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Obama: "I'm a big believer in Net Neutrality."

Snow in Tucson

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While it's 70degrees during the daytime in Tucson, it's nice to see snow on the mountains.

Two solar updraft towers in AZ

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Australia-based EnviroMission Ltd recently announced plans to build two solar updraft towers that span hundreds of acres in La Paz County, Arizona. Solar updraft technology sounds promising enough: generate hot air with a giant greenhouse, channel the air into a chimney-like device, and let the warm wind turn a wind turbine to produce energy. The idea isn’t new — it’s been around since the mid 1980’s — but it’s only now starting to take off.

EnviroMission Ltd’s new initiative is not a small project by any means. The towers will each have 2,400 foot chimneys over a greenhouse measuring four square miles. For some perspective, that’s nearly as tall as the recently-completed Burj Dubai structure.

There’s still plenty of work to be done before the $750 million, 200 megawatt project can begin. The Southern California Public Power Authority recently approved EnviroMission as a provider, but solar updraft hasn’t yet been proven to be commercially viable. That means EnviroMission might have trouble raising enough cash to get started. Still, we’re excited at the prospect of a new tool in our alternative energy arsenal — the more options we have, the better. source

NYT: 36 Hours in Tucson, AZ

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TUCSON has worked hard to shed its reputation as a tanning salon for retirees and snowbirds. To complement its natural beauty — a national park in its midst and mountains on four sides — the city has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into its downtown during the last decade. Instead of adding strip malls and high-rises, older buildings were saved and retooled as movie houses and museums. And with a deep-rooted Hispanic community, tides of Mexican immigrants and students from the University of Arizona who never left after graduation, the city has now taken on a youthful and multicultural glow. read more

Popular military air show returns to Tucson

Air show buffs, mark your calendars.

After a three-year hiatus, a popular military air show will soon return to Tucson, and organizers are promising a spectacle that will dwarf air shows past.

Davis-Monthan Air Force Base recently announced the dates for the 2010 event, which will take place the weekend of March 20 and 21.

"This is probably going to be one of the biggest ones we've had," said Lt. Col. Tim Krauss, D-M's air show director.

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"In the past we've had about 70 or 75 aircraft. This year we're looking to get 100 or maybe a little more." read more

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AZ 5th Happiest State

The happiest states:
   1. Louisiana
   2. Hawaii
   3. Florida
   4. Tennessee
   5. Arizona
   6. Mississippi
   7. Montana
   8. South Carolina
   9. Alabama
  10. Maine
  11. Alaska
  12. North Carolina
  13. Wyoming
  14. Idaho
  15. South Dakota
  16. Texas
  17. Arkansas
  18. Vermont
  19. Georgia
  20. Oklahoma
  21. Colorado
  22. Delaware
  23. Utah
  24. New Mexico
  25. North Dakota
  26. Minnesota
  27. New Hampshire
  28. Virginia
  29. Wisconsin
  30. Oregon
  31. Iowa
  32. Kansas
  33. Nebraska
  34. West Virginia
  35. Kentucky
  36. Washington
  37. District of Columbia
  38. Missouri
  39. Nevada
  40. Maryland
  41. Pennsylvania
  42. Rhode Island
  43. Massachusetts
  44. Ohio
  45. Illinois
  46. California
  47. Indiana
  48. Michigan
  49. New Jersey
  50. Connecticut
  51. New York
read more

Wondrous winter walks

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The season is good reason to hike classic desert trails.

It's a discouraging word in many parts of the world — but sweet music to the ears of hikers in desert country.

Winter.

Beginning officially on Monday, winter is the glorious high season for hiking in the deserts and canyons of Southern Arizona.

It's a time of mostly mild weather, cerulean skies, gentle breezes, jaw-drop sunsets and — big bonus point — reduced snake activity.

If there's any drawback to the season, it's that local hikers often have to share trails with heat-seeking refugees from Chicago, Minneapolis, Anchorage and other hard-frozen climes.

The strategy is simple: Use the coming cool months to trek trails where the hiking is often hellishly hot at other times of the year.

