Hilarious Animal / Reporter Interfaces

Check out some of the funniest videos I've seen in a long time.

Very cool BMW concept car - electric/diesel hybrid

Utah: 4 Day Workweek

An energy- and money-saving solution that pretty much everyone can get behind: three-day weekends.

Workers of the world, unite in giving Utah a round of applause. The Beehive State has made Thursday the new Friday, and by proving the benefits of this condensed calendar, Utah has brought us all closer to the dream of a shortened workweek.

A year ago, Republican Governor Jon Hunstman announced the Working 4 Utah initiative, essentially putting 17,000 of the state’s 24,000 executive branch employees on a 10 hour a day, four day a week schedule. The goal for the cash-strapped state was energy savings. Now that a full year has passed (we checked in on the program back in April), a clearer picture of the benefits is coming into focus. read more

In Praise of the All-American Mexican Hot Dog

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"The best hot dogs come from Sonora,” the Mexican state immediately to the south. “Everybody knows that.” In Tucson more than 100 vendors, known as hotdogueros, peddle Sonoran-style hot dogs — candy cane-wrapped in bacon, griddled until dog and bacon fuse, garnished with a kitchen sink of taco truck condiments and stuffed into split-top rolls that owe a debt to both Mexican bolillo loaves and grocery store hot dog buns. read more

10 Things We Hate About Wireless Carriers

The companies that provide cell phone voice and data make their billions by cheating. They must be stopped.

The consumer electronics scene in the U.S. is wonderful and horrible at the same time. The devices, technologies and innovation are wonderful. The provision of wireless access is horrible. U.S. carriers are some of the most backward, unscrupulous and anti-customer companies in the nation.

So, carriers, this column's for you. Here's what I hate about how you do business. read more

Death Panels? Yes, They're Real

The Public Plan: The Leverage to Set Rates

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Health insurance is already becoming unaffordable for families and businesses, with premium inflation outpacing wage increases. Between 1999 and 2008, employer family health insurance premiums rose by 119 percent, while the median family income rose by less than 30 percent. As a result, average family premiums for group policies have risen from 11 percent to 18 percent of median family income. And if Congress fails to pass health reforms that control health care costs, premiums are projected to rise to 24 percent of a family's income by 2020.

Although the Obama Administration may be scaling back its support for a public plan, Commonwealth Fund and Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analyses show that offering a strong public health insurance choice as well as private plans through a health insurance exchange will help all Americans, not just the uninsured, by slowing the growth in premiums. A recent Fund analysis found that offering a public plan alongside private plans to all individuals and employers is our most effective weapon in combating health care costs. The study found that cumulative health system savings between 2010 and 2020—compared with projected trends for that period—could be as high as $3 trillion if reform includes a public plan that adopts innovative payment methods that reward value and uses its purchasing leverage, along with a reformed Medicare program, to control costs. The annual growth rate in health system spending would fall from 6.5 percent to 5.2 percent – consistent with an industry coalition pledge to slow spending by 1.5 percentage points annually over the next decade.

The CBO estimates that a public plan premium would be 10 percent lower than those of typical private plans offered in an insurance exchange—a cost break that would provide much-needed relief to families and businesses in every state in the country. The average family would save $2,200 per year by 2020 with reforms that include a public plan. President Obama pledged during the presidential campaign to save American families $2,500 a year through health reform. This goal needs to be on par with a deficit-neutral health reform plan. read more

Dining, clubbing in city's center

pictured: Day fades to night as diners visit Maynards, at the Historic Train Depot, 400 N. Toole Ave. click image to view larger

As the underpass opens at last, we dig into downtown's mushrooming restaurant, nightclub scene.

As a couple hundred people waited last Saturday to get into the new club Zen Rock, On a Roll sushi prepared for the crush of its reverse happy hour and Maynards wowed diners with its late-night menu.

It's a downtown scene that didn't exist two years ago when construction began on the Fourth Avenue Underpass. Thursday, Aug. 20's grand opening of this vital gateway is a grand excuse to explore the emerging dining and nightclubbing scene in the city center. Downtown, after all, has nearly 50 restaurants and bars offering everything from gourmet burgers to flamenco.

