The Boondocks blog, No. 37 for the week starting August 27, 2007.
Monday
What Can You Use Duct Tape For?
Thursday
Energy looks at high energy prices and our future.
Enviroman looks at man and the environment.
Hayseeds looks at politics and life in our nation.
Individual looks at myself and how I'm changing
Outblog is all about my outdoor experiences.
Transit looks at the changing ways we get around.
Truck gives you stories and trips in my Ford Ranger.
VT Wood Smoke.org. Nobody is really surpised that the state of Vermont has a website that attacks outdoor wood boilers and wood burning in general.
This is from the state which has so ardentially fought new sources of renewable energy to be brought into their state. Vermont has no commerical wind generation and no projects as their governor believes that such projects are inappropiate for their state. They also have no pump storage facilities in their state and rely largely on dirty nuclear power imported electricity from Canada and other surrounding state.
Nobody seriously thinks that outdoor wood boilers are appropiate in Burlington or suburb of Essex Junction. Butr there is a lot of vermont out there beyond Burlington—where the smoke from wood is quickly dispersed from the boilers and woodstoves on the farms and houses spread out in the country that makes most of Vermont up.
Indeed, the City of Burlington and many of the flatland farmland around Vergennes have deminished air quality in the winter due to the tempeture inversions that trap in air emissions. Still those air quality issues are small to those in downstate New York or any metropolitian area.
Their article on proper gas can handling to avoid air emissions, their always enjoyable website on burn barrels and their agencies' form of self-advocacy on Burlington editorial on OWF advocacy ads. P'Link
What Can You Use Duct Tape For? My searching on this subject brought me to some interesting idears from Duck Tape Products.
"I taped a calf's broken leg together with Duck(r) Tape."Jason S. Spring Green, WI
"I use Duck(r) Tape to tape alligators' mouths shut when working with them on my gator farm."Donnie W. Eagle Lake, TX
"After hitting a deer last October, the body shop wanted $1,400 dollars to fix my car. I decided to wire a light on my car and used Duck(r) Tape to hold the tie wire in place. After 3 months it's still holding."Andrew T. Camilla, GA
"Duck(r) Tape keeps your distributor air tight while "four wheeling" through deep water."Sean H. Norwich, NY
Probably the only thing that it isn't good for is ducts—and its use violates many building codes. Aluminum HVAC tape is better from an insultating perspective, and having a tight connection and using an expanding sealent probably is best. P'Link
Anti-Posilac Ads on WGNA. If there ever was a new technology that activists with the help of bad economics killed in a matter of years it would be Montesano's Posilac or as called in the mass-media, bovine growth hormone (rBST).
Posilac when injected into a cow increases milk production about 10% over a cow's lacation period. Essentially what it does is keeps the cow lactating at a higher rate over the lacation period, rather then decreasing as normally happens after an extended period of regular milking.
Activists have made Posilac unpopular. People associate, possibly questionably, Posilac with larger dairies. They note such farms have the labor and capital to purchase Posilac, and that it's easier to inject in large herds rather then small family farms with only 100-200 head of dairy cattle. They also claim that it may have effects on human health as it's a protien, and most countries don't allow it—and the US only allowed it post 1994.
The economics of it can be troublesome. It's expensive to purchase especially for the whole herd. Injecting it takes labor. Increased milk production means more risk of painful mastitis, which can force you discard milk from a cow for month or more while you treat it for antibotics. Not to mention cows on posilac can drink 10-20 gallons more water per day.
So many farms—who were sold on the idea of getting more milk from cows late in their lacation cycle—are now getting out. Consumers don't want milk assisted along by Posilac. And milk processors see it as a way to raise prices and sell more milk.
That's why even mainstream companies are now pushing milk from farms that are Posilac-free, even on country music stations where you might not think activist types are listening to. P'Link
Copyright ©1999-2008 Andy Arthur.
All mistakes are intentional or otherwise.
Mind where you step in a cow pasture or legal mindfield.