“As is everything in Vegas, the FleurBurger 5000 is over the top with a hefty price tag of $5,000.00…… It is a Kobe burger containing foie gras, a special truffle sauce, and is served on a brioche truffle bun with black truffles on the side. The burger is served with a bottle of Chateau Petrus 1990 poured in Ichendorf Brunello stemware (you get to keep the stemware) imported from Italy, and a certificate of authenticity will be mailed to your home………” Trend Hunter
From 2001 to 2009, the average annual number of vehicle-miles traveled by people ages 16-34 dropped 23 percent, from 10,300 to 7,900, the survey found. Gen Y-ers, also known as Millennials, tend to ride bicycles, take public transit and rely on virtual media.
More than a quarter of Millennials – 26 percent – lacked a driver’s license in 2010, up 5 percentage points from 2000, the Federal Highway Administration reported. Yahoo
Since Bonneville Dam outside Portland was built in 1938, there have been plenty of times there weren’t 38,000 sockeye salmon swimming over the fish ladders in a whole year. But on Monday that many passed the Columbia River dam, and another 41,000 swam over the dam on Wednesday — a rate of nearly 30 a minute. That bought the total so far to 290,000.A record run of more than 400,000 of the Columbia Basin’s farthest-swimming salmon are expected to return this year, almost all of them wild fish bred in rivers, instead of the hatcheries that produce most Northwest salmon.
Biologists credit habitat improvements in the Okanagan Basin of northern Washington and Canada, improved dam operations, and favorable ocean conditions for the numbers. Okanagan sockeye swim more than 500 mils to spawn. Yahoo
Environment and development charities say the Rio+20 agreement is too weak to tackle social and environmental crises. Gro Harlem Brundtland, author of a major UN sustainable development report 25 years ago, said corporate power was one reason for lack of progress.The UN had billed the summit as a “once in a generation chance” to turn the global economy onto a sustainable track. “It absolutely did not do that,” said Barbara Stocking, chief executive of Oxfam GB. BBC News
“The recent disclosure of the Sierra Club’s secret acceptance of $26 million in donations from people associated with a natural gas company has revived an uncomfortable debate among environmental groups about corporate donations and transparency….The gifts from the company, Chesapeake Energy, have drawn criticism from some environmentalists. “Sleeping with the enemy” was a comment much forwarded on Twitter posts about the undisclosed arrangement.” ZBLOG
(from yahoo) “Women march in Rio to protest ‘green economy’”
AN EXCERPT: Thousands of women representing social and farm movements marched in central Rio Monday to rail against the “green economy” advocated by the Rio+20 conference on sustainable development…Behind a large banner from the international peasant movement Via Campesina proclaiming “the peoples are against the mercantilization of nature”, they marched several miles to the Flamengo park, the venue for the “People’s Summit” organized by civil society groups on the sidelines of the Rio+20 event…Several hundred men closed off the march to show their solidarity….Perched atop a truck fitted with loudspeakers, a female activist howled: “This is a march of urban and rural women against this Rio+20 charade.”
“No to green capitalism! Yes to an economy based on solidarity, yes to people’s sovereignty,” she added. ZBLOG
(from msnbc) ‘At National Parks, where are all the young people?’
AN EXCERPT: At Rocky Mountain National Park in Colorado, rangers are seeing more than green this spring. They’re also noticing a little more gray. The average visitor to national parks is getting older. Cyclist John O’Malley, 61, of Summit County, Colo., has enjoyed the trails for almost half a century.
“You do get close to nature,” Malley said.
But apparently, not everyone shares that fondness anymore…Back in 1996, at Death Valley National Park, almost a third of visitors were in their 20s. But in the last few years, that number has dropped to just 11 percent at Yosemite and six percent at Yellowstone, according to a University of Idaho analysis of Park Service attendance figures. ZBLOG
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Don’t forget the Zephyr ads! All links are hot!
Kobe beef is not imported into the US. It’s just false use of a name. But if someone wants to blow their money on a hamburger, I guess its their choice.