"You can feel the excitement," said acclaimed chef Janos Wilder, who opened his first restaurant downtown in 1983 and hopes to return with another. "There's energy in the streets at night, restaurants are full of diners, nightclubs are pulsing with music and dancing. There are people in the streets and they have something to do. A new downtown is emerging. This is becoming a downtown where people will want to be."

Click on the following links for more on dining and clubbing downtown:

• Eat to your heart's content: A full list of dining options downtown

• Zen Rock: a club-experience mix

New battery could change world, one house at a time

In a modest building on the west side of Salt Lake City, a team of specialists in advanced materials and electrochemistry has produced what could be the single most important breakthrough for clean, alternative energy since Socrates first noted solar heating 2,400 years ago.

The prize is the culmination of 10 years of research and testing -- a new generation of deep-storage battery that's small enough, and safe enough, to sit in your basement and power your home.

It promises to nudge the world to a paradigm shift as big as the switch from centralized mainframe computers in the 1980s to personal laptops. But this time the mainframe is America's antiquated electrical grid; and the switch is to personal power stations in millions of individual homes.

Former energy secretary Bill Richardson once disparaged the U.S. electrical grid as "third world," and he was painfully close to the mark. It's an inefficient, aging relic of a century-old approach to energy and a weak link in national security in an age of terrorism.

Taking a load off the grid through electricity production and storage at home would extend the life of the system and avoid the expenditure of tens, or even hundreds, of billions to make it "smart."

The battery breakthrough comes from a Salt Lake company called Ceramatec, the R&D arm of CoorsTek, a world leader in advanced materials and electrochemical devices. It promises to reduce dependence on the dinosaur by hooking up with the latest generation of personalized power plants that draw from the sun.

Solar energy has been around, of course, but it's been prohibitively expensive. Now the cost is tumbling, driven by new thin-film chemistry and manufacturing techniques. Leaders in the field include companies like Arizona-based First Solar, which can paint solar cells onto glass; and Konarka, an upstart that purchased a defunct Polaroid film factory in New Bedford, Mass., and now plans to print cells onto rolls of flexible plastic.

The convergence of these two key technologies -- solar power and deep-storage batteries -- has profound implications for oil-strapped America.

"These batteries switch the whole dialogue to renewables," said Daniel Nocera, a noted chemist and professor of energy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who sits on Ceramatec's science advisory board. "They will turn us away from dumb technology, circa 1900 -- a 110-year-old approach -- and turn us forward." read more

Closed Sonora, Mx eatery finds a new life in Tubac, Az

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A popular Nogales, Sonora, restaurant that closed last year because of a devastating drop in business has moved north of the border to Tubac.

Elvira's restaurant saw business plummet last year when customers from the U.S. stopped coming, partly because of the recession and partly because of fears over drug-related violence.

"It's good they opened here," said Jody Bloodworth, a longtime customer from Texas, who was visiting the new location. "It is a sad situation (violence at the border)."

Named for the owner's grandmother, Elvira's in Nogales, Sonora, had been in operation since 1927. Last year owner Rubén Monroy Jr., had to close it, along with La Cucaracha, a discotheque next door.

Monroy said it was his customers who encouraged him to open in Arizona. He estimated 95 percent of his customers came from the U.S.

His idea was to open a new location in Arizona and keep the Sonora one operating. He started working on the project a year ago, but the decline in tourism forced him to close and focus on the new place.

"I always had in mind coming to the U.S.," said Monroy, who offers the same menu, but in a more modern and upscale setting.

He did a good job, said customers at the new location in La Entrada de Tubac, a retail development in Tubac, about 45 miles south of Tucson.

"It's lovely, different and bright," said Betty Walker.

The restaurant, decorated with crafts from Mexico, is attracting new customers, and some from Nogales, Sonora, now come north, said Monroy.

The family plans to keep the Nogales Elvira's building on Avenida Obregón, along the international border, and may reopen if tourism picks up again, Monroy said. source

Trip offers mother lode of Ariz. mining history

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Driving trip through region has stark reminders of a wild and woolly past.

