Greg In The Desert

• Critics oppose Border Patrol herbicide plan – The Border Patrol plans to poison vegetation along more than a mile of the Rio Grande riverbank in Texas to eliminate the dense foliage used as hiding places by illegal immigrants and smugglers.

  The Houston Chronicle reports opponents of the action compare it to the Vietnam War-era Agent Orange chemical program and say it could have harmful long-term effects.

• We Put Pepsi’s New Aquafina Product To The Test – I’m concerned that Pepsi decided to promote its new “eco-friendly” product by proactively shipping, via Fedex overnight, 5 lb boxes of the water to press around the country. And then sending a second batch either in error or to reinforce the message. That’s not very eco-friendly (if anyone knows the carbon cost of sending these boxes, let me know, then multiply it by hundreds or thousands of press). It all seems a little wasteful.
• China tells U.S. to drop Cold War mindset on military | Reuters – hina on Thursday slammed a Pentagon report on its growing military might, saying criticism of China's lack of transparency betrayed Washington's "Cold War" mindset and risked damaging ties.

  China had complained to Washington about the annual report, which was released on Wednesday, because it distorted the truth and amounted to meddling in China's affairs, Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told a scheduled news conference.

• Aided by Safety Nets, Europe Resists Stimulus Push – NYTimes.com – The Europeans say they have no need for further stimulus right now because their social safety nets, derided in good times by free market disciples as sclerotic impediments to growth, are automatically providing the spending programs that the United States Congress has to legislate.

  Europe’s extensive job protections and unemployment benefits are “bad in the upswing, because firms don’t dare to hire people, because then they are glued to them,” said Hans-Werner Sinn, president of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich. “In the downswing, it’s good if the people are glued to the companies. They keep their jobs. They keep their income. They keep consuming.”

• Toy story: The Lego renaissance | Life and style | The Guardian – Never mind the recession – Lego is now so popular that there are 62 little coloured blocks for every person on the planet. Yet only five years ago this family business was on the brink of ruin. Jon Henley reports from the Danish town where it all began.
• Canon PowerShot SX 1 IS Review: 17. Conclusion: Digital Photography Review – But cameras don't exist only on spec sheets or web pages. Once in hand, the SX1 IS cannot deliver on the promise of the CMOS sensor (which Canon is known for in their EOS range of DSLR cameras). Image quality, while not terrible is actually slightly worse then the much cheaper SX10 IS, and high ISO noise performance is firmly in compact territory. As much as it tries to be DSLR junior, as soon as you see the images you know that it is not. Even though there is RAW mode to give you control over image processing, it offers no more dynamic range, just control over white balance and the amount of noise reduction and sharpening.
• Pizza-making machine has chefs in a spin | Oddly Enough | Reuters – A vending machine that bakes fresh pizza in minutes for a few euros has got Italian chefs in a whirl before it hits the streets in the coming weeks.

  The bright-red "Let's Pizza" machine uses infra-red rays and technology developed at the University of Bologna to knead flour and water into dough, spread it with tomato sauce and a choice of topping, and cook it — all in less than three minutes.

• Police identify 200 children as potential terrorists – Crime, UK – The Independent – He said the "Channel project" had intervened in the cases of at least 200 children who were thought to be at risk of extremism, since it began 18 months ago. The number has leapt from 10 children identified by June 2008.

  Two hundred schoolchildren in Britain, some as young as 13, have been identified as potential terrorists by a police scheme that aims to spot youngsters who are "vulnerable" to Islamic radicalisation. The programme, run by the Association of Chief Police Officers, asks teachers, parents and other community figures to be vigilant for signs that may indicate an attraction to extreme views or susceptibility to being "groomed" by radicalisers. Sir Norman, whose force covers the area in which all four 7 July 2005 bombers grew up, said: "What will often manifest itself is what might be regarded as racism and the adoption of bad attitudes towards 'the West'.

• Fancy shelling out £5,000 for a 400-year-old stale egg? | Mail Online – Its mother has long since departed the scene. As, indeed, has its entire species.

  But this giant egg is a great survivor. It was laid around 400 years ago by one of the great elephant birds of Madagascar.

• Elephant Bird – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia – The elephant birds, which were giant ratites native to Madagascar, have been extinct since at least the 17th century. Étienne de Flacourt, governor of Madagascar recorded frequent sightings of elephant birds. Aepyornis was the world's largest bird, believed to have been over 3 metres (10 ft) tall and weighing close to half a ton (400 kilograms (880 lb)).[2] Remains of Aepyornis adults and eggs have been found; in some cases the eggs have a circumference of over 1 metre (3 ft) and a length up to 34 centimetres (13 in).[3] The egg volume is about 160 times greater than a chicken egg.

I wanted to take my Girlfriend and her boys to Carlsbad Caverns since none of them had been. I had been there once before. Since her sister lived in El Paso we decided to visit here for a day and go to Carlsbad the next day. I had never been to El Paso before and was expecting a dirty run down city. Being so close to the Mexico border and Juarez, Mexico. What I found there was a city bigger than Albuquerque and very historic.

The trip down Interstate 25 from Albuquerque to El Paso has nothing interesting to see. But it only takes about 4 hours. In El Paso you can see Mexico from the freeway. The Rio Grand is the border between Mexico and the US, and the river isn’t that wide at the border. Looking at the Mexican side of the border you see a lot of brightly painted houses and small streets. I can imagine what the US side looks like to the Mexicans with our tall buildings for shopping and industry. As if were mocking them with our prosperity.

We did not go into Juarez and the people we met there hadn’t been either/ They mostly told me that there wasn’t much there unless you want to go and party. On the next visit I don’t plan to go either. However on the next trip I hope to stay longer and check out the more historic parts of down town El Paso. On our way out of town there was a border patrol stop. It was interesting that it was there as it was. I wonder if they have one on every exit out of town. They just asked us if we were all Americans and then sent us on our way. It was a mostly boring ride down highway 62/180. But there was some interesting parts like Salt Flat, TX the Guadalupe Mountains National Park. El Captain is visible along the drive. Along the drive I saw quite a few abandoned gas stations and hotels. I often see them along I-40 when I drive to Arizona. I suppose there was a time in the early 1900’s that cars were less capable and it took longer to get from place to place so people needed to stay at hotels along the way.

The Caverns are just south of Carlsbad New Mexico. Prices are reasonable at the cave and they don’t charge for parking. It’s a long into the main part of the cave, half of which is just walking down. But don’t worry there’s is a elevator to take you back up. Bats live in the cave. At night there is a sitting area where people can watch the mass exodus. We did not stay to see that.

The drive back was the most horrible. I figure it takes 6 hours to get to Carlsbad going south of it via El Paso. There are no major high ways into Carlsbad and going north you have to take smaller state roads where the speed limit is 55-65 MPH. This makes a big difference on how long it takes and it must have taken us 9 hours to get back. Our route was north to Roswell the west to I-25. Since you pass through many towns along the way that slows you down even more, and just before we reached I-25 it seems like we had been driving for ever. Which we had. These sort of trips remind me that there was a time when people rode horse through this country with no road or stops along the way. There was some stuff to look at along the way and they were thinking I was lost. I kept assuring them I wasn’t lost, it just was taking a long time.

Lincoln New Mexico was in between Roswell and i-25. I had no idea this place even existed. There is a It is certainly a historic town, nestled in the middle of Lincoln Nation Forest. This National Forest is the birthplace of Smokey the Bear. If we ever go to Carlsbad again, for my Family’s sake I will drive south through El Paso