As a general rule, this is a time to hike the "cactus altitudes" — relatively low deserts, mountains and canyons — and leave the pine-topped peaks for summer.

Today, we offer a quick-look guide to half a dozen trails well worth a winter ramble.

King Canyon Trail

What's out there

You've got some great options on this trail in Saguaro National Park west of Tucson.

Hike just 0.9 of a mile from the trailhead and you reach a scenic picnic site and some ancient petroglyphs, or rock etchings. Trek 3.5 miles and you can stand on the 4,687-foot summit of Wasson Peak, where you'll get sweeping views of the Tucson Valley and surrounding mountains.

The trail traverses classic Sonoran Desert terrain that's home to critters such as javelina and coyotes, along with plentiful bird life.

Sights along the way include some super-sized examples of the park's namesake saguaro cactus and an old stone-walled restroom, no longer in use, that dates to the Civilian Conservation Corps era in the 1930s.

To find the petroglyphs, hike to the picnic area at the 0.9-mile point and follow a broad, sandy wash downstream — watching for rock etchings on walls above the wash. Be aware that a hike to Wasson's summit involves nearly 2,000 feet of elevation gain, making this a moderately challenging round-trip trek of seven miles.

Get to the trailhead

From Tucson, go west on Speedway, which becomes Gates Pass Road. Cross the pass and continue to Kinney Road. Turn right, northwest, on Kinney and follow it 2.8 miles to a trailhead parking lot on the right side of the road just a few hundred feet past the entrance to the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum.

The first part of the trail follows an old road bed.

Linda Vista Trail

What's out there

The name of this trail means "beautiful view" or "lovely vista" in Spanish. And, sure enough, hikers get some fine views of rolling desert terrain set against the backdrop of rugged Pusch Ridge.

Another plus: The trailhead — less than a quarter-mile east of North Oracle Road on the southwestern edge of the Catalina Mountains — offers convenient access, especially for residents of the northwest side.

The trail, which is made up of interconnected segments, lends itself to out-and-back hikes as well as a variety of loop routes. Start on Linda Vista's main segment, a little more than a half mile in length, and fashion your own short stroll or longer hike by combining other segments into a loop. Most of the loop routes fall into the easy-hiking category.

Get to the trailhead

Take North Oracle Road to Linda Vista Boulevard in Oro Valley. Turn east on Linda Vista and drive 0.2 of a mile to a trailhead and parking area on the right.

Picacho Peak

What's out there

Anyone who has driven from Tucson to Phoenix on Interstate 10 probably has noticed the blade of stone stabbing into the sky near the highway about 40 miles northwest of Tucson.

Picacho Peak looks dauntingly steep from some angles, but other views suggest a reasonable line of ascent for hikers.

The most popular hiking route to the top is the two-mile Hunter Trail. It traverses some steep terrain and is guarded in several places by steel-cable handrails anchored in the rock.

Most hikers in good physical condition can make it to the summit by using the handrails for security in the steep spots. But if you're seriously troubled by heights, you might pass up this hike and admire the 3,374-foot peak from below.

Get to the trailhead

From Tucson, follow I-10 northwest about 40 miles to the exit for Picacho Peak State Park. Stop at the park entrance station for directions to the trailhead. Admission is $6 per vehicle.

Ventana Canyon Trail

What's out there

Ventana is the Spanish word for "window" — and hearty hikers might choose to make a 12.8-mile round-trip trek up the Ventana Canyon Trail to reach a natural window in a rock formation.

But think twice about biting off the whole trail. The hike to the window involves 4,000 feet of elevation gain and will take you to a potentially cold and snowy altitude of 7,000 feet.

A scenic, satisfying and less chilly winter alternative is to hike the beautiful and still challenging 2.4-mile stretch from the trailhead to a spot called the Maiden Pools. You'll see plenty of formidable rock formations and grand desert landscapes along the way.