Winkelman. Hayden. Kearny. Superior. Miami. Globe. These communities in the rugged, hard-rock highlands north of Tucson were born of mining — and the ore-rich heritage shows through today, more than a century after the early boom days. While mining history and Old West ways are the backbone of this colorful region, the area is also treasured for its spectacular canyons, pine-topped peaks, quaint downtowns, antique shopping and savory Mexican food. A loop trip through the towns and wild country along the way offers a rich mix of sights and experiences. History buffs, hikers, antique lovers, photographers and those who savor small-town flavor are likely to hit pay dirt on the route. It's possible to make the loop drive from Tucson — 235 miles or so — in a long day trip. But an overnight stay will give you more time to explore. See the cover story inside for a word-and-picture guide to a trove of mining history and timeless natural splendor. Doug Kreutz

GLOBE — You know you're in a rough-and-tumble Old West kind of town when one of the prominent monuments is a plaque commemorating "The Hanging Tree." • The plaque in downtown Globe notes that two men — L.V. Grime and C.B. Hawley — were lynched on a sycamore tree near the site on Aug. 24, 1882, in connection with a hold-up and murder. • "Saloons were closed and it was an orderly lynching," the plaque notes. • All righty then. Comforting as it is to learn that the lynching was carried out with all due decorum, the monument is a stark reminder that this historic mining region 100 miles north of Tucson had a wild and woolly past.

It's that mother lode of Western history — along with a scenic setting and other attractions — that makes the area a popular tourist destination.

Today, we offer a guide to a loop route that will take you to historic mining displays, craggy canyons, lushly wooded mountains, a fast-flowing river and an archaeological site — not to mention The Hanging Tree monument. Along the way, you'll encounter plenty of small-town color, streets brimming with antique shops and some delectable Mexican food. read more

Like Your Health Insurance? Maybe You Shouldn't.

If we fail to reform our health care system this year, a major reason will be that a majority of Americans are satisfied with their health coverage and believe that reform could hurt them. According to a recent (unscientific) Consumer Reports survey, 64 percent of readers are satisfied with their plans -- down from 67 percent in 2007, but still a clear majority. A recent New York Times poll found that 59 percent of Americans do not think that health-care reform will benefit them personally; 69 percent are concerned that reform could harm the quality of their own care and 68 percent are concerned that it could limit their access to treatment.

This is deeply misleading, for two reasons. First, what does it mean to say that you are satisfied with your health insurance? Consider homeowner's insurance. Until you need it -- your house burns down -- you have no way of judging its quality. The same goes for health coverage; until you have a serious illness, the kind where your plan's limits and exclusions may kick in, how do you know if your health coverage is any good?

For one thing, as the House Energy and Commerce Committee uncovered, some insurers go out of their way to revoke coverage for people with serious health problems by looking for mistakes on their original applications. For another, you could be underinsured, like 29 percent of all people with health insurance, according to Consumer Reports. It is politically relevant that two-thirds of Americans seem to like their health coverage, but whether they should like it is another question.

The second problem is that the health coverage that most satisfied Americans have -- employer-based coverage -- is less secure than they think. In America today, we have three main health insurance systems. At one end we have Medicare and the Veterans Health Administration, which (although many anti-reform protesters don't realize it) are government-funded and government-run programs, and generally popular ones. At the other end we have the individual market, in which individuals buy insurance policies directly from health insurers. The individual market is completely broken; according to a recent Commonwealth Fund study, 73 percent of people who tried to buy individual coverage in the last three years did not end up buying a plan.

In the middle we have the employer-based system, which according to the U.S. Census Bureau covered 59 percent of the population in 2007. The employer-based system is good and bad. On the plus side, it solves the fundamental problem of the individual market. Again, think about homeowner's insurance. The insurance company figures out how much your house is worth, estimates the chances of it burning down, multiplies those numbers together, and charges you that much (plus a little to cover expenses and profit) in premiums. That is, the cost of a policy should be related to the expected costs of that policy to the insurer.

Now translate this to health insurance and you'll see why the individual market is broken. If you have a serious illness, like cancer, your expected annual costs could easily be $60,000. The insurer has to charge you at least $60,000 for coverage, or else it will lose money. You can't afford that, so you go without insurance. According to the Commonwealth Fund, 70 percent of people with health problems found it impossible or very difficult to find affordable coverage in the individual market. In short, a "market" for health insurance works only if you prevent insurers from doing what insurers naturally do -- discriminate among people according to how risky they are.

The employer-based system solves this problem. Employers can spread the cost of health insurance across their workforces, so that all employees are treated equally, regardless of their medical history. Furthermore, the tax rules governing employer-provided health care require that employers offer plans that treat all employees equally. The result is that if your employer provides health coverage, you can probably get it.

However, the employer-based system has two major weaknesses. First, and most obviously, it means keeping your health insurance is dependent on keeping your job. That means that your health is only insured to the extent that your job is insured -- and your job isn't insured. If you lose your job, or get a divorce from the spouse whose employer covers you, you have to find a new employer who offers a health plan, or you will be stuck in the individual market. Alternatively, if you get sick, you may be stuck in your job, no matter how much you may want or need to leave it.

Second, employers are dropping their health plans; the percentage of people covered through an employer has dropped from 64 percent in 2000 to 59 percent in 2007, and that decline is likely to accelerate. Why? Because, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation survey, the average annual premium for family coverage has already increased from $5,791 in 1999 to $12,680 in 2008 -- a 9 percent annual increase -- and a study published in Health Affairs forecasts that national health spending will grow at an average annual rate of 6.7 percent until 2017. Arithmetically, with each year that passes, it becomes harder for companies to keep their health plans without reducing benefits, reducing wages or increasing employee contributions to health plans.

The bottom line is that your current health plan may not be as good as you think it is, and there is a good chance that it will not be around when you need it.

Health-care reform comes in several different flavors these days, but the basic minimum is that it allows all people to buy health insurance regardless of medical history, and it provides subsidies to help poor and middle-income families buy health insurance. That means that if you get sick and lose your job, you will still be able to get health care. That is something that everyone should be in favor of -- because everyone can get sick and lose his or her job. source

Rachel Maddow Exposes "Fake" Protesters At Health Care Town Halls

Mentioned in the video: recessrally.com

Dogs as Smart as 2-year-old Kids

The canine IQ test results are in: Even the average dog has the mental abilities of a 2-year-old child.

The finding is based on a language development test, revealing average dogs can learn 165 words (similar to a 2-year-old child), including signals and gestures, and dogs in the top 20 percent in intelligence can learn 250 words.

And the smartest?

Border collies, poodles, and German shepherds, in that order, says Stanley Coren, a canine expert and professor emeritus at the University of British Columbia. Those breeds have been created recently compared with other dog breeds and may be smarter in part because we've trained and bred them to be so, Coren said. The dogs at the top of the pack are on par with a 2.5-year-old.

Better at math and socializing

While dogs ranked with the 2-year-olds in language, they would trump a 3- or 4-year-old in basic arithmetic, Coren found. In terms of social smarts, our drooling furballs fare even better.

"The social life of dogs is much more complex, much more like human teenagers at that stage, interested in who is moving up in the pack and who is sleeping with who and that sort of thing," Coren told LiveScience.

Coren, who has written more than a half-dozen books on dogs and dog behavior, will present an overview of various studies on dog smarts at the American Psychological Association's annual meeting in Toronto.

"We all want insight into how our furry companions think, and we want to understand the silly, quirky and apparently irrational behaviors [that] Lassie or Rover demonstrate," Coren said. "Their stunning flashes of brilliance and creativity are reminders that they may not be Einsteins but are sure closer to humans than we thought." read more

Arizona's Hidden Gems

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An Arizona road trip? Why not? Last winter, a college friend and I visited the Grand Canyon, one of the country's most celebrated treasures. In late April, we decided to return to check out Arizona's northeastern corner, which seemed speckled with less-visited wonders and, I hoped, a few hidden gems.

I didn't have grand expectations for our itinerary. After all, what could be as breathtaking as the 6-million-year-old chasm, especially as I had seen it, dusted by snow and illuminated by the last rays of daylight? The answer, I soon learned, was plenty.

