Month: August 2008

Inflatergate Exposed – Tire Gauge Co. Funds Obama

Tire Gauge Industry Pumps Up Obama Campaign Coffers | Autopia from Wired.com

On June 16th, 2008, John Zimmerman, chief financial officer of Tomkins, gave nearly $7,000 in campaign contributions to Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. Lo and behold, nary two months later Obama’s in Springfield, Mo, suggesting drivers inflate their tires to save gas (and, by the way, curb CO2 emissions). Coincidence? We think not. Does it come as any surprise that Tomkins owns the Syracuse Gauge Company, which bills itself as manufacturing the “largest selection and variety of tools in the United States for filling tires [and] checking tire pressure”?

Perhaps the most shocking part of Inflategate is the politicization of a suggestion so simple as following the instructions found in your car’s owners manual. It’s also something of a tempest in a teapot, seeing how all new cars must have tire-pressure monitors.

Utah’s famous Wall Arch collapses

Utah’s famous Wall Arch collapses; no visitor injuries – Salt Lake Tribune
Wall Arch, one of the most accessible major arches in the Devils Garden area of Arches National Park, collapsed sometime Monday night.
“Not being a geologist, I can’t get very technical but it just went kaboom,” Chief Ranger Denny Ziemann said. “The middle of the arch just collapsed under its own weight. It just happens.”
Wall Arch, located along the popular Devils Garden Trail, was 71 feet tall and 33 1/2 feet wide, ranking it 12th in size among the known arches inside the park. Lewis T. McKinney first reported and named Wall Arch in 1948.

Behind the Big Credit Card Scam

His Miami condo, his 2006 BMW, his Glock 27 firearm… | Beyond the Beyond from Wired.com
At least hackers are still pitifully eager to rat out their friends to the Secret Service — the oldest tradition in the trade — but gee whiz, look at the level of global cooperation and the awesome sums of money contingent on being a major-league black-hat cracker these days. That almost beats the oil biz. Here’s the scoop behind the intrigue. Continue reading “Behind the Big Credit Card Scam”

Shipping costs start to crimp globalization

Shipping costs start to crimp globalization – International Herald Tribune
The cost of shipping a 40-foot container from Shanghai to the United States has risen to $8,000, compared with $3,000 early in the decade, according to a recent study of transportation costs. Big container ships, the pack mules of the 21st-century economy, have shaved their top speed by nearly 20 percent to save on fuel costs, substantially slowing shipping times.

The study, published in May by the Canadian investment bank CIBC World Markets, calculates that the recent surge in shipping costs is on average the equivalent of a 9 percent tariff on trade. “The cost of moving goods, not the cost of tariffs, is the largest barrier to global trade today,” the report concluded, and as a result “has effectively offset all the trade liberalization efforts of the last three decades.” Continue reading “Shipping costs start to crimp globalization”

Hydrogen Energy Breakthroughs

castanyes blaves: Better catalysts for energy storage
What’s needed are catalysts capable of taking electricity and using it to split water to generate hydrogen gas, a clean fuel. Unfortunately, the catalysts discovered so far work under harsh chemical conditions, and the best ones are made from platinum, a rare and expensive metal.

No more. This week, researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge led by chemist Daniel Nocera report online in Science a new water-splitting catalyst that works under environmentally friendly conditions (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1162018). More important, it’s made from cobalt and phosphorus, fairly cheap and abundant elements. The new catalyst needs improvements before it can solve the world’s energy problems, but several outside researchers say it’s a crucial development.

other groups report related advances–a cheap plastic fuel cell catalyst that converts hydrogen to electricity, and a solid oxide fuel cell catalyst that operates at lower temperatures–that affect another vital component of any future solar hydrogen system.