timouse

indeed, greg. no better way to commemorate the man's passing than with music...

i think that jerry has another friend to jam with...

more studies on the persistence of antibacterial agents in household cleaning products, with more of the same sort of conclusions.

Clean Water Report

May 15, 2006

Eliminate antibacterials

SLANTS & TRENDS

ELIMINATE ANTIBACTERIALS

--That is the advice of Johns Hopkins University assistant professor Rolf

Halden, who has done research on the ingredients in sludge (see story, this

page). The Food and Drug Administration has concluded that the average

consumer does not benefit from products containing persistent

antimicrobials. However, they do pose a risk to humans when they accumulate

in biosolids that are land-applied. Given the risks and no known benefits,

government agencies should consider a ban on these substances in every day

products, he says.

Consumers should become aware of the environmental risks from persistent

antimicrobials and simply avoid prod-ucts containing the ingredients.

Farmers must determine whether the chemicals transfer to food crops and

determine which crops take up the chemicals. To protect public health,

farmers can limit the amount of biosolids used on those crops. Halden does

not recommend a ban on biosolids land-application because he recognizes the

benefits from using biosolids as fertilizer.

Clean Water Report

.........................................................

May 15, 2006

Antibacterial ingredient in sludge could pose risk, researchers say.

Wastewater treatment plants might have to find another method for reducing

antimicrobials in biosolids, because anaerobic digestion is not doing the

job on emerging contaminants, according to researchers at Johns Hopkins

University School of Public Health.

For the study, the researchers collected samples from a large urban sewage

treatment facility in the East. They tracked the mass of triclocarban

entering the plant in wastewater and leaving in reclaimed water and

municipal sludge. About 75 percent of the ingredient accumulates in

biosolids. The ingredients could pose a risk to humans when biosolids with

antimicrobials are used for fertilizer, said Rolf Halden, senior author and

assistant professor.

"It is unclear at the moment how the various sludge treatment techniques

affect the concentrations of persistent antimicrobials in biosolids. The

present study clearly demonstrates that anaerobic digestion is fairly

ineffective in lowering levels of the compounds. Yet unpublished data

demonstrate that heat sterilization of sludge for transformation to Class A

biosolids also does not lower concentrations of antimicrobials below

milligram per kilogram of weight levels," he toldCWR.

Triclocarban also shows up in waterways.

In 2005, Halden's team published a study estimating that about 60 per-cent

of surface waterwayshave detectable concentrations of triclocarban. A new

study will confirm this earlier research, he said.

However, researchers do not know what concentrations are harmful to humans

or how much triclocarban bioaccumulates. Scientists have notemployed new

techniques to assess toxicity for triclocarban, and bioaccumulation data are

unavailable, Halden said.

Researchers have confirmed that triclocarban is a precursor of chloroanilies

that are formed during degradation and metabolism of antiseptic compound.

Scientists have to determine what the contribution ofenvironmental exposures

to the total body burden of these compounds is.

In addition, the antibacterial ingredient in soap and other products does

not provide benefits to the average consumer, the Food and Drug

Administration said.

Contact: Rolf Halden, Johns Hopkins University, (410) 955-2609,

rhalden@jhsph.edu.

i got this from a listserv i'm on.

Michael Pollan has written a number of books on agriculture and the food industry, and is a professor of journalism at UC Berkeley.

Michael Pollan

New York Times http://pollan.blogs.nytimes.com/

May 24, 2006

The Great Yellow Hope

I've been traveling in the American Corn Belt this past week, and

wherever I go, people are talking about the promise of ethanol. Corn-

distillation plants are popping up across the country like

dandelions,

and local ethanol boosters in Minnesota, Illinois, Iowa and even

Washington State (where Bill Gates is jumping into the business) are

giddy at the prospect of supplanting OPEC with a homegrown,

America-first corn cartel. But as much as I'd like to have a greener

fuel to power my car, I'm afraid corn-based ethanol is not that fuel.

In principle, making fuel from plants makes good sense. Instead of

spewing fossilized carbon into the atmosphere, you're burning the

same

carbon that a plant removed from the air only a few months earlier -

so, theoretically, you've added no additional carbon. Sounds pretty

green - and would be, if the plant you proposed to make the ethanol

from were grown in a green way. But corn is not.

The way we grow corn in this country consumes tremendous quantities

of

fossil fuel. Corn receives more synthetic fertilizer than any other

crop, and that fertilizer is made from fossil fuels - mostly natural

gas. Corn also receives more pesticide than any other crop, and most

of that pesticide is made from petroleum. To plow or disc the

cornfields, plant the seed, spray the corn and harvest it takes large

amounts of diesel fuel, and to dry the corn after harvest requires

natural gas. So by the time your "green" raw material arrives at the

ethanol plant, it is already drenched in fossil fuel. Every bushel of

corn grown in America has consumed the equivalent of between a third

and a half gallon of gasoline.

And that's before you distill the corn into ethanol, an energy-

intensive process that requires still more fossil fuel. Estimates

vary, but they range from two-thirds to nine-tenths of a gallon of

oil

to produce a single gallon of ethanol. (The more generous number does

not count all the energy costs of growing the corn.) Some estimates

are still more dismal, suggesting it may actually take more than a

gallon of fossil fuel to produce a gallon of our putative alternative

to fossil fuel.

Making ethanol from corn makes no more sense from an economic point

of

view. The federal government offers a tax break of 54 cents for every

gallon of ethanol produced, and this incentive is what has generated

the enthusiasm for ethanol refining: the spigot of public money is

open and the pigs are rushing to the trough. (At the same time, the

government protects domestic ethanol producers by imposing a tariff

of

54 cents a gallon on imported ethanol.) According to the Wall Street

Journal, it will cost U.S. taxpayers $120 for every barrel of oil

saved by making ethanol. Some "savings." This is very good news

indeed

for Archer Daniels Midland, the agricultural processing company that

controls about 30 percent of the ethanol market. (And, it would seem,

a comparable percentage of the U.S. Congress, which has been

showering

the company with ethanol subsidies since the days when Bob Dole of

Kansas was known as the senatorfrom A.D.M.)

Absurd as it is, the rush to turn our corn surplus into ethanol

appears unstoppable, and the corn belt, laboring under the weight of

falling corn prices for the past several years, is celebrating the

great good fortune of $3-a-gallon gas prices. We're desperate for

alternatives, and all that corn is waiting to be distilled. As corn

prices rise (and the giddiness has already given them a bump),

farmers

will be tempted to produce yet more corn, which is not good news for

the environment this whole deal is supposed to help. Why not? Because

farmers will apply more nitrogen to boost yields (leading to more

nitrogen pollution) and, since soy bean prices are down, they will be

tempted to return to a "corn-on-corn" rotation. That is, rather than

rotate their corn crops with soy beans (a legume that builds nitrogen

in he soil), farmers will plant corn year after year, requiring still

more synthetic nitrogen and doing long-term damage to the land.

It's not easy being green.

But just because making ethanol from corn is an environmentally and

economically absurd proposition doesn't mean ethanol made from other

plants is a bad idea. If you can make ethanol from a plant that

doesn't take so much energy to grow in the first place, the economics

and energetics begin look a lot better. The Brazilians make ethanol

from sugar cane, a perennial crop that doesn't require nearly as much

fossil fuel to grow. Switch grass, too, is a perennial crop that

grows

just about anywhere, requires little or no fertilizer and needs no

plowing or annual replanting. And although the technology for making

ethanol from grasses (cellulosic ethanol - distilled from plant

cellulose rather than starch) is not quite there yet, it holds real

potential. So why the stampede to make ethanol from corn? Because we

have so much of it, and such a powerful lobby promoting its

consumption. Ethanol is just the latest chapter in a long, sorry

history of clever and profitable schemes to dispose of surplus corn:

there was corn liquor in the 19th century; feedlot meat starting in

the 1950's and, since 1980, high fructose corn syrup. We grow more

than 10 billion bushels of corn a year in this country, far more than

we can possibly eat - though God knows we're doing our best, bingeing

on corn-based fast food and high fructose corn syrup till we're fat

and diabetic. We probably can't eat much more of the stuff without

exploding, so the corn lobby is targeting the next unsuspecting beast

that might help chomp through the surplus: your car.

