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The drugstore chains that ate America’s suburbs [VIDEO]
What is the fabric of the modern American community? Well, a big part of it consists of an endless parade of chain drugstores selling the kind of stuff chain drugstores sell (including booze!). That’s the landscape that Chris Weagel shows us from his hometown of St. Clair Shores, Mich. It is also a landscape that […]
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New reality show is ‘Ice Road Truckers’ for coal miners
The Spike network is set to run a show about coal miners, in the mold of Deadliest Catch and Ice Road Truckers — gritty dudes fighting their way through the world’s hardest jobs. This has the potential to expose coal’s seamy underbelly, or to glamorize it beyond repair (at least in the minds of Spike-watching […]
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Japanese utility baffled that nuclear plant leak couldn’t be plugged with shredded newspaper
Newest terrifying thing at the Fukushima Daiichi plant: A breach in a trench is leaking highly radioactive water into the surrounding ocean. Japanese utility TEPCO tried over the weekend to use concrete to plug the leak. When that failed, they went for the next most logical solution: a mixture of "132 pounds of sawdust, 18 […]
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WattsUpWithThat: Psychic seals have evolved ability to predict future climate
On March 21, the ’science’ blogger Anthony Watts actually published the following headline story and lede: Canadian Harp Seals In New England (“prediction” of cooling?) Yes, Watts is suggesting that Canadian Harp Seals are psychic, or, technically, have developed precognition — although a bizarre form of precognition whereby they incorrectly predict the future based on discredited […]
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Deepwater Horizon firm gives execs safety bonuses, with no apparent sense of irony
Transocean, the offshore drilling firm that ran the Deepwater Horizon rig, has given its top execs massive bonuses for having “the best year in safety performance in our company's history.” Seriously. Here’s what the annual report says: “Yeah, some people died and some animals died and some livelihoods were ruined, but that was only April […]
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Breaking: George Will takes the train, may have been collectivized
Its power is spreading.Photo: travisA few weeks back, as we wrote here, Newsweek columnist George Will wrote a screed against rail travel in which he made a startling suggestion about the true motivation behind the Obama administration’s support for rail transportation: [T]he real reason for progressives’ passion for trains is their goal of diminishing Americans’ […]
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The earthquake kit: How to unpack for a disaster and survive the unexpected
What’s in your earthquake survival kit? And what’s not?Photo: Global XThis essay was originally published on TomDispatch and is republished here with Tom’s kind permission. The first American responses to the triple calamity in Japan were deeply empathetic and then, as news of the Fukushima nuclear complex’s leaking radiation spread, a lot of people began […]
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Think energy efficiency isn’t working? Think again
Imagine a press release with this message: We’re not using more household energy than we used to — and the latest data won’t be available until next year. If you read that, I’m guessing you would join me in yawning and moving on to the next story. That is what the Energy Information Administration (EIA), […]
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Environmentalists stand up to Obama, win big
Under intense pressure from green groups and their members, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (Nev.) announced Friday that Republican proposals to gut the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act were off the table in budget negotiations. “Neither the White House nor Senate Leaders is going to accept any EPA riders,” Reid said. Reid’s pledge […]
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Friday music blogging: G. Love
I have very distinct memories of the moment in time when G. Love & Special Sauce came out. It was May 1994, just as I was graduating from college, and it was part of my life’s soundtrack as I left Tennessee behind and set out for Bozeman, Montana, where, er, adventures ensued. G. Love got […]