Get to the trailhead

The trailhead is at Loews Ventana Canyon Resort, 7000 N. Resort Drive. From East Sunrise Drive and North Kolb Road, take Kolb Road north to a turnoff for the trailhead and resort. Park in the lot designated for hikers. It's at the end of an employees' lot.

Romero Canyon Trail

What's out there

Rugged Romero Canyon, slicing into the western flank of the Catalina Mountains from a trailhead at Catalina State Park, is known to many hikers as the route to Romero Pools.

The 2.8-mile stretch of the Romero Canyon Trail from the trailhead to the pools makes an excellent, moderately challenging winter hike because it's mostly in desert terrain.

Beyond the pools, the trail continues 4.4 miles to Romero Pass, which is 7.2 miles from the trailhead. Keep in mind, if you plan to make that 14.4-mile round-trip hike, that you could encounter cold weather and snow at the 6,000-foot elevation of the pass.

Get to the trailhead

Follow Oracle Road north out of Tucson to the Catalina State Park entrance at Milepost 81. The entrance fee is $6 per vehicle. A free park map will direct you to the trailhead.

Babad Do'ag Trail

What's out there

This 2.1-mile trail, which begins along the lower reaches of the Catalina Highway, winds through open Sonoran Desert terrain, continues along the side of a rugged canyon and tops out on a 4,700-foot high point with far-horizon views.

But before setting out, many hikers want to know: What does that name mean?

Babad Do'ag means "Frog Mountain" in the Tohono O'odham language, and it's the tribe's traditional name for the Catalina Mountains north of Tucson.

The trail is easy to moderate in difficulty, with about 1,200 feet of elevation gain.

Get to the trailhead

Take Tanque Verde Road to the Catalina Highway and follow the highway 4.5 miles to the foot of the mountains. From there, continue up the highway 2.6 miles to a parking lot at the Babad Do'ag overlook. The trail begins about 100 yards up the highway from the lot. source

Tucson Sonoran Hotdog

Travel Channel's Man v Food

Adam's trip to Tucson lands him in front of a Sonoran Dog: a bacon-wrapped hot dog in a homemade steamed bun, smothered with pinto beans, onions, tomatoes, mustard, jalapeno sauce and mayo. 

Oracle Rd. wildlife paths OK'd

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Mountain lions, mule deer and black bears won a victory Thursday when a regional transportation agency agreed to spend $8.2 million to build three wildlife crossings across a heavily traveled section of North Oracle Road in the Oro Valley area.

Starting in 2013, authorities will build two steel and concrete underpasses and an overpass between the Tortolita and Catalina mountains to make it easier for wildlife to cross the highway. A three-mile stretch of Oracle, also known as Arizona 77, in that area will be fenced, to funnel wildlife into the crossings.

The crossings are aimed at maintaining traffic safety and preventing cars from killing wildlife as expected growth nearly doubles the traffic load along Oracle by 2030. They were approved by a 7-0 vote of the Regional Transportation Authority's governing board. read more

Meandering along the Rattlesnake Trail

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Meandering along the Rattlesnake Trail

It winds through splendid scenery in Sabino Canyon

By Doug Kreutz

Arizona Daily Star

Tucson, Arizona | Published: 12.05.2009

Many hiking routes in the Tucson area have names that make you want to head right out there: Sunset Trail, Sweetwater Trail, Butterfly Trail.

Then there's the other side of the coin: the Rattlesnake Trail.

The short path, part of a loop route in Sabino Canyon, doesn't exactly have an enticing name.

But here's the thing: The trail winds through a slice of splendid canyon scenery — and even if the area has a fair number of rattlers, snakes tend to be less active in this cooler season than in warmer months.

"Never seen a rattlesnake"

Jill Fern, who hiked the trail recently with her husband, Ed, chooses to believe that the name has nothing to do with venomous vipers.

"I convinced myself that it's called 'rattlesnake' because of the way it meanders through the canyon" — creating a snakelike path, Fern said.

"And actually," she added, "we've never seen a rattlesnake out here. We've seen them in our neighborhood, but not here."

