Green Wonders of The World

Green building technology has reached a tipping point that makes it a more feasible -- and elegant -- choice for new construction. Here's a look at the best-looking green buildings around the world, with pictures.

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The Daily Show revisits net neutrality

with John "I'm a PC" Hodgman

Approved Items for the Bar Exam: 1 clear plastic storage bag...

New York test-takers are pretty lucky when it comes to the quiet snack. All it needs to be is quiet. Pennsylvania requires that snacks be small -- they give gum and mints as examples -- and unwrapped. It makes me feel sorry for all those folks in Harrisburg who, when hunger hits six hours into the multiple-choice section, have no recourse other than to reach into their pockets for a handful of warm Hershey's Kisses. Other states have fun rules too. Virginia requires test-takers to wear suits (or a tie and jacket) to the exam. And it encourages soft-soled footwear, like tennis shoes. Suits and sneakers: the classic grade-school prom costume. My first inclination was to think the soft-soled policy was for comfort. But this is Virginia, in July. If they wanted the test-takers to be comfortable, in the hundred-degree heat, the suit's a bigger problem than the tennis shoes.

The California Bar provides a list of twenty-three approved items, including "up to two pillows without cases," "silent analog watches, timers and clocks not measuring larger than 4x4 inches or smaller," and "ear plugs or plastic material normally associated with the sport of swimming." Huh? Is there a swimming section on the California bar exam? Maybe that's why so many people fail. Or maybe they fail because the questions are written by the same guy who wrote the "not measuring larger than 4x4 inches or smaller" clause. That leaves clocks measuring… exactly 4x4 inches? I guess so. It must stem from some episode in which a test taker tried to wheel in a "good luck" grandfather clock. Or something.

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CFR: Mideast Conflict Rages On

The violence continues in the Middle East. More than 200 Lebanese, nearly all civilians, have been killed (WashPost) in an Israeli offensive that followed Hezbollah's abduction of two Israeli soldiers last week. In response to Israeli strikes, Hezbollah has launched rockets ever deeper into Israeli territory, killing dozens. Many international observers criticize the Israeli offensive in Lebanon as a disproportionate response to the kidnapping. This CFR Backgrounder examines the doctrine of proportionality in relation to Israel. In a July 17 address to Parliament, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert vowed the Israeli offensive would continue until two kidnapped Israeli soldiers are returned, the Lebanese army is deployed along the Israeli border, and Hezbollah halts its rocket attacks on Israel.

For its part, Hezbollah is trying to shatter the regional image of Israel's military strength and change the balance of power in the region (CSMonitor). The group's leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, profiled here by the Washington Post, declared "open war" on Israel (al-Jazeera). Although members of Hezbollah's political wing serve in Lebanon's Parliament and its cabinet, the group's allegiances to Iran and Syria subvert the goals of Lebanon's central government (NYT). CFR President Richard Haass told CBS News that Iran and Syria are using Hezbollah as a vehicle to get at Israel and advance their interests in the region. The relationship between Tehran and Damascus, and the two countries' influence on the current conflict, is examined in this new Backgrounder.

This CSIS report by Anthony Cordesman says Syria and Iran both gain by this proxy war, which divides the United States and Europe, distracts international attention from Iran's nuclear program and Syria's continuing influence in Lebanon, and feeds Arab anger against the United States.

So far, Israel has not threatened to attack Syria directly (al-Jazeera). If it does, it faces the threat of retaliation from Iran, which many suspect has provided Hezbollah with the new, longer-range rockets the group is using to hit Israeli cities as far south of the border as Haifa (Haaretz).

Tehran has said it will back Syria if Israel attacks Damascus. The new unity between religious Tehran and secular Damascus surprises many. Some Sunni governments—those of Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia—are increasingly wary of the growing influence of Iran, and are blaming Hezbollah for its role in starting the conflict, a rare move (NYT). Middle East expert Robert Satloff writes in the Weekly Standard that the new cooperation between Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, and Hamas is driven by political opportunism, not shared ideology.

Meanwhile, the Israeli campaign is wreaking havoc on Lebanon's infrastructure and economy, reversing the hard-won progress the country has made since its fifteen-year civil war ended in 1990. The Economist says Israel's actions risk destabilizing the entire region, and Beirut's Daily Star demands the United States step in to halt the "collective punishment" of the Israeli attacks. But some critics say the United States, divided from its allies and preoccupied with Iraq, has less influence than ever in the Middle East (CSMonitor).

