Apartment Therapy Re-Nest - posts by ryan

Apartment Therapy Re-Nest - posts by ryan

How about an OPEN SOURCE GOVERNMENT??

Open question to the Obama crew...

T. Pitre,
10 November, 2008

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Coal...Clean...no cleaner...Green? No....

http://www.inhabitat.com/2008/11/06/is-it-green-clean-coal/?rss

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Open Letter to the President-Elect by Michael Pollan: Farmer in Chief

Open Letter to the President-Elect by Michael Pollan: Farmer in Chief

produce natural gas from the methane

San Antonio, Texas will be the first city in the United States to produce natural gas from the methane that comes from the poop of its residents on a large, profitable scale. Our excrement is being more technically referred to as “biosolids” by the companies and agencies involved in the project. And the project is by no means a joke.

San Antonio signed a deal with a Massachusetts company that will make the city’s waste into natural gas. According to the principal operator of the city’s water system, Steve Clouse, “the private vendor will come onto the facility, construct some gas cleaning systems, remove the moisture, remove the carbon dioxide content, and then sell that gas on the open market.” The gas will then be sold to companies who can use it in power plants and fuel furnaces.

The most impressive thing of all about this decision is that more than 90% of the city’s toilet and sink water will be recycled. Some of San Antonio’s waste water is already used for irrigation. Some of the solids are used for compost.

The company that will make the plan a reality is called Ameresco, who’s website uses the slogan: “Connect to smarter energy solutions.” The company won a prestigious award from the government of Massachusetts earlier this year for a project that saves Bridgewater State College $1 million annually in energy costs. The project involved upgrades to numerous college facilities as well as the college’s air conditioning system. It also utilizes a water conservation initiative.

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Biomass fuel

************************* Gasoline produced from biomass could be in fuel tanks by 2010 with new technology PhysOrg.com Aug. 19, 2008 ************************* Texas A&M University scientists have developed a process to make converting biomass to high-octane gasoline possible, at $1.70 and $2.00 per gallon. Biomass includes garbage, biosolids from wastewater treatment plants, green waste such as lawn clippings, food waste, and any type of livestock manure. Additionally, since it does not use crops... http://www.kurzweilai.net/email/newsRedirect.html?newsID=9248&m=44681 

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Education and Cheating.

Dear Abby:

My husband and I recently retired from teaching at a highly rated, competitive Midwestern public school. Cheating was rampant, from copying homework to text-messaging during tests in the classroom. When confronted, the cheaters were surprised and usually asserted that "everyone else does it." And they were right.

Cheating occurs in the classroom, in sports, in extra-curricular activities and in the hallways, and has become more acceptable among students than ever before. Teachers are practically powerless to control it; administrators seem to have no idea how to handle it. Parents don't want to get involved for fear of angering their children, and a strong leader may be "asked" to back down from pursuing it.

My husband and I tried many times to make students understand that what they were doing or thinking was wrong and needed to be corrected, only to be met with an incredulous stare, a sneer perhaps, and then, "Can I go now?" We began asking ourselves that same question and realized last year that WE "could go now" -- and we did. More of our time was spent trying to teach moral values and ethics and less was spent on the required curriculum.


DEAR ABBY: In recent years it seems cheating is encouraged by parents. I have seen it when teaching Sunday school to seventh-graders. The father of one of the Scouts in our local Scout troop even called cheating "just a form of competitive advantage."

For a long time I have carried a quote in my wallet that is my favorite saying: "Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter." The person who said it was the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.

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Why we should buy from local farmers

Why we should buy from local farmers:
http://www.gardenmandy.com/real-reasons-why-we-should-buy-from-local-farmers/

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Tuk-Tuks

Tuk-Tuk is the sound these make when they run.

In July 1998, the Supreme Court of India ordered the Delhi government to implement CNG or LPG (Autogas) fuel for all autos and for the entire bus fleet in and around the city. Delhi observed a dramatic improvement in the quality of air with the switch to CNG, and this is important for a city where it is not uncommon to see pedestrians and drivers wearing nurse's masks for protection against the prevalent city smog. Initially, auto rickshaw drivers in Delhi had to wait in long queues to get their CNG cylinders re-filled, but the situation has improved drastically with the rise of filling stations that sell CNG. Certain other local governments are also pushing for four-stroke engines instead of the current two-stroke versions. Typical mileage for an Indian-made auto rickshaw is around 35 kilometres per litre of petrol (about 2.9 L per 100 km, or 82 miles per gallon). Cambodian tuk-tuks are one piece.

They are the front end of a motorcycle comprising of steering, tank and engine/gearbox with a covered tray mounted at the back. The power is transferred by chain to an axle mounted to the modified rear fork which drives the two rear wheels. Suspended upon the rear fork is an open cabin with an in-line seat on each side. This arrangement can carry 6 people at ease, with their luggage in the leg space. It is not unusual to see these vehicles greatly overloaded, especially in outer suburbs and around markets. We recently reported on the unfortunate demise of the Bajaj 3-wheeler from the American market due to slow sales. Happily, a new brand of funky 3-wheelers is set to make its debut in the U.S. by way of Thailand. T

Tuk Tuk North America (TTNA) reports that its vehicles are currently undergoing EPA and NHTSA testing for road-use approval, though its line of trikes is reportedly already for sale for off-road use. Available in a number of passenger, cargo and truck body styles, the Tuk Tuk comes equipped with either a 200cc or 650cc version of a newly-designed, liquid-cooled four-stroke powerplant. This replaces the original two-stroker from which the vehicle received its funny-sounding name. TTNA also reports that its vehicles are available with both automatic and manual transmissions. Interestingly, the options page of the TTNA site shows an LPG kit which would convert the engine to run on dual fuels -- both liquefied petroleum and gasoline. http://www.tuktuknorthamerica.com/ Some of the models available have a Mitsubishi 650cc, water cooled gasoline engine that gets mid 50 mpg.

Economics

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?c...

Global Research, July 16, 2008

With the economic news of the week of July 14—the continuing crisis among mortgage lenders, the onset of bank failures, the announced downsizing of General Motors, the slide of the Dow-Jones below 11,000—we are seeing the ongoing collapse of the U.S. economy.

Even the super-rich are becoming nervous as cries for an emergency suspension of short selling ring out.

What is really taking place, however, is that the producing economy of working men and women is being crushed by the overall debt burden on households, businesses, and governments that could reach $70 trillion by 2010. The financial system, including mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, is bankrupt, as the debts it is based on cannot be repaid.

This is because the producing economy of people who work for a living simply can no longer generate enough purchasing power for people either to pay their debts or allow them to purchase what is being sold in the marketplace. In turn it is the debt burden and the loss of societal purchasing power that are crashing the stock market. Thus the collapse of the financial economy has started to destroy the producing economy as well.

It’s a “perfect storm,” the result of a 200-year-old financial system where money is largely created by bank lending and where since 1980 our industry and jobs have been increasingly outsourced abroad to cheap labor markets. Thus domestic incomes have stagnated while the nation’s GDP has not been able to keep up with the exponential growth of debt.

While the mainstream media are blind, deaf, and dumb as to the causes, the victims within the middle and working classes are seeing their livelihoods ruined, jobs taken away, pensions eroded, homes foreclosed on, and are being saddled with ever-increasing debt and forced to work under more and more stress due to rising burdens of taxation, gas and food price inflation, and bureaucratic rules and regulations. The only places a more-or-less normal life may still be possible will be the wealthiest imperial centers like Washington, New York, Houston, Chicago, or San Francisco.

All that the current bailouts being engineered by the Federal Reserve are doing is to create more debt to shore up failing financial institutions. No new wealth is being created. It’s band-aids on band-aids.

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The best-laid plants

A humble backyard garden yields no eco snobbery -- just the promise of good pie.

By Karen Stabiner
July 2, 2008

Real estate prices may be slipping, but the back section of our lot has to be worth its weight in, well, fuel. In the last eight weeks, that part of the yard has become home to include a dozen stalks of corn, 10 tomato plants, a bed of wild strawberries, wild and civilized arugula, two rhubarb plants, Italian parsley and thyme.

I am not a first-wave environmentalist. My Prius does not sport a carpool-access key on its bumper because I bought it only when gas topped $4 a gallon, long after the key allotment had been used up. I cannot say that I planted all this food because organic strawberries fetch almost $5 a basket and lettuce can barely recall the good old days when it was worth merely $1 a head. Or maybe I did. Maybe my subconscious totaled up the price of our dinner salad, or balked at $2 for a bunch of wilted herbs, and nudged me toward the seedling guy at the farmers' market. Price resistance is a big issue in retail, where people who still have jobs get paid to figure out how many customers they'll lose if they price a computer at $1,000 instead of $999.99. Spewing twenties at the market every Sunday morning seems finally to have caught up with me.

Food is expensive because it is hemmed in by fuel on both sides. The escalating price of gasoline means that shipping costs more. Forget the South American produce we shouldn't eat because its carbon footprint is the size of a clown shoe. Even the local produce we are supposed to eat has to get here -- in a truck that runs on gas -- from up the 5 or out the 101. As if that weren't trouble enough, the ethanol craze has farmers pulling up what we eat and planting corn that we may someday put in our cars. Less supply, stable demand: You get the expensive picture.

