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Bongy feet

Parenthood confers many blessings, but the requirement that one watch an endless succession of kiddie movies is not among them. This weekend, I found myself sitting on the bean bag with the boys, watching Happy Feet. You’ll recall that the movie caused a bit of buzz in green (and anti-green) circles when it came out, […]

Comment bait

Duck! An official report from People for The Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), submitted nine months after a Virginia government agency’s deadline, shows that the animal rights group put to death more than 97 percent of the dogs, cats, and other pets it took in for adoption in 2006. During that year, the well-known animal […]

Romney, McCain spar over fuel-efficiency on campaign trail

John McCain and Mitt Romney have been sparring over fuel-efficiency standards lately (among other things) as the two seek to position themselves to win tomorrow’s Republican presidential primary in Michigan. Recent polls have forecast a close race between the two in the state. For his part, McCain has been vocal about supporting the new vehicle […]

Forest Service official threatened with jail time over fish-killing fire retardant

Mark Rey, the undersecretary of agriculture in charge of the U.S. Forest Service, has been threatened with jail time or house arrest for his agency’s attempts to continue using a flame retardant on forest fires that’s toxic to fish. In 2002, fire retardant was dropped on a blaze in central Oregon, killing about 20,000 fish. […]

The Extreme (plug-in) Hybrid: no breakthrough needed!

Here is the plug-in hybrid I test drove a few weeks ago, the Extreme Hybrid by AFS Trinity:

I will be running a long article Wednesday on the climate implications of plug-ins in general and this car in particular. But you can read all about the car at this exclusive New York Times piece published today and the AFS Trinity website, which has a YouTube video of me driving the car and discussing why it matters:

Manatee deaths down, lonely penguin count up by one

... a Hong Kong sushi restaurant owner paid a record $55,700 for a bluefin tuna at a Tokyo market, a rate of $92 per pound ...

... a judge ordered the U.S. Navy to cease use of sonar within 12 nautical miles of the California coastline and whenever a marine mammal was sighted within 2,200 yards ...

... fish from a Canadian salmon farm tested positive for malachite green, a carcinogenic substance. "We have no explanation as to what has happened," said the company manager ...

... a study of Caribbean coral reefs found a correlation between high human population and coral loss. "It's like a cascade," said one of the researchers ...

Friday music blogging: Brother Ali

Finally, a little hip-hop for FMB. Brother Ali — your standard albino Muslim rapper out of Minneapolis — made some waves in the underground hip-hop world with his debut album Rites of Passage, and then blew up pretty big with 2003’s Shadows on the Sun. Then four years passed, during which Ali ran into label […]

The Chrysler Town & Country freaks me out

I was leafing through the Feb. Bon Appetit — the magazine’s first “green” issue; more on that in a future “Edible Media” post — when I came upon an ad for something called the Chrysler Town & Country. It shows a white suburban family standing in front of their SUV and McPalace, glowing and looking […]

Everest climber dead at 88

Things I did not know about Sir Edmund Hillary: He was still alive. He was only 88 when he died. Which means when he became the first person to reach the top of Everest, he was just a year older than I am now. Better get cracking. He once won an honor from Queen Elizabeth […]

White House will save paper by putting federal budget online

Instead of printing 3,000 copies of its 2,200-page budget, the White House has elected to put the gigantic tome online. “This step will save nearly 20 tons of paper, or roughly 480 trees,” says White House Budget Director Jim Nussle, who estimates that bringing the budget presentation into the new millennium will save nearly a […]