A new book, called "Time to Eat the Dog: The Real Guide to Sustainable Living" suggests that man's best friend might not be best for the environment. The article states the following:

The Vales, specialists in sustainable living at Victoria University of Wellington, analysed popular brands of pet food and calculated that a medium-sized dog eats around 164 kilos (360 pounds) of meat and 95 kilos of cereal a year.
Combine the land required to generate its food and a "medium" sized dog has an annual footprint of 0.84 hectares (2.07 acres) -- around twice the 0.41 hectares required by a 4x4 driving 10,000 kilometres (6,200 miles) a year, including energy to build the car.

To be honest, I was not buying into this at first, but they later said that the researchers sent there results to the Stockholm Environment Institute and there results were essentially the same. The same results said that:

Cats have an eco-footprint of about 0.15 hectares, slightly less than driving a Volkswagen Golf for a year, while two hamsters equates to a plasma television and even the humble goldfish burns energy equivalent to two mobile telephones.

A couple of days ago, the Rasmussen survey group released poll results for the following question, "In order to support their own theories and beliefs about global warming, how likely is it that some scientists have falsified research data" Their results stated the following

According to their survey, 35 percent believed that it was "very likely," 24 percent thought it was "somewhat likely," 21 percent thought it was "not very likely," 5 percent thought it was "not likely at all" and 15 percent were unsure.

But, apparently this was not enough for Fox news, who in turn "falsified" the results (ironic, right) and stated in big bold letters the following in their news cast.


Here is a little tip for the people over at Fox news. I am in a Statistics class in high school, and the first thing that we learn when going over surveys and there responses is that, and I am quoting our book for this, " When interpreting polls, all results when calculated into percent form, should add up to about 100% when taking into consideration the % margin of error." Now if they had said something like, "This survey has a 20-25% margin of error" then this wouldn't be a problem, but the original data had no % error listed. The part that just makes you want to laugh is the fact that this data that they listed for the results on a poll asking of people think that scientists falsified data, and this data itself is falsified. I guess it is just one of those things that makes you think, "Wow, I know better than these morons, and they get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year"

Time for a laugh break. This must hurt.

Goldman Sachs took a lot of heat a while ago when they gave their executives huge multi-million dollar bonuses despite receiving bail-out money from the government. They apparently are changing the bonuses for the top 30 people and instead of giving them out right cash, they are instead receiving stock. The catch is that they will be letting the stockholders vote on there bonuses, so in theory the shareholders could vote to give the Exec's nothing. which would be very embarrassing for the company.

Thomas Friedman was on The Daily Show last night to promote his book, Hot, Flat, And Crowded 2.0. It is the exact same as the original, except it is in paperback. While on the show, he talks about how he had just had a lunch that day with President Obama and a bunch of other opinion columnists (sea bass, really?). He tried to make a Salahi joke (gets beaten to it) and talks about how at the lunch President Obama was trying to get his ideas out to them beforehand and in a more private venue. Friedman also talks about how Obama never used the word "surge" at the lunch, and how really 30k more troops won't make that much of a difference at what they are trying to do, which is basically to clear, hold, and build. Friedman also says that he really doesn't think that this somewhat small troop increase will work to meet those goals. He also stated that he really doesn't care for fish, in particular sea bass.