas.

They were also pretty ham-handed with the critique of Bush's handling of Katrina. From the moment something goes wrong, President Bartlett is in total control, even micromanaging the personnel and technical details of trying to repair the nuke facility. He asks if enough buses are available to evacuate the area (cough) and prompted to appoint a czar to coordinate the government agencies, says, "You're looking at him" (cough). A little overboard.

It’s catching on in traditionally right-leaning exurbs

Bossman Chip forwarded me an interesting piece from the Michigan Land Use Institute: "Could Smart Growth Tip the Next Presidential Election?"

Having read through it, the headline seems rather, uh, optimistic. But there's some interesting stuff about the role smart-growth proposals played in the victory of Tim Kaine (D) in the Virginia governor's race, and the general lay of the political land in fast-growing exurbs:

What is terrorism exactly?

What is terrorism?

I've been skeptical about the talk of "eco-terrorism" because, to me, a crucial ingredient of anything worthy of the term is deliberate targeting of civilians for injury or death. Since the alleged "eco-terrorists" explicitly aim to avoid any harm to a human being, "terrorist" seems a misnomer.

But am I right about this? Is there a commonly accepted definition of "terrorism"?

I suspect the DOJ has one in mind, given Gonzalez's very specific language in his press conference: The perps "worked together with extensive planning to influence the conduct of government and private businesses through the use of coordinated force, violence, sabotage, intimidation, and coercion."

The Wikipedia page on the definition of terrorism is instructive: