Boondocks No. 34

PressRepublican Goes After Burn Barrels Again.

While not a surpise for most of us, the Cheers and Jeers column goes after all so called evil trash burning neighboors.

JEERS: to those scoundrels who continue to burn their garbage in backyard burn barrels. Some communities have passed local laws to put a stop to the practice, but laws or not, some homeowners continue to burn at will, much to the chagrin of their neighbors. Who knows what they're burning? Plastics and other synthetics are oftentimes tossed in with the paper, cardboard and other combustible items, sending plumes of toxic smoke into the air and sometimes into their neighbors' living rooms. And these backyard burners often get upset when quizzed by a passerby or the homeowner down the road, insensitive to the harm they may be causing to at-risk neighbors or the disruption of a backyard barbecue. Even local farmers fertilizing their fields are responsive to the local community. Usually, they'll put off the smelly practice for a day when their neighbors inform them of a special event planned in the neighborhood. We wish we could say the same for the burn-barrel users. The bottom line is that burning garbage in your backyard "or grass and other matter" is unhealthy and an annoying practice.

So what? If towns in Clinton County or elsewheres allow people to have burn barrels, then so be it. Let the local residents decide. There are areas it make sense for their to be a ban on backyard burning—like the City of Plattsburgh and populated hamlets like Morrisonville and Peru.

But everywhere's else—it's not a big deal. It's not like it's a mystery what people are burning, it's the same things we all throw in the garbage can in our kitchens—like papers, bacon wrappers, milk bottles, cereal boxes, shopping bags, and all kinds of packaging. Trash bags full of such garbage, are taken to the burn barrel and set on fire.

Not exactly rocket science. Yet it works and has worked for rural residents for many years—in many cases for some of the healthest people out there—such as farm laborers. These people keep solid waste out of the landfills, and most importantly save money and conserve resources by burning on their farms and rural residences.

Trash fires are going to smell like burning garbage. That's a given. The small amounts of aromic hydrocarbons can grab our attention of our noises, and for some the small amounts of hydrocholric acids from burning certain plastics can be irritating. Yet, none of those levels exceed permitted levels for a variety of industrial facilities.

Recycling and air quality are important issues all over. Yet, in rural areas, such as the very rural areas in parts of Clinton County, there is no serious air quality issues, and limited recycling opporunities. Many places don't have trash pickup, and those that do it's expensive.

While I fully support expanding recycling in Clinton County, and finding new markets there, that's more of a concern of the residents of the City of Plattsburgh, which generate much of the county's trash, then everywheres else in the county.

Times Union on the Tihart Admendment.

The law that prohibits the release of gun tracing data under the Freedom of Information Act and through other means, is up for renewal. It's likely extension has gotten the Times Union quite irrate about it as witnessed in a very biased article on the front page:

Gun control advocated cheered when Democrats took over the House and the Senate this year, sure that a change in leadership meant a more friendly environment for new restrictions on the sale and ownership of firearms.

But supporters of tighter controls are on the verge of losing the first big battle of the year over gun policy.

The House is expected to pass legislation as early as Wednesday renewing a four-year-old law that makes it harder for police to track the history of firearms used in crimes. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg and others are lobbying to repeal it.

Nothing on the front page makes an argument for the Tihart admendment, mentions that it's controversal, or even fully explains what it does—except makes it difficult for police to track the history of firearms used in crimes—for non-criminal matters. Since when did police become tort lawyers or professional voyerists?

This is what the last paragraph of the front page, at the top, says:

The Tiahrt admendment is aimed at blocking the ATF from widely sharing the history of the sales and transfers of firearms used in crimes. The ATF still collects this data—to analyze in them in-house. But under the Tiahrt admendment, that information can only be shared with

Please see GUNS A3 >

Shared with whom? If your like 90% of Times Union readers, you won't turn to the bottom of the State Politics page to read the rest of this article. They note on the bottom of Page A3 that:

federal agencies for national security purposes, or when procectutors need it for a criminal probe or prosecution.

That doesn't sound that bad. Anybody with a legitimate prosecution of gun related crime is allowed access to gun tracking data. This includes prosecutors but doesn't include gun traffickers or the Mayor of New York City, who wants to use the data to sue gun manufacturers and retailers which he blames for New York City's crime problems.

There is certain kinds of data that ought to be kept confidential by government, and exempt from freedom of information laws. These include things like ongoing investigations, national security, and executive deliberations, where ideas and not policy are being discussed. Certainly gun tracking falls under the first two categories.

Nobody would seriously suggest that New York's FOIL law should extend to information on investigations by the District Attorney's office. Yet, that's essentially what people like Mike Bloomberg are suggesting with opposing the Tiahart admendment on gun tracking data.

Be Healthy: Don't Drink Even Diet Soda.

We've long known that drinking lots of regular soda, with all it's sugar—or even worst—high fructose corn syrup is bad for you. Now we know that even diet soda can be bad for your health.

So what do they suggest? Drinking one of those fantastic beverages like milk.

But he wonders about the true root of the association. It may not be the soda intake itself leading to the increased risk, he says. “People who drink sodas may be giving up drinking healthier beverages,” he says, such as juices, milk, wine, and other beverages.

And no soda is safe:

Is there a "safe" amount of soda? "We cannot really answer that question," Vasan says. The research shows an association between soda consumption and metabolic syndrome risk, Vasan says, but not cause-effect. More study is needed.

Still, he adds, "the group without risk drank less than one soda a day."

His co-author, Ravi Dhingra, MD, a physician at the Alice Peck Day Memorial Hospital, in Lebanon, N.H., and instructor of medicine at Harvard Medical School in Boston, says: "If you are drinking more than one soft drink per day, you may be increasing the metabolic risk factors for heart disease."

As a kid I always drank lots and lots of milk. Milk is good stuff, as they say. But lately it's gotten a lot more expensive. But there is an alternative that most of us have in our houses—water. There aren't too many health effects to drinking water, assuming your water isn't too contaminated.

Remember, back in the day when everybody drank water to refresh themselves? I know our water at my house doesn't taste all that great from the iron in it, but it still a good alternative to soda, particularly when there ain't the world's most fabulous beverage around—milk.

And while our link comes from the fair balanced source of news, Fox News, this story was in a variety of papers across the country today.

Letter from Langdon on Daily Yonder.

The blog of the Center for Rural Strategy, a left-leaning think tank with connections to some of the rural Democratic leaders in our country, has an interesting article on the difficulties of the beginning farmer:

If and when the human genome is finally mapped and the secrets of creation are revealed, one of the things I know they will find is a genetic predisposition toward agriculture. Just as some of us have it in our genes, thanks to our northern European heritage, to digest cow’s milk, many of us feel the urge to herd animals or grow crops. After being separated from the farm by 2 or 3 generations of city living, we may lose the name for that itch we feel to grow things, but the itch itself never quite goes away...

...So what does it take to be a farmer these days? In a word, the primary requirement for any farmer is Capital. To be a farmer takes money. It also takes land, labor, investment, and time.

Forget about cheap interest rates like those we’ve seen in the home mortgage market. Operating loans for farmers generally carry much higher interest rates, because unlike nationwide mortgage lending, commercial lending to agriculture is a much smaller market. When home mortgages traded at 5% interest rates, most agricultural loan rates were well above 8%. Today it is difficult to secure an agricultural production loan for much less than 9%. For farms that have little in the way of equity or collateral, rates may be higher. That still may not sound like much, but in a business like farming, known for earning 5 % returns, interest rates often exceed profit percentages.

Interesting and worth a read.