Red, Green, and Blue

Car-sharing (car-pooling if you’re in the USA) is one thing, and car rental is another, but they come together in a weird way in the variety of schemes appearing in the UK that allow people to rent a car, cost-effectively, in Brighton, Cambridge, London, Maidstone (don’t worry if you’ve never heard of Maidstone, it’s a strange place), Oxford and Southampton.

It’s called car-sharing, not because you get in a car with somebody else, which can be problematic for all kinds of reasons, not least for solo-travelling women, but because, after you’ve paid your annual fee (around £50 or $100) you get to ‘borrow’ a car from the company for around £4 or $8 per hour. The UK’s leading car-sharing company is Streetcar, founded in 2004, and they have more than 1000 cars in a variety of locations, and sizes. Read the rest of this entry »

Wildlife smuggling is a profitable trade. Given that the U.S. does not punish the crime harshly, you might consider doing it as a job in these tough times.

Yesterday MSNBC and CNN picked up a story about the discovery of illegal wildlife trafficking activity on a boat traveling from Peru to Chile. The topic seems to be of great interest to Americans if mainstream media sources choose to run these kinds of stories.

Estimates vary, but the general consensus is that internationally, the illegal wildlife trade ranks at least second or third in its volume and profitability, only behind the trade of drugs and guns. It’s thought to be a billion dollar industry annually in the U.S. alone. The World Wildlife Federation says its “the second-biggest threat to species after habitat destruction.”

So why is the crime punished in the United States in such a puny way? Read the rest of this entry »

Abraham Lincoln was a self-described billiards addict. John Adams swam almost daily in the nearby waters of the often chilly Potomac River. Gerald Ford made use of the White House facilities as if they were at his own private country club wedged in a corner at the intersection of Pennsylvania and Executive avenues in Washington, D.C.

Whether entertaining high-powered guests or for personal enjoyment, American presidents and their families have a long tradition of recreating on the grounds of the White House. When the ability to find simple seclusion in the outside world is nearly impossible, these seven White House facilities can offer respite from the high-pressure job.

1. Basketball

It is no secret that Barack Obama is a huge basketball enthusiast. From his high school days in Hawaii when he earned the nickname “Barry the Bomber”, right up until the day he gave his acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention, Mr. Obama has played basketball as a way to keep fit, focused and healthy. With an incoming cabinet basketball team said to be the best ever and with Obama’s proclivity for shooting the rock around, the single-basket outdoor court may not be enough.

Installed by George H.W. Bush in 1991, the 26′ by 26′ court sits near the swimming pool and just off the Oval Office. But when Mr. Obama hinted throughout the campaign that he’d like to upgrade from the driveway-sized basketball court to a full-sized indoor court by replacing the existing bowling alley, bowling industry groups raised vocal opposition.

2. Bowling

As opposed to his skills on the basketball court, Mr. Obama’s skills in the bowling alley are, let’s say, not as sharp. Obama displayed his proficiency as a bowler in the Spring of 2008 whilst campaigning in Altoona, PA, when he bowled a less-than-stellar score of 37. But whether Obama will actually make good on his promise to replace the White House bowling alley, remains to be seen. After news broke that Obama was considering gutting the bowling lane and building a basketball court, a coalition of bowling groups offered to redesign the White House lane(s) with a decidedly twenty-first century feel:

The first White House bowling alley was actually built as a gift for President Harry Truman in 1947 in the location of what is now the Situation Room. Though not much of a bowler himself, the Truman bowling alley was well used by guests and staff until it was relocated across the street to the Executive Building. In 1969, President Richard M. Nixon brought bowling back to the White House with a single lane in a basement area below a driveway that exists today.

3. Swimming

Nestled in the trees not far from the basketball court and the West Wing is the White House swimming pool, installed in 1975 by Californian and avid swimmer Gerald Ford. Outfitted with a cabana, a solar hot water system for the pool and a spa that was later added by President Bill Clinton, the pool area is the perfect place to entertain guests, let alone Malia and Sasha.

The original White House swimming pool was built by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933. Roosevelt, who suffered from polio, used the indoor West Wing swimming pool as therapy to strengthen his upper body. The Roosevelt pool was ultimately filled in by Nixon who used the space as an area for press to gather.

The occurrence of another battle between Russia and Ukraine over gas and the resulting restriction and even cutting off of supplies to some parts of Europe should give us cause for wider concern, even if the dispute, as seems likely, will be resolved in a matter of a week or so.