[original article here]
from the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), click on above links to read & learn more about any topic. The CFR has excellent daily analysis and briefings.

Top 10: Vehicles with the Highest Fuel Efficiency

1. Honda Insight - 66 mpg hwy - 60 mpg city
2. Toyota Prius Hybrid - 51 mpg hwy - 60 mpg city
3. Honda Civic Hybrid CVT PZEV - 51 mpg hwy - 49 mpg city
4. Volkswagen New Beetle GLS TDI - 46 mpg hwy - 38 mpg city
5. Volkswagen Golf GL TDI - 46 mpg hwy - 38 mpg city
6. Volkswagen Jetta GL 1.9 TDI - 46 mpg hwy - 38 mpg city
7. Toyota Echo - 42 mpg hwy - 35 mpg city
8. Toyota Corolla LE - 41 mpg hwy - 32 mpg city
9. Scion xA 4AT - 38 mpg hwy - 31 mpg city
10. Kia Rio Cinco 4AT - 38 mpg hwy - 29 mpg city

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Secrets of the Tarahumara, "The Running People"

One of the most remote people on the planet, fewer than 40,000 Tarahumara remain. When they do emerge from NW Mexico they run and win 100-mile ultramarathons, wearing sandals and togas. What are the secrets of a people whose diet consists of beer and corn "pinole", with near zero incidence of disease?

Until that strange scene in 1993, no one had ever taken the Leadville Trail 100 ultramarathon lightly. Leadville forces racers to run and climb 100 high-altitude miles over the scrabbly trails and snowy peaks of the Colorado Rockies. You don't train for Leadville with intervals and striders; you train the way a prison gang handles a rock pile, by constantly banging out lots of slow, steady miles and building the kind of thin-air endurance that lets you grind along at 15 minutes a mile all day long and then continue into the night. The Leadville ultra, you could say, is closer to mountaineering than marathoning.

But there, next to the carefully pulse-monitored and Polar-Fleeced top seeds at the 1993 starting line, were a half-dozen middle-aged guys in togas, smoking butts and shooting the breeze, deciding whether they should wear some new Rockport cross-trainers they'd been given earlier or the sandals they'd made out of old tires scavenged from a nearby junkyard. Most opted for the sandals. They weren't stretching or warming up or showing the faintest sign that they were about to start one of the most grueling ultramarathons in the world.

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Lebanon calls for cease-fire under U.N.

BEIRUT, Lebanon - ...
Despite worldwide alarm, there was little indication either Western or Arab nations could muster a quick diplomatic solution. The United States and France prepared to evacuate their citizens, and Britain dispatched an aircraft carrier to the eastern Mediterranean in apparent preparation for evacuations.

Choking back tears, [Lebanese Prime Minister Fuad] Saniora went on television to plead with the United Nations to broker a cease-fire for his "disaster-stricken nation."

The Western-backed prime minister, criticizing both Israel and Hezbollah, also pledged to reassert government authority over all Lebanese territory, suggesting his government might deploy the Lebanese army in the south, which Hezbollah effectively controls.

That would meet a repeated U.N. and U.S. demand. But any effort by Saniora's Sunni Muslim-led government to use force against the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah guerrillas could trigger another bloody civil war in Lebanon. Many fear the 70,000-strong army itself might break up along sectarian lines, as it did during the 1975-90 civil war. ...

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Why Mosquitoes Hate Humans...

"Some unfortunate people are irresistible to mosquitoes, while the scent of some lucky individuals drives the blood-suckers away. Now the smelly chemicals from the sweat of these lucky people have been identified by researchers, who are testing its effectiveness as a natural mosquito repellent.

Everybody produces a mixture of odorous chemicals in their sweat, some of which attract biting insects, such as lactic acid. But people who do not get bitten also produce smelly chemicals that appear to mask the scent of the attractive chemicals. "

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Ancestor of every living human may have lived only 2000 years ago

"That means everybody on Earth descends from somebody who was around as recently as the reign of Tutankhamen, maybe even during the Golden Age of ancient Greece. There's even a chance that our last shared ancestor lived at the time of Christ."

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Why the U.S. Needs More Nuclear Power

"The best thing we can do to decrease the Middle East's hold on us is to turn off the spigot ourselves. For economic, ecological, and geopolitical reasons, U.S. policymakers ought to promote electrification on the demand side, and nuclear fuel on the supply side, wherever they reasonably can."

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