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What’s your Burley score?

Alan Durning wants to know: What's your Burley score?

The Burley in question is an old bike trailer. The Durning family uses it when they walk around their neighborhood, to carry groceries, broken vacuum cleaners, whatever. (Their car was recently totaled.) They can get about a mile from home comfortably, towing the Burley.

Within a mile of the Durning household are 248 businesses. That's his Burley score: 248.

What's yours?

(Check out Alan's post for instructions on calculating your score. Mine happens to be identical to his, since apparently we live mere blocks from one another.)

McGavick: Alaska’s choice for Washington

Supporters of drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge loathe Washington Senator Maria Cantwell, their most tenacious and successful foe. And no one loathes her more than the Alaskan Congressional delegation.

In a week or so, they are holding a big fundraiser for Republican Senate candidate Mike McGavick, who's challenging Cantwell in November:

Yipee, we’re all gonna die!

All you biocentrists have a new hero.

Particularly amusing was this understated student evaluation:

Though I agree that conservation biology is of utmost importance to the world, I do not think that preaching that 90 percent of the human population should die of Ebola is the most effective means of encouraging conservation awareness.

(via Drudge)

Update [2006-4-5 12:39:2 by David Roberts]: Well, dammit. I had a bad feeling about posting this, but it seemed like the kind of juicy thing that would start discussion. Now it seems I was a dupe. Via Andrew Sullivan, I see that the big stink being raised over this professor was started by an anti-evolutionist kook, and that the professor's words have been twisted and stripped of context. Let this be a lesson to all of you (OK, to me) about the dangers of speed blogging. Pharyngula has more.

Milloy’s attempt to fight the zeitgeist falls on its face

You many have heard a while back about a new mutual fund -- the Free Enterprise Action Fund -- headed by Junk Science proprietor and legendary hack Steven Milloy. Milloy started the fund as a way to counter what he sees as the pernicious influence of so-called socially responsible investment (SRI) initiatives, which are (obviously!) nothing more than fronts for capitalism-hatin' lefty special-interest groups. The fund launches shareholder initiatives at places like Goldman Sachs and GE demanding that the companies stop saving energy and cutting back greenhouse-gas emissions. Seriously.

Anyhoo, we didn't cover this in Daily Grist or here, 'cause really, why give cranks the attention they so desperately seek?

However, Tim Lambert has a hilarious post up today reviewing the financial performance of the fund. It is, to say the least, less than stellar.

Sweet, sweet schadenfreude.

New scheme for OPEC would make Venezuela’s oil reserves world’s largest

There's some big stuff happening in Venezuela these days. In an interview with the BBC, President Hugo Chavez announced a bid that could change the entire world oil situation. He wants OPEC to set its long-term oil target price at $50/barrel. Why? At $50, large portions of Venezuela's copious heavy crude in the Orinoco Tar Sands become economically viable, and Venezuela's official oil reserves automatically skyrocket to 312 billion barrels -- surpassing Saudi Arabia's 262 billion, currently the world's largest.

This would raise OPEC's production quotas, bring in a bucketload of new revenue to the Venezuelan government (which just renegotiated more favorable terms with several oil companies, and seized oil fields from two companies that refused to cooperate), and dramatically increase the country's influence and Chavez's stature.

The best summary I've seen is this one from Motley Fool:

A Cure for What Whales Ya

Five major food firms dump shares in whaling operator The Gorton’s fisherman is going cold turkey on whale meat. Five major food companies, including Japanese seafood giant Nissui — the owner of Gorton’s — announced that they are ending support for Japanese whaling by dumping their one-third share in Kyodo Senpaku, the largest operator of […]

Up the Arsenic

Chicken with arsenic a daily part of American diet You may be getting a significant dose of poison with your Chick’n Stix. Arsenic is a U.S. government-sanctioned supplement to chicken feed — it’s used to kill parasites and promote growth — despite being a known carcinogen and being implicated in other illnesses. Although the average […]

Mad About Peru

Take a photo journey to the far reaches of Peru Have we mentioned we’re giving away a trip to Peru? We are! Check it out. But first check out a gorgeous collection of Peruvian photos by Gary Braasch, a globe-trotting, conservation-minded photog. Today he takes us to the Amazon, the Andes, Machu Picchu, and other […]

Waddle They Do Now?

Global warming also affects — noooooooo! — penguins Need a new weapon in your arsenal against global-warming skeptics? Try baby penguin fuzzy-wuzziness. According to a new study, penguins and other Antarctic seabirds are nesting and laying eggs later than they did half a century ago, and scientists blame … the usual culprit. In eastern Antarctica, […]

A photo journey to the far reaches of Peru

In a collection of photos, Gary Braasch takes us on a visit to Peru’s rivers, mountains, ancient temples, and young faces — the country’s true gems. Photos: © Gary Braasch   Peru is dominated by two features that are, to most outsiders, the stuff of legend: the Amazon and the Andes. The lush forests and […]