-- Jason La

(Jason La / Los Angeles Times) Slideshow of more pictures

Tucson among first cities to get Nissan electric car

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Tucson will be among the first markets to get Nissan's new electric vehicle and charging stations under a nearly $100 million federal grant awarded to a Scottsdale company.
ETec, which stands for Electric Transportation Engineering Corp. and is a subsidiary of Ecotality Inc., was selected by the U.S. Department of Energy for a grant of up to $99.8 million to help roll out electric cars, and the charging equipment and stations to make them run.
The grant is part of a larger, $2.4 billion program to build up the nation's electric-car industry, announced by President Obama on Wednesday.
The project eTec is undertaking is expected to cost a total of $199.6 million; program participants are expected to match the federal grant money for a 50-50 public-private investment, Ecotality said.
ETec has teamed up with Nissan North America to roll out its Leaf electric vehicle and the charging stations to support the car.
The project will install electric-vehicle charging equipment and introduce up to 1,000 Nissan Leafs in strategic markets in five states, including Tucson and Phoenix in Arizona.
After a planning phase, eTec plans to start rolling out charging equipment in Leaf owners' garages and in public places in Tucson and other markets next summer, ahead of the Leaf's market debut in the fall, said Colin Read, vice president of market development for Ecotality.
"We're looking to put 1,000 electric vehicles in Phoenix and Tucson as part of the largest rollout of electric vehicles and infrastructure in U.S. history," Read said. read more

Read this over coffee

Go ahead: That cup of joe won't hurt you, the latest research says. It might even help you.

By Judy Foreman
May 18, 2009

Coffee drinkers, rejoice! The heavenly brew, once deemed harmful to health, is turning out to be, if not quite a health food, at least a low-risk drink, and in many ways a beneficial one. It could protect against diabetes, liver cancer, cirrhosis and Parkinson's disease.

What happened? Lots of new research, and the recognition that older, negative studies often failed to tease apart the effects of coffee and those of smoking because so many coffee drinkers were also smokers.

"Coffee was seen as very unhealthy," said Rob van Dam, a coffee researcher and epidemiologist at the Harvard School of Public Health. "Now we have a more balanced view. We're not telling people to drink it for health. But it is a good beverage choice."

As you digest the news on coffee, keep in mind that coffee and caffeine are not the same thing. In fact, "they are vastly different," said coffee researcher Terry Graham, chairman of Human Health and Nutritional Sciences at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada. One can be good for you; the other, less so.

"Coffee is a complex beverage with hundreds, if not thousands, of bioactive ingredients," he said. "A cup of coffee is 2% caffeine, 98% other stuff."

Before we rhapsodize further, a few caveats:

Caffeine -- whether in coffee, tea, soft drinks or pills -- can make you jittery and anxious and, in some people, can trigger insomnia. Data are mixed on whether pregnant women who consume caffeine are more likely to miscarry. In general, 200 milligrams a day -- the amount in one normal-sized cup of coffee -- is believed safe for pregnant women, said Van Dam.

For people with hard-to-control hypertension, a sudden, big dose of caffeine may boost blood pressure because caffeine constricts blood vessels. But decaf is fine in that respect. And even caffeinated coffee doesn't increase blood pressure much once you drink it for a week or so, said Van Dam. In fact, the caffeine in coffee seems to have less of an effect on blood pressure than the caffeine in colas because there are so many other substances in coffee that have the opposite effect physiologically from caffeine.

One final caveat: The new research heralding coffee's health benefits is not perfect. Most of the studies are observational; that is, they followed people over time and correlated health outcomes with coffee drinking -- based on people's recollections of how much coffee they consumed. The studies don't prove that coffee was the cause of improved health outcomes. Still, the sheer volume of the research, and the fact that the conclusions line up so neatly, make it reasonably credible, researchers say.

Diabetes: Twenty studies worldwide show that coffee, both regular and decaf, lowers the risk for Type 2 diabetes, in some studies by as much as 50%. Researchers say that is probably because chlorogenic acid, one of the many ingredients in coffee, slows uptake of glucose (sugar) from the intestines. (Excess sugar in the blood is a hallmark of diabetes.) Chlorogenic acid may also stimulate GLP-1, a chemical that boosts insulin, the hormone that escorts sugar from the blood into cells. Yet another ingredient, trigonelline, a precursor to vitamin B3, may help slow glucose absorption.

Heart disease and stroke: Recent studies suggest that frequent coffee consumption does not increase the risk of either condition. In fact, coffee might -- repeat, might -- slightly reduce the risk of stroke. A study published in March in the journal Circulation looked at data on more than 83,000 women older than 24. It showed that those who drank two to three cups of coffee a day had a 19% lower risk of stroke than those who drank almost none. A Finnish study found similar results for men.