Michael Pollan is the author, most recently, of "The Omnivore's

Dilemma: A Natural history of Four Meals," which was published in

April. His previous books include: "Second Nature," "A Place of My

Own" and "The Botany of Desire," a New York Times bestseller. A

contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, Mr. Pollan is

the

Knight Professor of Journalism at the University of California,

Berkeley. Many of his food articles can be found at

michaelpollan.com.

as an aside, randomly following links from bradm's post led me here.

meet one of the top 10 spurious patents, as decided by John Perry Barlow and the EFF.

on the subject of the post, i'm glad that there is something being done to get a grip on the technology.

Opponents of the bill continue to insist that 'Net neutrality is a non-issue (again), as they continue to argue that innovation and competition should be left alone. "We are optimistic that the majority in Congress will see this legislation as an attempt to solve a problem that does not exist," said Tim McKone, AT&T executive VP for federal relations.

that bothers me. this is a huge issue...this is like internet infrastructure, not to mention opening up a whole can of privacy worms

there was a post about this a couple months ago. i think the technology that makes it possible is called "deep packet sniffing" and it means that a router can tell the difference between an indymedia video and pay per view wrestling and give preferential treatment to the "paying customer."

it's actually disturbing on a whole bunch of levels. on the surface, it's all about bandwidth providers being able to give the paying public more access to "media." the practical upshot of it seems to be control & surveillance of the interweb.

boo-urns!

i'm glad that someone was shagging on willy's campsite, not at all worried about whether or not scenesters are a problem, and i just looked out the window and saw all the mud from the past weekend caked on my car.

it really made me smile.

that's cool.

when's the next one?

and it works without any annoying chaos or spyware that i've been able to find.

http://www.primopdf.com

I watched about 40 minutes of it last year and nearly fell asleep. It couldn't hold my attention for some reason.

well fill up on coffee and try it again. it is a bit slow, but imo well worth it. me and niffer bought the DVD and have seen it a lot. the gist of it is "okay, so corporations have the same legal rights as people. if a corporation were a person, what sort of person would it be?"

you can probably guess the ending

maybe someone stepped on an extension cord somewhere?

maybe it was this guy.

Blessings to all my crackpot friends!!!

that's great, karin anne. thanks for posting that. i love all the crackpots in my life

Any weird animal in the house stories??

niffermouse and i have a 130+ year old house with an uncountable number of entry points for mice. we also have several cats. if jennifer hears the ruckus when they get one, she will collect it before they hurt it, put it in a small cage for observation, and then release it.

in the yard

i really want to tag this mouse as i'm sure it's the same guy time after time.

do it. go now.

that is all.

"silver kings" by the silverhearts.

the chromatic run in there keeps playing over and over again...bum ba! da da ba pa da da bum ba! da da ba pa da da...

CTMF was the first time i ever saw them.

wow.

somehow they seemed to be very organized and really loose and funky all at the same time...and the organ just toopped it off. what a great bunch of players...

