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Hey Al Gore, would 'ya talk to the Kennedys for us?

EDITORIAL

Where's Al Gore when you really need him?

Last week, just before the start of the Memorial Day weekend, we took a trip to Hull, MA and on the way back, made sure we shot some video of their apparently very successful Wind Turbine towering above the town. This is the same Wind Turbine, in concept, that alternative energy advocates want to put into Nantucket Sound, as Wind Farms. But unfortunately, sound energy policy - definitely no pun intended - has been trumped, so to speak, and again with no intentional pun, because these turbines would then be within eyesight of the wealthy waterfront homes of the Kennedys and their fellow neighbors of Hyannis.

Last we checked, they have (whomever they are) somehow managed to stop the Wind Farm installation in Nantucket Sound. Whether they've done so for the self-serving reasons of preserving their pristine backyard waterfront views or because they feel entitled to unfettered sailing throughout Nantucket Sound, despite the projected as substantial energy savings from such an effort, there are no Wind Farms in a body of water where they could do the most good and become a respected prototype to further our nation's goal of reducing our dependence on oil.

Is this yet another example of Al Gore, Teddy Kennedy (our prayers are still with him) and John Kerry forever telling us how we should behave, yet they're entitled to march to their own drummers?

Whatever.

The Fisker Karma: 0-60 in 5.8 seconds, but it's a hybrid

For those of us considering the purchase of a new car in the next six months and who are also paying special attention to the hybrids, this car in the video below is something to be considered - that is if you can wait until 2009 . . . and have a mere $80,000(US) to spend.

From Engadget:

For review, the Fisker Karma will do 0-60 in 5.8 seconds and top out at 150MPH via an electric / internal-combustion hybrid engine. Latest word is that the combustion engine portion is of Volkswagen build. Fisker is only saying that the engine is of German build, and we say, "gut!" -- let those external speakers roar!

Yes, Ann Coulter is to the Left what Al Gore is to the Right, but this was funny stuff

Although we try to remain apolitical on [:neon:] - we really do but it ain't easy sometimes - there have been occasions when we spoke our minds as equally ardent environmentalists yet told someone like Al Gore to just shut up. (here) Ever so respectfully, of course.

We also collectively read about 250+ blogs every day, some of them exclusively political, but the lists of sites from both the Left and the Right are pretty evenly split, 'cause all we really want are indications of what the aggregate buzz is at any particular moment on any one side.

Today, however, Matt Drudge has drawn our attention to conservative pundit Ann Coulter's latest column, and no matter what you may think of her, we just couldn't let her unique skills to turn-a-phrase go unnoticed.

If you'd care to read her entire post, you can find it here. But the particularly amusing comment, one which some might consider crude, is specifically the last sentence of the block quote below where she mentions you-know-who:

Clinton's vice president, Al Gore, lost an election that should have been his in a walk. In fact, he was the first incumbent president or vice president in 100 years to lose an election in peacetime with a good economy. Mind you, that was before we even knew that Gore was a deranged conspiracy theorist who believes the Earth is in serious peril from cow flatulence.

As we said, an interesting turn-of-the-phrase - and yes, we promise to find and post equally amusing bon mots from the Left hammering the Right - although vicious or cruel humor from either side will always be verboten.

Ethanol, biofuels, skyrocketing food prices, $4 per gallon @ the pumps and hey, where is Al Gore?

EDITORIAL

If you took a position that became untenable, unworkable, impractical and unpopular because you and your supporters had myopically failed to anticipate the full financial consequences of what you were recommending and the pain you were now causing, especially to poor folks, you probably wouldn't be available either.

We're talking about biofuels and the negative impact many are saying they're having on worldwide food supplies, as per The New York Sun:

“I don’t think anybody knows precisely how much ethanol contributes to the run-up in food prices, but the contribution is clearly substantial,” a professor of applied economics and law at the University of Minnesota, C. Ford Runge, said. A study by a Washington think tank, the International Food Policy Research Institute, indicated that between a quarter and a third of the recent hike in commodities prices is attributable to biofuels.

Last year, Mr. Runge and a colleague, Benjamin Senauer, wrote an article in Foreign Affairs, “How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor.”

“We were criticized for being alarmist at the time,” Mr. Runge said. “I think our views, looking back a year, were probably too conservative.”

So why is everyone looking for a statement from poor Mr. Gore?

“Crop-based biofuels are not part of the solution. They, in fact, add to the problem. Whether Al Gore has caught up with that, somebody ought to ask him,” the professor said.

Frankly, we're active environmentalists, recycling paper, plastic, batteries, ink cartridges, fluorescent lights, we're even buying hybrid vehicles, essentially taking whatever steps are necessary to do our part in preserving and protecting our environment.

But now, faced with $4 per gallon prices at the pumps, OPEC warning us of $200 a barrel for oil, warehouse clubs restricting sales of certain foods, articles detailing the unprecedented coming food shortages in the U.S., riots and death from rising food prices in the Caribbean, the domino effect that surging fuel prices have on air travel, weekly grocery bills and overall forced cutbacks in spending worldwide - as well as the mounting scientific challenges to and allegations against his environmental theories - at this point, we kind of think Al Gore should have just retired, maybe sit on the front porch of his estate smooching Tipper, do lunches with Leonardo DiCaprio or count chads.

Ouch?

Hey, if the above isn't sufficient proof that Al Gore has gotten it all wrong and that too many innocent and poor are now paying the price, then let's just wait for some more suffering, you know, just to be sure.

Bad attitudes: aren't doctors supposed to help protect and prolong life?

EDITORIAL

Some doctors' attitudes toward the elderly can too often hurt the elderly

Something every son or daughter of elderly parents may or may not be aware of is an attitude some doctors may have toward their elderly patients, especially when they say to you, "what difference does it make, he's in his eighties."

Having unfortunately heard similar comments from two leading physicians in New York City regarding my own elderly father prompted first a disbelief and a lot of hurt that any physician could take such a calloused view of any patient, then an anger as to what right they thought they had to play God, so to speak.

And even more alarming was that one of the two doctors said it directly to my father  . . . "hey, what do you expect, you're XX years old," with a smile, as if it was some sort of punchline to a funny joke and a risk Dad had to accept rather than a condition that could be corrected.

Then I rather emotionally thought, it's no wonder so many elderly are diagnosed as clinically depressed - and one possible reason for the alarming rise in elderly suicides.

Having long been a champion for elderly rights in health care - where too many in that otherwise wonderful field possess similar beliefs - you find yourself fighting for the elderly you love on an almost daily basis.

Well, in this video below, one of Fox News' regular medical contributors makes some powerful points when he stresses that doctors should develop a much stronger gerontology skill set rather than take the attitude mentioned above, something he may have apparently witnessed as well.

Thank goodness my father is now under the watchful and caring care of some wonderful physicians here in Boston at the equally wonderful Massachusetts General Hospital, so I'll leave you with a comment he made quite innocently but rather poignantly to one of his specialists last week: "what I'm hoping for is that I live long enough for you guys to find the cure."

Thankfully, these doctors seem to want the same thing.

No, not everyone is always on their computer, their cell phone or messaging

EDUCATION

Of all the activites that kids under the age of 21 could spend their spare time on, using Metal Detectors to look for historical artifacts in an open cornfield on a cold but sunny New England afternoon would probably not have been the first to come to mind.

But this older brother, younger brother teamed up together somewhere in Massachusetts and recorded their experience in a video that is remarkably unique for three reasons: one, how smart, as in seemingly well-educated and well-spoken/quite articulate they both appeared to be; two, how focused/dedicated they both were and three, how enthusiastic they each seemed to be with each new find.

Kudos to the brothers and double kudos to their parents. Kind of reminds you of years past when kids didn't have iPods, cellphones, computers, Facebook or MySpace, let alone the Internet and instead opted to spend as much time as they could finding things to do . . . outside.

What a concept!

Find more videos like this on www.truveo.com.

Ever hear (or see) a baby Panda . . . sneeze?

Now, it's already been viewed more than six and a half million times, and only lasts 14 seconds, but watch very carefully at around the 9 second mark, the baby Panda scares the living daylights out of its mother with a disproportionately loud sneeze for its diminutive size.

It's an awfully gosh darn cute thing to see.

The New England Aquarium: getting educated by nature

TRAVEL

Having been to Sea World and The Bronx Zoo, two outstanding sea life/wildlife attractions, we're about to forge forth to Boston's New England Aquarium.

We'll take whatever videos and stills we can and give you a non-commercial tour as soon as these arrangements can be made, but in the meantime, here's a video that wonderfully gives us the flavor of what's in store.

Oh, and make sure you catch the Sea Lion actually being trained to talk a phrase somewhere around 1:20 into the video.

SONY's NWZ-A820: will it help turn around the once respected company?

EDITORIAL/PRODUCT REVIEW

In the interests of full disclosure, we should probably say that our beloved Head Geek does not like SONY as a company or its products, all due to a long series of problems he personally experienced from a multitude of purchases he made over the past ten years, so please do not expect any contempt, anger or disdain for SONY to be hidden from any discussion in this post.

However, there are some newsworthy goings-on with their Europe-only release this week of their alleged iPod killer, the NWZ-A820 Walkman.

Not to take a thing away from Apple's clear marketing genius and superior quality control, but until Apple came along, SONY was the clear leader in both home and personal electronics creativity and quality. The fact that SONY failed to prepare for, let alone provide for, any competition for Apple and their iPod is more of a testament to SONY's hubris than to iPod's absolute, unquestionable genius and product success.

But SONY's arrogance, clearly evident in many of its past warranties and too-often contemptuous treatment of its consumers in post-sale Customer Service - - - not to mention its music and video library paranoia when their allegedly stealth DRM and copyright management software controls were alleged to have been surreptitiously loaded onto consumer PCs and allegedly caused substantial damage to many a hard drive (including one of Head Geek's PCs) - - - all of which subsequently lost SONY a long, very positive rep in the U.S..

That said, it's probably not surprising SONY chose to make the release of their NWZ-A820 this month only in Europe, and what we have below is a video of someone opening and demonstrating a pre-release version of the NWZ-A820 somewhere in the U.K., giving us a better chance to see just how competitively toxic this could be to Apple.

Although it appears Apple has absolutely nothing to worry about, we'll nevertheless be real sports and await this gentleman's follow-up review to more fully crow.

NOTE: Even in the Press Release provided to and found in respected tech blogger Engadget, SONY has yet to announce its price points for the model.