My Personal Blog
This is too funny not to mention:
In today’s Newburyport Daily News, there is an editorial praising Salem State College becoming a university.
It is a misnomer to assume a Newburyport editor wrote it as the time stamp is 3:20 a.m.
The Salem News, owned by the same parent publishing house, ran the same editorial three hours earlier.
Moreover, people can comment on one editorial or the other, but because of different sources the comments are not seen by all. I ask the editors: why?
Interesting data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration on the real and nominal prices of gasoline. Click the image to see more detail, as well as data on the cyclical histories of gasoline and diesel.
During last night’s City Council meeting, Police Marshal Tom Howard said he does not foresee gas prices to increase beyond $4 a gallon through the end of this fiscal year and therefore doesn’t expect to ask for additional contingency funds.
He’s probably right.
So here’s a suggestion: Stop using police cruisers immediately when responding to 911 calls that don’t require them.
Instead, use the motorcycles already in the fleet. Buy other scooters, electric or not, if you must.
Or forget the motor or electric bike and go with a trike.
Here’s an old 1965 Harley-Davidson police model:
And here’s a newer version, modeled after the Segway, that some U.S. and British police forces use:
When you consider a car averages 21 miles per gallon to a 2-wheeler’s 75 to 100 mpg, it’s a no-brainer what to do. Save on gas, improve fuel efficiency, and save on automobile depreciation…and be greener with bikes and trikes.
Major League Baseball is working to green its image, Earth2Tech reported yesterday.
Sure, I can write about the Seattle Mariners or the Colorado Rockies, but let’s focus on the beantown swingers, the Boston Red Sox. This week, the Sox announced the installation of 28 solar hot-water panels on the Fenway roof. The panels will trap the sun’s heat for one-third of water usage.
Here is a WBZ on-location report of the news:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko9ibshKADI]
Fenway management will allegedly install BigBelly solar trash compactors in the coming weeks. I’ve seen these mammoth receptacles around Boston and Somerville, and with the Green Monster image the Park already projects, the BigBelly units should fit in fine.
This is neat!
Dutch ecologist Roxina Soler and her colleagues from the Netherlands Institute for Ecology have discovered that subterranean and aboveground herbivorous insects can communicate with each other by using plants as telephones. [via Cellular News]
Subterranean insects issue chemical warning signals via the leaves of the plant. This way, aboveground insects are alerted that the plant is already ‘occupied’.
Aboveground, leaf-eating insects prefer plants that have not yet been occupied by subterranean root-eating insects. Subterranean insects emit chemical signals via the leaves of the plant, which warn the aboveground insects about their presence. This messaging enables spatially-separated insects to avoid each other, so that they do not unintentionally compete for the same plant.
… The communication between subterranean and aboveground insects has only been studied in a few systems. It is still not clear how widespread this phenomenon is.
Source: Textually.org, via Biz Stone
It took five Boston Globe staff reporters and two correspondents to write a 1,600-word story this afternoon on Senator Kennedy leaving the hospital.
The story also contained links to four other stories.
I don’t mean to trivialize the senator’s malignant tumor, but can anyone say journalistic overkill?
All that is needed are a few paragraphs that summarize why he was admitted to the hospital (had a seizure), the result (the tumor), and that he was discharged. Intersperse the story with some quotes from doctors and Joe Shmo citizens, sure.
But the way the story is written, going on and on about what-if scenarios involving to-be diagnoses, successor elections, political successes and tragedies in the Kennedy family, and that President Bush is praying for a speedy recovery… huh?
The man is far from dying or he wouldn’t have been discharged.
Let’s honor him, not write a mammoth story as if he was dead or removed from office.
Between now and three years from now, the city must invest (and support regional and state investment) in health care professionals to meet the needs of 78 million baby boomers who will turn 65 between 2011 and 2030.
I elaborated about this and a new federal report on my other blog.