Did anyone end up getting stuck on the way out? Thankfully Todd had the jeep in high gear, so that was not a problem for us. I'm sure that he was happy to hear me have to eat my own tree-huggin, gas-guzzlin rhetoric.

yep. i have a fuel sipping toyota that came with really wide tires that as it turns out totally suck in melted peanut butter mud. some of the kw folks got pictures of rick towing me to higher ground. i'm proud that the first time that car was towed it was by a tractor next year i'm putting my snow tires on for the weekend...

it was great. my first bnb show (i know...but i get it now ) caution jam friday night, friends of hefner, mark wilson, and getting to play in front of the friendliest, most forgiving audience that we've ever played to. no wonder people can't stop talking about ghost town...if only the weather hadn't been so mostly sucky.

a popular day to be born...happy birthday to all three of you!

Great read, I wish there was video available, he was visibly angry. Now how do we get Suzuki to run for the Liberal leadershp...hmmmm...

hux, i think you have given yourself a mission

niffer and i saw ds speak in hamilton a few weeks ago, and i kept thinking about the conversation we had in your kitchen just before i spilled red wine everywhere if the libs could get someone like david suzuki to run for PM, i would be 100% behind them.

of course, it would be a hard sell now given that one of his best friends, Elizabeth May, is taking over the greens...

*cough* coalition *cough*

mmmmmmmmmmhhhhh!

wow, you guys are all pretty jaded about this kinda banter.

someone says anyhting to me at work and I'm happy. not alot of talking going on where I work.

i guess it depends on where you work. from what i've found, big offices are generally less fun. there's some sort of inverse proportionality between the number of cubicles and the overall atmosphere. i read recently (probably here) that the inventor of the cubicle died recently, and that in his later years he had sort of a "robert oppeniemer after seing what they chose to drop his nuclear device on" sort of revelation...

i'm one of four people in an office, and other than intermittent visits from the boss, i'm left to my own. i interact mostly with the guys in the plant, and it presents endless opportunities for inane banter. fortunately, most everyone in the place has been there for a long time, and they all seem to get along okay, and lots of the guys are from somewhere else, and all have amazing stories to tell about getting out of their country. particularly the older vietnamese guys.

things tend to be awfully blue collar lots of times, but in every inane office exchange there's an opportunity to connect with someone and actually talk...however, if the people in your workplace resemble

then rant away

happy birthday to one of the funniest skanks on here!

cheers!

good one, sm. niffermouse has been doing this for ages...these guys are part of a bigger environmental oroganization called Care2. The link will take you right to their "click to donate" page. Every time you click, one of their sponsors gives a small donation to a good cause.

the sponsors seem like pretty reasonable companies (Yves veggie products for one).

found that one out by accident... was sitting diggin the show for 10 minutes before I realized I was a smuggler

look professional, and they'll treat you like a professional

i knew a guy who snuck bricks of hash into the US to go on tour with using the same theory. he duct-taped them to the insides of his thighs, put on a loose fitting pair of pants and drove on through the border without incident. always thought it was the damndest thing. he swore up and down that he had never had a problem, and used to advocate the exact same line about professionalism

indeed! to all the moms on here, cheers!

happy mother's day!!

Hey, thanks all for the fine links and feedback! Lots of good stuff to mull over.

Been feeling rather directionless lately -- which is all good fun for awhile ... and then you start to realize that there is a big pit of nothingness where your dreams should be.

are you by any chance approaching 40? if so, i feel your directionlessness...i would say that if you are feeling rudderless, bradm's suggestion may be a good start. passion is contagious, and throwing fuel on the passion of a close friend may be what you need to get yourself fired up too.

sorry, that got a bit dr phil-like

the mouse family has had an ongoing collective dream to start some sort of sustainable collective rural experiment, and it seems that within the last couple of years, opportunities are presenting themselves that may make this possible. the conventional idea that you get out of bed before you're ready and trundle off to give someone the use of your brain for 8 hours on the assumption that you will get it back in an unmutilated state (thank you Utah Phillips) is basically bunk. there's got to be something better and more fulfilling thank having two days out of seven to truly live and be yourself...

what are you trained to do? what do you love to do? is there any sort of intersection between the two? would you like to move to rural waterloo county and be part of a sustainable living commune ?