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John Hinderaker has a post on the growing availability of oil.
… So for thirty-eight years, our government has been predicting the demise of fossil fuel energy and subsidizing, to varying degrees but amounting cumulatively to many billions of dollars, solar and wind energy. What has the result been?
This chart tells the story. It plots global energy consumption from 1965 to the present; you can see the contributions of solar and wind power as a virtually straight line, approximating zero, across the bottom of the graph: …
… The world’s energy story is almost all about developing coal, oil and natural gas resources. Nuclear energy makes a contribution, although it is severely limited by hostility from so-called environmentalists and most of the world’s governments. Solar and wind are a joke, existing mainly because they provide opportunities for graft. And nothing about this picture has changed since 1977.
Road & Track on how to get the best rental car.
Consider this: Whenever you plan a trip, you spend hours poring over the details. The right hotel location and amenities. Which airline to fly. Restaurants, excursions, nightlife. Yet after you’ve done all of that, you select the cheapest rental car you can find and accept whatever happens. What’s that about?
You can do much better. How do I know? I’m on the road for work more than 40 weeks a year. I’ve landed at 76 different airports in the United States, and, in the past five years, I’ve rented nearly 150 cars. For me, travel isn’t just an activity, it’s a way of life. So when I see people making mistakes with their travel planning, I feel obligated to help. Here are some pointers and rules that will keep you in the best cars at any rental agency.
Pick Your Own Car
Whenever possible, you should choose a rental car agency that allows you to pick your own car—either a specific model when you make your reservation, or from a much wider selection upon arrival. Otherwise, you stand a good chance of getting a Sonic LS just because the attendant behind the counter is having a bad day. Hertz is the only company that allows you to pick a specific model online when you make a reservation, but it’s only from the class that you’ve paid for—no upgrades.
The best option: Several companies have special programs that give you a choice of cars at larger locations upon arrival, including National’s Emerald Aisle and Hertz’s Gold Choice. You can sign up to be a member of their reward programs at no cost to you. Once you do, you can pay the midsize rate and then you’re free to select any car that they have in their Emerald Aisle or Gold Choice areas. With National, after 12 annual rentals, you get bumped up to Executive, which gives you an additional row of upgraded vehicles to choose from. This can often mean an upgrade of two or three car classes for no additional charge. It’s not uncommon for me to make a reservation for an intermediate car—think Sentra or Corolla—and drive out in a premium Explorer Limited or a Cadillac CTS. …
Telegraph, UK on why other checkout lines move faster. And gives tips on picking.
… How to choose the best queue:
Pick a queue that is mostly men they are less patient than women and more likely to give up
Veer to the left most people are right-handed so we have a natural inclination to turn right. Do the opposite, queues on the left may be emptier
Avoid the supermarket express lane what dictates speed is the number of people in front of you, not the number of items they are buying
Select a cash-only queue. Studies show cash is quickest
Don’t overthink it sometimes you are best off just joining the queue with fewest people in it
Smithsonian on how monster pumpkins are grown.
Waiting in line for their weigh-in, a plethora of lumpy, pale pumpkins sag on their pallets like deflated balloons. But to become a world heavyweight champion, looks don’t really matter. When it comes to this competition, decades of intense selective breeding have banished the petite, perfectly ovoid and brilliantly orange fruits with a focus on one exclusive trait: massive size.
Every year, an international community of giant-pumpkin farmers loads up beastly gourds on trailers, carting them to local fairs and weigh-ins for a chance at the title.
The size of these pumpkins is unimaginably large to me—I can barely grow tomatoes without making heart-breaking tears through their delicate flesh, innards dripping to the ground. So I went to scientists and competitive pumpkin growers to ask this burning question: How do you make a monster pumpkin?
The current world record is held by Beni Meier, a Swiss accountant by day, who grew a pumpkin that weighs in at 2,323.7 pounds, roughly the same amount as a small car. …
Whadayaknow? The governments advice to avoid whole milk was wrong. Investor’s Business Daily is first on the subject.
If you look up “whole milk” in the government’s official Dietary Guidelines, it states pretty definitively that people should only drink skim or 1% milk. “If you currently drink whole milk,” it says, “gradually switch to lower fat versions.”
This is the same advice the government has been issuing for many years. And it’s wrong.
Research published in recent years shows that people “might have been better off had they stuck with whole milk,” according to a front-page story in the Washington Post on Wednesday. “People who consumed more milk fat had lower incidence of heart disease.”
The story goes on to note that the government’s push for Americans to eat a high-carb diet “provokes a number of heart disease risk factors.” …
Many more details from WaPo’s Peter Whoriskey. Remember, never trust the government. It’s run by A students. You know, the ones who sat in the front row.
U.S. dietary guidelines have long recommended that people steer clear of whole milk, and for decades, Americans have obeyed. Whole milk sales shrunk. It was banned from school lunch programs. Purchases of low-fat dairy climbed.
“Replace whole milk and full-fat milk products with fat-free or low-fat choices,” says the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, the federal government’s influential advice book, citing the role of dairy fat in heart disease.
Whether this massive shift in eating habits has made anyone healthier is an open question among scientists, however. In fact, research published in recent years indicates that the opposite might be true: millions might have been better off had they stuck with whole milk.
Scientists who tallied diet and health records for several thousand patients over ten years found, for example, that contrary to the government advice, people who consumed more milk fat had lower incidence of heart disease.
By warning people against full-fat dairy foods, the United States is “losing a huge opportunity for the prevention of disease,” said Marcia Otto, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Texas and the lead author of large studies published in 2012 and 2013, which were funded by government and academic institutions, not the industry. “What we have learned over the last decade is that certain foods that are high in fat seem to be beneficial.” …