For cardiovascular diseases other than stroke, there doesn't appear to be a preventive benefit from drinking coffee, but there is also no clearly documented harm; the studies looked at the effect of drinking up to six cups of regular coffee a day.

Cancer: Coffee research has come up empty here -- with one big exception: liver cancer. Research consistently shows a drop in liver cancer risk with coffee consumption, and there is some, albeit weaker, evidence that it may lower colon cancer risk as well.

Cirrhosis: Coffee seems to protect the liver against cirrhosis, especially that caused by alcoholism. It's not clear, either for cancer or cirrhosis, whether it's coffee or caffeine that may be protective.

Parkinson's disease: With this progressive, neurological illness, it's the caffeine, not coffee, that carries the benefit. No one knows for sure why caffeine protects. Several studies show that coffee drinkers, men especially, appear to have half the risk of Parkinson's compared with nondrinkers. Women also get a benefit, but only those who do not use post-menopausal hormones, said Dr. Alberto Ascherio, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health. All it takes for a measurable reduction in Parkinson's risk, he said, is about 150 milligrams a day, the amount in an average cup of coffee. source

Southern Arizona Summer

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Blaze Napping

Our cat Blaze napping on my computer. click to view larger

Peaches

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We brought a couple seedling peach trees, originally from our home in Hartford, Connecticut, with us when we moved to AZ. When they bloomed for the first time this spring, I knew there would be no peaches. Boy, was I wrong. Attached is a picture of a section of the tree that has the most peaches. We've already been enjoying the peaches that got ripe early. Yummy! They are as sweet as the ones from the heirloom parent they came from.

Streamlined plan helps push I-10 work to early finish

The summer rains in 2007 and 2008 seemed to pour at the worst times for concrete workers rebuilding Interstate 10.
And equipment operators and other workers found it unexpectedly tough to rip out of the ground the big, rusted steel poles that supported the old bridges they were tearing down.
Nevertheless, the huge three-year Interstate 10 reconstruction and widening project through a five-mile stretch of metro Tucson is nearing completion several months ahead of schedule.
Had it come in late, the day-and-night job of replacing 16 bridges and building 10 lanes of highway at a cost of more than $200 million could have become a public relations nightmare for Sundt Construction and its joint venture partner, Kiewit Western Co.
Instead, Arizona transportation officials announced recently that they'll be opening all the long-closed freeway entrances and exits by the end of August, entitling the contractors to a $920,000 bonus. Rain could still delay the openings until September, they cautioned. read more

Why The FCC Wants To Smash Open The iPhone

Right about now, Apple probably wishes it had never rejected Google Voice and related apps from the iPhone. Or maybe it was AT&T who rejected the apps. Nobody really knows. But the FCC launched an investigation last night to find out, sending letters to all three companies (Apple, AT&T, and Google) asking them to explain exactly what happened.

On its face, it might seem odd to some people that the FCC is investigating the rejection of a single iPhone app. After all, iPhone apps are rejected every day. But the Google Voice rejection caused an unusual amount of uproar, and there is nothing like a high-profile case to make an example out of in pursuit of pushing a bigger policy agenda. The FCC investigation is not just about the arbitrary rejection of a single app. It is the FCC's way of putting a stake in the ground for making the wireless networks controlled by cell phone carriers as open as the Internet. read more

Celine Dion and Elvis Presley

Watch how they made this video here.

Firefox Achieves One Billion Downloads, 31% Marketshare

Firefox, the open-source upstart launched in 2004, is officially now a powerhouse, having been downloaded over one billion times in the last five years. Hell, it's prominent enough to attract the attention of the Secretary of State. The one billion downloads milestone includes users downloading multiple copies for different computers as well as any manual downloads for upgrading purposes, though not any automatic updates. With so many users, it's now holding about 31% marketshare, second only to that ornery old dinosaur Internet Explorer at around 60% (Opera, Chrome and Safari are all below 5%). Once Firefox Mobile and the oddly Chrome-like Firefox 4.0 come out, we can expect that number to skyrocket even more. Congratulations and mazel tov, Mozilla. source