Get to Sabino Canyon

Take Tanque Verde Road to Sabino Canyon Road and follow it north to the canyon entrance at 5700 N. Sabino Canyon Road.

The U.S. Forest Service charges a $5 parking fee in the canyon.

Trek the trail

For one approach to the trail, start at the southeastern end of the parking lot and walk east about 0.1 of a mile on a broad path to a signed junction with the Esperero Trail.

Follow the Esperero Trail a half-mile to a point where it crosses the main canyon road and then continue another half mile to a signed junction with the Rattlesnake Trail.

The Rattlesnake Trail descends into — yep — Rattlesnake Canyon and meanders, quite snakelike, along a usually dry watercourse for 0.6 of a mile to a junction with the main canyon road.

Some hikers follow the road back to the parking lot — making for a loop of a little less than three miles.

For a longer walk, some hikers cross the road at the end of the Rattlesnake Trail and pick up the Phoneline Link Trail. It leads to the Phoneline Trail and connecting routes that take hikers back to the starting point. source

All-electric sedan in Tucson Jan. 4

The plug-in, all-electric Nissan Leaf will make its first public appearance in Tucson Jan. 4, said Colleen Crowninshield, Clean Cities program manager at Pima Association of Governments.

Tucson is one of several U.S. cities chosen for the test marketing of the joint Renault-Nissan all-electric vehicle. The car is expected to go into production later in 2010 and be available for sale in the test markets in 2011.

Tucson is also one of several cities on the Nissan Leaf national introduction tour. No specific Tucson site for the introduction has been chosen yet, she said.

Crowninshield said she saw the car coming to Tucson at its national rollout at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles last week. She said it's a preproduction version of the Leaf and won't be available for test drives. For demonstration purposes Nissan has installed the all-electric drivetrain in a Nissan Versa, a comparable-sized model normally powered by a gas engine.

In a related development, Crowninshield said two Bookmans Entertainment Exchange stores — 1930 E. Grant Road and 3733 W. Ina Road — will install electric car-charging stations.

She said Bookmans management is supportive of electric vehicles — the Grant Road store had a charging station for the all-electric GM EV-1 in the 1990s — and decided to foot the entire bill for the charging stations rather than wait for the federal stimulus package's electric car charging infrastructure funding, which won't be available until early 2010.

Tucson qualified for a share of a $100 million charging infrastructure funding package that will be used to install public charging stations throughout the Tucson area. source

Comcast Internet throttling is up and running

COMCAST, the second-largest US cable television and Internet communications service provider, has a new broadband traffic throttling scheme installed and operating in all of its markets.

The ISP's new regime for restricting its customers' bandwidth utilisation replaces its former stealthy practice of arbitrarily blocking subscribers' peer-to-peer (P2P) upload traffic, which was criticised by the FCC last year after it was exposed by the Associated Press and others.

Comcast's filing with FCC (PDF) says it has put in new hardware and software technology at its Regional Network Routers locations to effect this cunning traffic management plan.

Its network throttling implements a two-tier packet queueing system at the routers, driven by two trigger conditions.

Comcast's first traffic throttling trigger is tripped by using more than 70 per cent of your maximum downstream or upstream bandwidth for more than 15 minutes.

Its second traffic throttling trigger is tripped when the Cable Modem Termination System you're hooked-up to – along with up to 15,000 other Comcast subscribers – gets congested, and your traffic is somehow identified as being responsible.

Tripping either of Comcast's high bandwidth usage rate triggers results in throttling for at least 15 minutes, or until your average bandwidth utilisation rate drops below 50 per cent for 15 minutes.

The Comcast two-tier traffic throttling system enforces different quality-of-service levels. Internet packets to and from a specific subscriber are assigned 'Priority Best Effort' (PBE) queueing by default, and the traffic rate is throttled by switching packets to lower priority 'Best Effort' (BE) queueing.

Comcast uses a bus analogy to explain how its two-tier traffic throttling system works:

"If there is no congestion, packets from a user in a BE state should have little trouble getting on the bus when they arrive at the bus stop. If, on the other hand, there is congestion in a particular instance, the bus may become filled by packets in a PBE state before any BE packets can get on. In that situation, the BE packets would have to wait for the next bus that is not filled by PBE packets."