Britain currently derives only about 2% of its gas supplies from Russia, but as we all know, natural gas supplies from the North Sea are dwindling. Central Asia has gas supplies and pipelines are being built, but not only are we obviously talking about a fossil fuel here, we are also talking about our continuing reliance on energy supplies from other parts of the world, which may not be or remain friendly to us. At least one recent study, by Deloitte, indicates that even the oil industry is realising that things have to change to focus on renewables and it is becoming recognised that energy security is a serious concern. Read the rest of this entry »

In the usually quiet countryside of Devon, England, a beaver has been leaving a trail of destruction, and causing political disquiet.  ‘Igor’ as one national paper has dubbed him, has been felling trees along the River Tamar in Cornwall after escaping from his Devon home. The beaver, which weighs six stone, is apparently not trying to build a dam, he’s simply living in a hole in the riverbank and felling the trees for food. He escaped in October, after a flood, in the company of two females, which were recaptured in a lake nearby after felling a number of trees on the River Thrushel. Read the rest of this entry »

[Editor's note: Following the success of our first caption contest in October, RG&B resident cartoonist Joe Mohr put together another chance for you to try your hand at writing political cartoons. -TH]

Welcome to the second official “Caption Contest” for Mean Joe Green and Red, Green, and Blue!

Rules for Participation:
1. Look at the cartoon below.
2. Think of a caption to accompany the cartoon.
3. Post your caption in the comments section.

The winning caption will be published in Red Green and Blue next Thursday (or shortly thereafter).

Enjoy!
-MJG

Ah, the executive bathroom, one of the unheralded perks of holding a cabinet-level seat. But unfortunately for outgoing Interior Department Secretary Dirk Kempthorne, the $236,000 renovation of the Main Interior Building Executive Suite bathroom was finally completed just in time to hand the keys over to Interior Secretary-nominee, Ken Salazar.

It is the first time any such renovations have been done at the building since it was built in 1936, but for $236K, that must be one heck of a water closet.

As part of the renovation, workers modernized and upgraded the plumbing, mechanical and lighting systems in the bathroom of the Executive Suite.  The modernization is part of a larger $243 million makeover of The Main Interior Building’s mechanical, electrical, plumbing and ventilation systems in all of its office spaces. Read the rest of this entry »

In the past week or so, some 400 earthquakes have added to the already precarious land at Yellowstone National Park. Although the area is the largest supervolcano in North America, the rumbling is a bit more than normal.

Like bees, when earthquakes occur in great amounts in one area, it’s called a swarm, reports NPR. But this swarm is bigger than the usual that would happen. The swarm has a magnitude of 3.9 on the Richter scale, and the quakes have happened at greater frequency than the norm.

And all of the earthquakes have occurred under Yellowstone Lake. The last time something like this happened was 20 years ago, reports Wyoming’s Local News 8. Said one geologist on the station: “We think it’s where more magma heat and steam escaped through cracks in the crust. That’s probably what’s causing the earthquakes.”

No one knows for sure why this is happening, though. But no worries to the people living around Yellowstone – the last huge volcano eruption was about 640,000 years ago.

Earlier in the year, around April, the same thing happened in Oregon, except it was 600 earthquakes in 10 days. That one, though, was different – it didn’t occur around any places where tectonic plates meet, the vast land areas that form the Earth’s crust. Three of those quakes had a magnitude of 5.0 or higher. Most, however, happened out at sea, and were barely felt on land.

>> See Also: United States Opening 190 Million Acres to Geothermal Energy Development

Casualties of global warming? Who knows. There’s not much anyone can really do about these, except wait them out.

Photo Credit: moonjazz at Flickr under a Creative Commons License

Barack Obama’s nominee for Interior Secretary, Senator Ken Salazar of Colorado, says he has some unfinished business to take care of before he leaves the Senate and takes the helm at the Interior Department. Salazar will be in the unique position of working on legislation that would give new protections to public lands and then ushering those new protections along with him to Interior.

Sporting his trademark cowboy hat, the denim-clad Salazar held a press conference in Denver before leaving for Washington on Sunday, saying he’d like to pass eight bills dealing mainly with wilderness and conservation issues, as soon as possible.

One of the bills would define bans on mining, timber harvesting and new roads and constructions in Rocky Mountain National Park. Others would establish the Sangre de Cristo National Heritage Area, South Park National Heritage Area, and the Baca National Wildlife Refuge Management.

“I have high expectations from the strong Republican and Democratic support that, perhaps even in this week,” the bills will pass, he said.

The bills passed the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and were included in the Omnibus Public Land Management Act of 2008. Salazar also indicated that Senate President Harry Reid would continue with the bills should they not get finished before Salazar moves on.

Because Obama’s selection of Salazar to head-up Interior brought mixed reactions from the environmental community, the announcements might go a little way towards easing the concerns of those who feel Salazar is too cozy with the oil, gas, and other extractive industries. Read the rest of this entry »

Many of the UK’s organic farmers are asking the government to relax the strict organic standards that govern their meat and vegetable production regimes.

The plea, from organisations including the Soil Association, is the result of a sales drop and fears for the future of 5,000 organic farmers across Britain. Organic food sales fell by 10% in the three months to the end of November 2008 – at a time when overall food sales rose by 6%

As a result, farmers’ groups have asked for approval to relax the ‘organic’ rules so that they can use conventional animal feed which is half the price of instead of organic food concentrate. The holiday wouldn’t be total – farmers would have to stick to the agreed low stocking densities, minimum use of antibiotics, and no use of fertilisers. Read the rest of this entry »