New York Times Everyone in the red state is piling on the redesign of the oval office, complaining it is not patriotic enough, even though George Bush took Bill Clinton's red, white and blue garish extravaganza and turned it into a muted southern living room (and lost the red, white and blue) showing more taste than patriotism. But since...Read the full story on TreeHugger

photo: Phillie Casablanca via flickr New York City has recently come under fire from rainforest advocates, and rightfully so: The City is the country's number one buyer of endangered rainforest wood. However, as The New York Times reports, a movement is underway to replace the 127 year old bridge's 11,000 tropical ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo via Weather.com After weeks of persistent flooding, the UN now estimates that at least a full one-fifth of Pakistan -- a nation of 170 million people -- is underwater. And the New York Times reports that estimate is probably lowballing the full extent of the damage. 1,600 people are believed to have been killed, and 14 million have been either forced out of their homes or been impacted in some way. The tragedy has gotten so out of h...Read the full story on TreeHugger

New York Times food writer Mark Bittman, when asked what one needs in a kitchen, responded "A stove, a sink, a refrigerator, some pots and pans, a knife and some serving spoons," I answered. "All else is optional." Clearly he never heard of the Smoking Gun, yet another one of those single-purpose kitchen devices, albeit with a great name, that kitchens have had to grow vast to accommodate. ...Read the full story on TreeHugger

Photo credit Gulmammad under Creative Commons license. It was an 800-pound butter sculpture of Ben Franklin that led researchers to decide dairy-to-diesel was even a possibility, according to this report in the New York Times. Organizers of the Pennsylvania Farm Show that put up the Franklin butter sculpture in 2007 solicited ideas for what to do with all that yellow (rapidly going rancid) stuff once the show was over. Biochemist Dr. Michael J. Haas of the United States Department o...Read the full story on TreeHugger