According to the company, upstream and downstream traffic is managed separately, and its router packet queueing increments - the waiting time between each 'bus' in its analogy - are two milliseconds, or 1/500th of a second.

Comcast says that a throttled subscriber's connection that is forced into the lower BE quality of service queue "may or may not result in the user's traffic being delayed or, in extreme cases, dropped before PBE traffic is dropped."

Thus, Comcast's latest traffic throttling method can lead to transfers being blocked, too. But only in 'extreme cases' it says, so that's alright then.

Comcast has also imposed a monthly 250GB bandwidth usage cap on all of its customers, and it will, after one warning, terminate service for one year to those who exceed that cap twice within a six-month period.

So you punters who signed up with Comcast as your ISP can be assured that the company will deliver only about half of the maximum bandwidth it advertises, on a consistent basis. source

Tucson to get new Leaf

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A rolling version of the all-electric Nissan Leaf, the plug-in car that will be test- marketed in Tucson, Phoenix and several other North American cities in 2011, is coming to Tucson on a promotional tour in late November and early December.

There's no word yet on exactly which days it will be here or where it will be on display, said Nissan spokeswoman Katherine Zachary.

The 11-state, 22-city Nissan Leaf Zero Emission Tour, which was just announced, will showcase the car, its battery technology and Nissan's goals for the program.

The Leaf is projected to have a 100-mile range under normal driving conditions.

No price has been announced for the cars.

A private company has been lined up to build a network of public quick-charge stations in Tucson, Phoenix and along Interstate 10 between the cities.

Zachary said the Leaf on the tour will be a display-only vehicle, a show version of the car created by the Renault-Nissan alliance and sold in the U.S. as a Nissan Leaf. She said the Leaf's all-electric drivetrain will be demonstrated during the tour in a Nissan Versa body.

But we are getting our first look at the Nissan Leaf as it will appear when it goes into production.

The latest photos of the Leaf, shown here, are of a right-hand-drive version, built for the Japanese market, but otherwise identical to what will be sold in the United States, Zachary said.

Blue-eyes

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Blue-eyes was taken at Tohono Chul park yesterday.

Smokey on the Windowsill

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Smokey loves taking naps on the windowsill. The trouble is he is way too big (wide) for the 3 inches that's the sill. Sarah left her kitchen chair up against the wall once and Smokey found that would work. Now we leave it out on purpose so he can nap.

65% Want a Public Health Care Option

A New York Times/CBS poll found that 65% of respondents want a public health care option, while only 26% opposed such a plan.

Canadian Health Care, Even With Queues, Bests U.S.

Opponents of overhauling U.S. health care argue that Canada shows what happens when government gets involved in medicine, saying the country is plagued by inferior treatment, rationing and months-long queues.

The allegations are wrong by almost every measure, according to research by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and other independent studies published during the past five years. While delays do occur for non-emergency procedures, data indicate that Canada’s system of universal health coverage provides care as good as in the U.S., at a cost 47 percent less for each person. read more

In Phoenix, Weekend Users Make Light Rail a Success

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The light rail here, which opened in December, has been a greater success than its proponents thought it would be, but not quite the way they envisioned. Unlike the rest of the country’s public transportation systems, which are used principally by commuters, the 20 miles of light rail here stretching from central Phoenix to Mesa and Tempe is used largely by people going to restaurants, bars, ball games and cultural events downtown.

The rail was projected to attract 26,000 riders per day, but the number is closer to 33,000, boosted in large part by weekend riders. Only 27 percent use the train for work, according to its operator, compared with 60 percent of other public transit users on average nationwide.

In some part thanks to the new system, downtown Phoenix appears to be one of the few bright spots in an otherwise economically pummeled city, which like the rest of Arizona has suffered under the crushing slide of the state’s economy. The state, for years almost totally dependent on growth, has one of the deepest budget deficits in the country. read more