I suppose I could strike a politically correct stance, hoe in one hand, organic fertilizer in the other, and say that I planted the yard as a small gesture of rebellion, one woman's dinner-time revolt against oil dependence. To pull that off, I would need to be doing much more.

For starters, I would have to have a serious talk with the family dog about exactly how much lawn she needs. In a spasm of responsibility last year, we tore up the frontyard and put in a xeriscape -- again, not because we are pure of heart but because the grass was ugly, the water required to make it less ugly seemed excessive, and drought-resistant plants are hard to kill, even with benign neglect. I can't devote the entire backyard to produce: A dog needs a spot where a dog can be a dog.

In truth, I am not interested in self-sufficiency. For me, part of doing the right thing involves supporting the growers who populate the farmers' markets and who are as stuck in the fuel crunch as I am. I like talking to Moe, the dried-fruit guy, about our grown children, and I like giving his sidekick a hard time about not having voted in the presidential primary. I like peppers and asparagus and potatoes and cauliflower and nectarines and all the other things I have neither the room nor the inclination to plant. I run a kindergarten operation and I know it: Entry-level growing for the beginner, crops that are as close to foolproof as possible.

I anticipate enough yield this year for a couple of corn puddings and some nice heirloom tomato salads, and my goal is to have enough rhubarb and strawberries, simultaneously, for one grand, lattice-topped pie.

With luck, my limited harvest will keep me from being insufferably smug about my commitment to Mother Earth while enabling me to feel ever so slightly superior to the woman ahead of me at the grocery store, whose apples have almost enough frequent-flier miles for a free cross-country trip.

Karen Stabiner is the editor of the anthology "The Empty Nest." She is writing a comic novel about college admissions.

Should Government Aircraft Spray Chemicals on Residential Areas?

By Aaron Rowe June 15, 2008 | 5:25:09 PMCategories: Biotechnology, Chem Lab, Environment, Health, Politics  

Note to the government: When you unilaterally send aircraft to spray unfamiliar chemicals over residential areas, the public will get very worried.

Environmental activists will pick through mounds of official documents in an attempt to make sense of what you are doing: Will it affect our health?

Since material safety data sheets can make even the most benign molecules sound terrifically dangerous, vigilant citizens will express their concern about rather innocuous substances -- damaging their credibility with the scientists who should listen to their objections -- and making it hard to sort out any real threats. In some cases, the wording of those documents is so alarming that it could give activists reason to believe that the spraying is part of a mind control program.

Excerpt from LBAMspray.com:

Check this MSDS from Dupont one of the 3 ingredients listed includes "1,2-BENZISOTHIAZOLIN-3-ONE" which is in LBAM-F. See Page 2 under "Potential Health Effects" "SIGNS AND SYMPTOMS EFFECTS OF ACUTE OVEREXPOSURE: High oral doses can cause apathy (lack of feeling or emotion)."

Even if you have the best intentions, to eradicate a tiny moth that could destroy dozens of fruit crops, be prepared to explain your plans, and seek the approval of the public, before getting started with such a controversial program.

Example

Early last year, the California Department of Food and Agriculture became aware that light brown apple moths, Australian pests, had reached twelve counties around the San Francisco Bay Area. Citing studies that the creatures could devastate fruit crops, they launched an aggressive and multifaceted effort to eradicate them.

In addition to spraying the natural pesticide spinosad, covering infested plants in a bacteria that destroys the moth larvae, and releasing wasps that prey upon their eggs, the agency began dropping tiny plastic pellets from low-flying aircraft. Those capsules are infused with two pheromones, chemicals that can confuse the moths and prevent them from mating.

From an academic point of view, the government approach is a textbook case of integrated pest management, which has the best of intentions -- to get rid of the bugs without using the most toxic types of pesticide. But activists regard the unchecked release of chemicals over their homes as a violation of their civil liberties and a potential threat to their health.

"This issue is about our rights," says John Russo of Stop the Spray. "It is our body, and our decision. We have a right to determine what happens to our own bodies."

On Tuesday, the California Senate Agriculture Committee will review a bill that could put a halt to the spraying. Russo and other activists will be there.

Electric Vehicle Dealer in Seattle...delivers to Sequim, I hear

http://mcelectricvehicles.com/detail.php?catid=1

A happy and wise couple in downtown Sequim

Excellent "mileage" with a three-wheeled, two-passenger, electric, covered trike: