A thread for random crap on the internet

[mr x]

Agbogbloshie: the world's largest e-waste dump – in pictures

Discarders of electronic goods expect them to be recycled properly. But almost all such devices contain toxic chemicals which, even if they are recyclable, make it expensive to do so. As a result, illegal dumping has become a lucrative business.

Photographer Kevin McElvaney documents Agbogbloshie, a former wetland in Accra, Ghana, which is home to the world’s largest e-waste dumping site. Boys and young men smash devices to get to the metals, especially copper. Injuries, such as burns, untreated wounds, eye damage, lung and back problems, go hand in hand with chronic nausea, anorexia, debilitating headaches and respiratory problems. Most workers die from cancer in their 20s.

http://www.theguardian.com/environment/ ... n-pictures" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mr x]

A snippet from The Guardian's Crimean coverage.
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/m ... ea-airbase" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Outside the Belbek airbase, an aggressive self-defence group said they were there to defend the base against “Kiev fascists”, but also railed against Europe, “full of repulsive gays and Muslims”.

“What you foreigners don’t get is that those people in Maidan, they are fascists,” said Alexander, a Simferopol resident drinking at a bar in the city on Monday night. “I mean, I am all for the superiority of the white race, and all that stuff, but I don’t like fascists.”

[mr x]

[erslar00]

really... that seems like a ton of work for a few thousand pounds, I can't stand digging or even augering post holes, can't imagine this.. why not just work a minimum wage job, lol...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/ ... -cash.html

9:56AM GMT 20 Mar 2014

Thieves dug a 50ft tunnel under a building to steal thousands of pounds from a cash machine.
Police believe the gang may have spent months digging the ''complex'' structure to get at the cash at a Tesco store in Eccles, Salford.
They tunnelled beneath nearby wasteland and under the shop before raiding the store.
They then stole cash boxes containing a ''substantial'' sum of money before disappearing back through the tunnel with the cash, Greater Manchester Police said.
Officers said they believe the thieves may have spent a number of months digging the tunnel, because of the amount of planning that was involved and complex nature of the tunnel structure.

[Tony L]

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2 ... hat-right/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Jimmy]

[GillettBreweryCnslt]

I always wondered about those of you who spend time/live in NG

http://www.immigroup.com/news/top-8-wor ... ove-canada" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mr x]

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/news/b ... 2014-03-24" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;


"There were a lot of things in the silo that could explode. Especially a 9-megaton warhead that was three times more powerful than all bombs dropped during the Second World War — including the atomic ones"

Sent from my Nexus 4 using Tapatalk 4

[dean2k]

Little tribute to Dave Brockie, Oderus, and the 80's

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2 ... egend.html

[Keith]

Be paid to follow Rob Ford around playing a Tuba for 8 hours.

http://toronto.en.craigslist.ca/tor/tlg/4391257190.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[mr x]

Alcoholics Anonymous has a terrible success rate, addiction expert finds
A new book concludes that the success rate for Alcoholics Anonymous is between 5 and 10 per cent, one of the worst in all of medicine.

http://www.thestar.com/life/2014/03/28/ ... finds.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

By: Nancy J. White Living Reporter, Published on Fri Mar 28 2014

For alcoholics seeking a safe passage to sobriety, there’s a need for something to quiet the siren’s song of booze, and for generations two simple letters — “AA” — have been a beacon of hope.

Alcoholics Anonymous is synonymous with getting help, the church-basement, default remedy for problem drinkers in real life and in the suds-soaked world of TV and movies.

But for years addiction experts have debated the role and scientific effectiveness of AA, a fellowship founded in 1935 that relies on 12-steps aimed at a spiritual awakening. Some viewed AA as old-school, even cultlike. Others hailed it as a bedrock of recovery. Numerous studies have tried to pin down how well AA and the many 12-step groups it spawned, actually work.

Dr. Lance Dodes is the most recent to wade into this debate in a new book, The Sober Truth: Debunking the Bad Science behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry. Dodes combed through more than 50 studies and found that the success rate for Alcoholics Anonymous is between 5 and 10 per cent, which he calls one of the worst in all of medicine.

“I’m not trying to eliminate AA,” says Dodes, the former director of substance abuse treatment at Harvard’s McLean Hospital. “I’m just saying it should be prescribed to that tiny group who can make use of it. It’s terribly harmful when you send 90 per cent of the people for the wrong treatment advice.”

AA doesn’t actually use the word treatment or therapy. Rather it’s about alcoholics helping one another beat booze by following the 12-step path that includes admitting powerlessness over alcohol, believing that a “Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity,” undertaking a “fearless moral inventory” and making amends.

That can be hard to quantify, especially since members are anonymous.

“The model has been so popular, so widely disseminated, that people believe it should be something that works,” says Dr. Bernard LeFoll, head of Alcohol Research and Treatment Clinic at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. But at this point, he says, we have neither definitive data supporting that it works nor studies about whom it most benefits.

AA doesn’t have the answers either. “We are not a scientific or medical organization. We don’t do that kind of research,” says Jim, the public information co-ordinator at AA’s General Service Office in New York City, who maintains the anonymity tradition. AA’s sole data-gathering is a survey of 8,000 members in the U.S. and Canada every three years.

As part of its tradition, the organization, with more than two million members in 170 countries, does not express opinion or engage in debate, he explains.

But members will readily jump into the fray. “Yes AA works. I was in a very deep, dark, sad place. I walked into my first meeting, and people were so encouraging. It was a warm, friendly, safe place,” says John Fenn, now a recovery counsellor at Bellwood Health Services in Toronto. “I would never have been able to stay sober for 20 years without AA.”

In his analysis of the research, Dodes found many problems. For one, much of the data was based on individuals’ self-reports, which are often unreliable. Another sticking point is how to define success. Many of the studies done by outside researchers only followed people for a year or less, explains Dodes. “That’s insane. It’s a lifelong condition,” he says.

And, in what he calls a cardinal sin, some studies omitted the dropouts. The conclusions didn’t include the people for whom the program most likely didn’t work.

While AA officially never comments, three AA members wrote a paper, “Alcoholics Anonymous Recovery Outcome Rates,” in 2008, refuting reports at the time of a very low success rate.

The authors reiterated numbers espoused since AA’s early years as still the “best estimate:” For those who seriously work the program, the success rate is 75 per cent (that’s 50 per cent achieving immediate reward and another 25 per cent who slip then recover). But here’s an important caveat: Of all AA prospects, they say, about 20 to 40 per cent fall into that category of seriously trying the program.

That leaves a lot of people not succeeding, likely dropping out. And they’re the ones who concern CAMH’s LeFoll. Since AA is so well known and easily accessible, it’s frequently the first place people try, he says. But if it doesn’t click for them, they may give up hope of recovery.

They need full information about other available treatment, such as in-patient or outpatient individual therapy as well as group support that offers behavioural strategies, insights into addiction and relapse prevention tools.

Historically the addictions field has pushed abstinence, but some programs now aim for reduction, a level of consumption that doesn’t produce harm. “The difficulty,” says LeFoll, “is that we can’t predict who can sustain reduction.”

Advances in the neurobiology of addiction have led to more medications that deter the desire for a drink. Last year, CAMH opened the Alcohol Research and Treatment Clinic to improve access to these drugs, which have not been used by many physicians.

One clinic patient, Terry, has started taking disulfiram, also known as Antabuse. It makes people extremely ill if they consume alcohol. “Now I don’t have to wrestle with wanting to drink. I know I can’t,” says Terry confidently.

He’s going to AA meetings for extra support, but AA hasn’t helped him in the past. Over 30 years, he’s started AA and dropped out about 10 times. “I’m not a people person, not a joiner,” he says.

Researchers do know that some kind of ongoing help boosts chances for long-term recovery. “We don’t oppose anyone joining AA,” says LeFoll. “We encourage people to build as much support as they can. We just want to give a broader view of all options and they can pick.”

Most AA members don’t rely solely on fellowship. According to its 2011 member survey, the majority received additional treatment or counselling. Of the 62 per cent who got help after joining AA, 82 per cent said the added assistance played an important part in their recovery.

“We’ve never claimed to be the only game on the block,” says the AA public information co-ordinator. “There isn’t a one-size-fits-all to that kind of personal struggle.”

At Bellwood Health Services, an addiction treatment centre, clients go through group and individual therapy during their stay and can sign up for the aftercare program, but they are also encouraged to join a 12-step group for long-term support.

Clients’ biggest objection is the religious aspect, says addiction counsellor David Paul. They don’t like the word “God” in the 12 steps or the idea of a Higher Power.

The steps broadly define God “as we understood Him” and the Higher Power could be anything, he says, even the AA group itself. “I think at times people use God as an excuse,” says Paul.

In the Greater Toronto area, there are nearly 500 AA meetings a week, including five for agnostics, aatorontoagnostics.com.

· author found lasting help in agnostic Alcoholics AnonymousDrunk Mom author found lasting help in agnostic Alcoholics Anonymous

While any 12-step program requires hard work, Dr. Peter Butt, an addiction specialist in Saskatoon, cautions against blaming the struggling addict for lack of effort. The focus should be: Why is this person struggling?

Butt ticks through a list: Is there a concurrent mental health problem? Do they need medications for cravings? Do they first need help making their lives more stable?

Maybe the person needs a 12-step meeting that’s a better fit. “Some people I’ve met in the 12-step community are very rigid, while others are the most compassionate of people,” says Butt, a representative on the Canadian Centre of Substance Abuse’s national alcohol strategy.

“People do best when they have access to a spectrum of options,” he adds. “A 12-step program is simply one tool in the tool box.”

That’s Steve’s attitude. He’s been sober 120 days and proud of it.

To get there, he first tried AA but felt he needed a more intense intervention. After a stint of in-patient rehab, he now leans on a variety of supports: He’s back in AA, routinely sees a doctor specializing in addiction and also meets regularly with a group of non-AA recovering alcoholics who talk about their struggles.

“I’m open to explore the best ways,” says Steve, as he eats lunch in a pub drinking a club soda. “Two months ago I could not have eaten here. I haven’t even looked over at the draft taps.”

nwhite@thestar.ca

[dean2k]

For the GoT nerds.... Clearly the Drowned God was upset. What is dead may never die:

Man lost at sea while performing California beach baptism
LAILA KEARNEY
Reuters
Published Tuesday, Apr. 01 2014, 10:22 AM EDT
Last updated Tuesday, Apr. 01 2014, 10:25 AM EDT

A man swept out to sea by seven-foot waves during an oceanside baptismal ceremony in California on Sunday remained missing a day later as hopes faded he would be found alive, officials said on Monday.

U.S. Coast Guard spokesman Adam Stanton said three men were initially washed away by the surf while performing the religious ceremony, held on the shore of the Rancho Guadalupe Dunes Preserve in the small Santa Barbara County city of Guadalupe.

Two of the men were able swim back to shore without injuries, but the third man, whom authorities have not named, was still lost on Monday afternoon, according to a statement by the Santa Barbara Fire Department.

The missing man had been helping to perform a baptism in association with the Jesus Christ Light of the Sky Church, which holds similar events two or three times a year, according to local newspaper the Santa Maria Times.

About 25 people, mostly Spanish-speaking, attended the event, the paper said.

Pastor Maurigro Cervantes told Fox News-affiliate KCOY TV that he was one of the three men conducting the baptism when big waves began to roll in and pulled his cousin out to sea.

“I tried to take him … but he was heavy and then another big wave come and took him,” Cervantes said.

Search helicopters and boats joined in the rescue effort for the missing man all day on Sunday, Santa Barbara Fire Department Captain David Sadecki said.

By Monday afternoon, the Coast Guard had called off its air search without finding the man. Local officials with rescue watercraft remained in the area, Sadecki said.

[Tony L]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Tby91aTGF4" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[jacinthebox]

I had no idea President's Choice (PC) had their own brand of brew...

http://www.thebeerstore.ca/beers/search ... %20Brewery

[mr x]

Man tries to beat the train. He doesn't win.

[jeffsmith]

I'm sure he had an incredibly important meeting to keep.

[GAM]

Stillwell's at noon.

Sandy

[dexter]

I had no idea President's Choice (PC) had their own brand of brew...

http://www.thebeerstore.ca/beers/search ... %20Brewery

If it's the same as what it used to be it was all a Dave's product, which was molson's version of
A knock off beer or discount brand the white was essentially Richards white ect,..

[mikeorr]

Thoughts? Sonic foamer: https://www.thinkgeek.com/product/1bf1/

[Keith]

Isn't that essentially just shaking your beer?

[mikeorr]

Isn't that essentially just shaking your beer?

LOL yeah, I think so! But for the low-low price of $39.99 you can do it with only the press of a button! That's why I posted this in the 'random crap' thread

[GAM]

http://www.cbc.ca/irrelevantshow/main-b ... e-a-glass/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

New Brewnosers song.

Sandy

[mr x]

Why America’s fired up about hemp
The once-maligned cannabis plant could herald an agricultural revolution, author Doug Fine tells Salon

http://www.salon.com/2014/04/19/why_ame ... bout_hemp/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Hemp: It’s not just for health food smoothies and hippie clothing. The unintended victim of the United States’ prohibition on cannabis — it got swept up in the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 and is now blacklisted by the DEA under the Controlled Substances Act — the plant is beginning to be seen by many as the solution to any number of the country’s problems, with implications ranging from energy to agriculture. Newly liberated (to an extent) by the recently passed Farm Bill, it could be the country’s next billion-dollar industry, journalist Doug Fine told Salon.

It’s one of the few areas on which Fine, who’s previously written books about marijuana legalization and an experiment in off-grid living, can find common ground with Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

“Hemp Bound: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Next Agricultural Revolution” is part manifesto, part documentation of the ways in which hemp is being put to use within the U.S. and around the world, and part how-to for would-be cultivators. Fine spoke with Salon about hemp’s former role in U.S. history, the declining stigma against all kinds of cannabis and the people leading the new hemp movement. This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Just so everyone’s on the same page, I thought it would be good to start with a working definition of hemp. What are you talking about in the book, and what’s its relationship to marijuana?

Most of the world cultivates hemp today, and the general definition is any variety of the cannabis plant with less than .1 percent THC, the psychoactive component of cannabis, can be cultivated for industrial reasons. There is no other similarity between hemp, otherwise known as industrial cannabis, and the psychoactive varieties of the plant, other than the fact that their leaves are shaped similarly. Canada has a 15-year modern hemp industry worth a billion dollars a year, by the way, and growing. And there have been zero cases of confusion between hemp and psychoactive cannabis.

Also, a hemp crop would immediately ruin a psychoactive cannabis crop because for psychoactive cannabis, only females are cultivated, and they’re prima donnas — they’re lovingly manicured over their life cycle. If hemp pollen were to get into those female plants, it would destabilize the psychoactivity, it would dilute it. So that’s why for instance in California, which recently passed hemp cultivation registration, the regions where they’re allowing hemp are totally separate from the famous outdoor cannabis cultivating regions of the Emerald Triangle and the Redwood northern part of the state.

So the U.S. prohibition of industrial cannabis, then, is really all about this perceived connection it has with marijuana?

Yes. The 77 years of hemp prohibition were essentially caused by a typo. When cannabis was effectively criminalized in 1937, under the federal Marijuana Tax Act – another terrible policy which I’ve written about before — hemp was included. Very quickly, the federal government realized what a mistake that was. Already the drug war was shipping jobs offshore. In 1942, just a few years after hemp prohibition began, World War II was breaking out. And the Navy needed something like 40 tons of hemp rigging for each vessel.

And by the way, the cord in the parachute that saved George Bush Sr.’s life in World War II was made of hemp.

So we’d been getting the hemp from the Philippines. But the Japanese captured the Philippines. So in 1942, you can see this on Youtube, the Department of Agriculture made this propaganda film that sounds as though it were produced by your roommate with the lava lamp. It’s called “Hemp for Victory,” and it just sings all the true applications of hemp, it’s a song of praise to it. And it’s just proof of the ridiculousness of cannabis prohibition. This 77-year break that we tried to impose on humanity’s relationship with the plant obviously must come to an end. And when it comes to hemp, it’s really, really good for the economy and the planet that it’s coming to an end.

In your last book, “Too High to Fail,” you make a strong economic case for ending marijuana prohibition, which is still coming up against opposition. Is legalizing hemp any easier, or is stigma still an issue here, too?

Well, it’s even easier with hemp. In February, Congress passed and the president signed the Farm Bill, which included a provision that legalized hemp on the federal level. It’s only for university research to start, but that’s okay. Before they got their hugely growing and very profitable hemp industry going in 1998, the Canadians also did two years of research on the cultivars (which is what you call the strains when you’re talking about hemp — the varieties, essentially). So yeah, it’s a done deal with hemp.

But I should say also, in a Pew poll just last week, 75 percent of Americans said they believe all cannabis legalization is imminent, is inevitable. So despite all the drug war brainwashing, I don’t think that much stigma really remains on the psychoactive cannabis side. Everywhere I seem to go people are ready for it. And that includes places that are politically conservative like Kentucky, Florida and Texas.

The really interesting thing, so far as hemp is concerned, is that there seems to be a very strong Republican case for it. [Kentucky Senator] Mitch McConnell was a major backer of the provision for hemp cultivation.

Definitely. Kentucky was the traditional leader in a hemp industry that was hugely important to the American economy. The U.S. hemp crop was the pride of the world. Our cultivars were prized. They’re gone now. We have to rebuild them. And it wasn’t just Kentucky. Places like Missouri, Wisconsin, Illinois — they all had big hemp industries. Today, North Dakota is one of the leaders in fighting to get hemp back — a very politically conservative state. It’s because they’re looking one inch over the border, and seeing farmers make $300 per acre, which is as much as ten times what they’re making for GMO wheat, corn and soy.

So it’s really a bottom-line thing. In “Hemp Bound,” I talk about the climate change mitigation that’s going to result when hemp is really adopted. But it wouldn’t be adopted on a large scale if it weren’t for the profit that farmers can make today from seed oil. That, in the end, is why Colorado is ahead of federal law. I was at a meeting in Boulder a few weeks ago, on the first day that the Colorado Agriculture Department started issuing permits to farmers for unlimited commercial cultivation of hemp. That’s more than federal law currently allows for, although there are some pending bills in Congress this year to allow federal law to catch up with Colorado. But there’s one very simple reason why Colorado is moving ahead, and that is profits to farmers and money in the tax base.

If the U.S. could re-grow its hemp industry, how much of an economic impact do you see it having, both immediately and maybe in the long term?

I see it having a massive economic impact. Predictions are free, of course. But first of all, let’s talk about on the ground today, in straight dollar figures, just on the hempseed oil. Canadian farmers have built an industry in 15 years that’s going to break a billion dollars this year in earnings. Just for this year. From the seed oil. So it’s already having a huge impact. Long-term, I believe that hemp is going to be a bigger economic boon worldwide than psychoactive cannabis, which is already one of the world’s leading cash crops. And my shorthand explanation for that is: Coors is big, but Exxon Mobil is bigger. And the hemp application that I write about in “Hemp Bound,” that I’m most excited about, and that I preach and pray for at every live event, especially when there’s going to be potential cultivators, processors and investors at the event, is the energy application.

In Europe today, entire communities in places like Austria and Germany are becoming energy independent and fossil fuel independent through a biomass combustion technique called gasification. It’s an anaerobic, high-heat process, and it’s being used on farm waste. You can get the gasification combustion units in the size of an outhouse. They’re affordable. The U.S. Army’s buying a lot of these units too. And farms are selling back to the grid, or in some places like Bellheim, Germany, they’re creating their own community-based grid and putting unemployed people to work running it. So they’re becoming independent of larger grids and becoming independent of petroleum.

I’m urging farmers to make this energy producing application part of their first-generation processing facilities for hemp in the U.S. I think of it as the upside of prohibition. We can now look around the world and see. The Canadians are making tons of money, $300 an acre profit. So if you’re growing 1,000 acres in the prairies of Manitoba or Alberta, that’s $300,000 profit per year. That’s good money. So seed oil. Then there’s fiber applications — we could start building carbon-negative homes using “hempcrete,” which is hemp fiber mixed with lime. And the third asset that really has me excited, as a father, about our climate future, is this fossil-free energy from hemp. If we’re growing these millions of acres in North Dakota, Colorado, Vermont, Kentucky, I think we can really have an impact on worldwide climate change.

How is hemp, used as fuel, different from other forms of biomass?

That’s a great question. So, hemp can be made into ethanol and biodiesel. In fact, in one part of “Hemp Bound,” I actually took a hemp-powered limo ride in this fun, safe limo. So that can be done. But today there aren’t cultivars that are grown specifically for that. I think the first applications we’re going to see for energy are going to be at the power plant rather than in the tank.

To give one example, there is a utility in Kentucky called Patriot Biofuels which is explicitly part of the effort to get hemp back into the soil in Kentucky. As you mentioned, Mitch McConnell, who’s a very conservative key senator, supports it. And what they want to do is plant on marginal soil that has been damaged by tobacco monoculture and/or coal mining. Because hemp has these really incredible phytoremediation, or soil-restoring qualities. It’s even been used to help clean up irradiated soil in Ukraine after the Chernobyl nuclear tragedy. It also has foot-long taproots, which really helps with aeration in the soil and creating that microclimate that soil needs for restorative soil health, and for drought-ravaged places like sub-Saharan Africa, it’s not a very thirsty crop. The first Colorado farmer that planted it last year, Ryan Loflin, said it requires about half the water he’d been using on wheat in previous years. Which means a lot, because his fellow Coloradons are dealing with the Dust Bowl out there, and if they can dryland crop hemp, that’s going to be a big deal. So what the Kentucky utilities want to do is grow this hemp, and use the biomass — through gasification, as we were discussing — to create fossil-fuel-free, carbon friendly energy.

And the second part of your question was how does it compare to other biomass. That’s a really good question. First of all, it produces so much more biomass per acre than corn or soy. So there’s so much available. But I’ve heard some European hemp consultants say that when combusted, it’s close, but it doesn’t necessarily have the total energy capacity producing per unit of some other farm waste. But you don’t produce any other crop in such high volume as you do hemp. And today, the Canadians are just burning it in the field, they’re not doing anything with it. So better to use it for energy, and the sheer volume of it makes it worthwhile as an energy crop.

You also argue that it’s a good alternative because it can disrupt this whole GMO monoculture — is that where that argument is coming from, that it would be something else we could be planting that would have more uses, as opposed to, say, corn?

Yeah. Last July 4th, I watched a fifth-generation Colorado farmer named Michael Bowman displacing a sick cornfield in the conservative part of Colorado with hemp. If it’s going to bring more profits, and be healthier for the soil, we may really see a complete about-face in the way that our food structure is going. And that’s the goal of a lot of hemp producers. John Roulac is a founder of the very profitable and fast-growing hempseed oil company Nutiva. Today he has to only deal with Canadian hemp, and he would really like to see domestic hemp. But his goal is to completely, like you said, reverse the trend of moving toward GMO and change the food structure, because it’s a healthier product; it’s actually more profitable for farmers to cultivate and for business people to invest in.

My own hope for the business model would be that we can not just localize and regionalize the energy grid as we were discussing earlier, but also the business model. I would love to see farmers in a region in the community, let’s say a section of Nebraska, or an area in Indiana (Indiana, by the way, and Tennessee are two more states that have recently legalized hemp). So a huge section of, let’s say Indiana, three counties or whatever, getting together and jointly investing in a processor that renders the seed oil, that renders fiber applications and that third energy component, so that the profits are staying in the region, the food is provided regionally, and the energy spurs an independent grid that frees us from utilities and fossil fuels.

Can you tell me a little bit more about the people you profile in the book: these early adopters of hemp? Were they mostly driven by idealism or by profits?

Another good question. I’d say it’s a combination of those. So I believe Ryan Loflin of Springfield, Colorado — there’ll be statues of him one day in Colorado because he did a very brave thing on his family’s muti-generational, very vast farm. He planted hemp when his family gets federal subsidies on alfalfa and these other kinds of crops. And he did it intentionally; he was trying to show his neighbors there is an alternative to the dust bowl that is out there. I mean really, it looks like “The Grapes of Wrath” out there in the soil. There is an alternative that will make farmers money and be good for the soil, and good for the earth, and for his kids — he has kids, too. It was brave because he could have been raided at any time, as this was before the Farm Bill passed. But also, he did another great thing which is, his point in planting those 50 acres last year was to rebuild seed stock. And there are a number of people in Colorado doing this, so that there will be seed. As I mentioned, there’s a germ problem, the great hemp genetics that we had here in the U.S. are gone. So there’s the bottom-line effort of wanting to make those big profits that Canadians make. Ryan says his father, who’s no liberal, supported his effort because they read the journals, they know what the Canadians are making on their crop.

That said, there is an activism component to hemp. There’s no question hemp is not just a plant and not just an industry, but also a movement. And the hemp brand is kind of healthy righteousness. Now, that may seem like neither here nor there, but it actually has great value. There’s a study that came out that said people’s enthusiasm about hemp, and about what hemp represents, is going to cause them to go out of their way to support it in the marketplace once American-grown hemp starts appearing in your food store, in your clothing store, in your automobile parts.

The analogy that I think of is baking soda that people use as an air freshener and the non-toxic cleaning of their kitchen and whatnot. The fact that there’s this orange box that’s inexpensive, and there’s nothing added to it, just this natural product: that’s key to the baking soda brand. We’re never going to see New Neon Super Anti-Bacterial Baking Soda because that’s off-brand. And that’s why the Canadians have banned genetically modified hemp, even though there is no genetically modified hemp. And the U.S. should do it too. The reason is that “Frankenhemp” is going turn consumers away. I have no problem with the “McHemp” sandwich at a fast-food joint. That’d be great. Just not genetically modified.

One other point on this hemp brand, and hemp being a movement: The people that have been involved in selling hemp have been really brave over the years. One of them is David Bronner, who runs Dr. Bronner’s, that multi-generational soap company that many people first discovered late at night at a party in a friend’s bathroom, with the prophetic prayers and things all over the label. He pulled one ingredient in his grandfather’s recipe, caramel coloring, took it out, and added hemp. And he sued the DEA in the ’90s to be allowed to import hemp. He only pays himself five times more than his lowest-paid employee. Puts olive oil in the soap that comes from orchards that are tended jointly by Israelis and Palestinians. Everything’s organic and fair-traded. Last year he chained himself in a cage in front of the White House with a hemp plant, demanding that American farmers be allowed to cultivate. Which, incidentally, a few months later they were. This is a $54 million, rapidly growing company. This isn’t a dude selling burritos at a Phish show. So that brand, that message of righteousness, is valuable. It actually has big bottom-dollar value. I read a couple university studies that talked about this. People are fired up about hemp, and they’re going help kickstart this industry.

So just one more question: What are the next steps that need to happen to make domestic cultivation viable in the U.S.?

Three things. First off, the U.S. needs to allow full commercial cultivation of hemp. Right now we have the university studies allowed. So what I hope people will do, what I urge people to do, is call their senators and congresspeople and support S359 on the Senate side and HR 525 on the House side, both of which will allow full commercial hemp cultivation. Which Colorado is doing anyway, but let’s get federal law on board. The second thing is, federal regulators must allow the importation of and interstate shipping of hemp seeds. Right now there’s a little bit of foot dragging going on about that. And ideally, the third thing is, for the first few years, encourage farmers via subsidies to cultivate hemp. Europe does this. We need to make our hemp crop competitive right from day one. To be honest, it doesn’t really need that, those subsidies, because it’s so profitable. But the fact that there are $300-per-acre profits by Canadian hemp today doesn’t guarantee that there will be such profits in the future. For that reason the federal government should make it very clear we want farmers to grow this crop. It’s good for the economy, it’s good for the soil, it’s good for national security, it makes us a healthier nation via the seed oil and it frees us from fossil fuels. That’s really what I’d like to see five years from now. Energy, seed oil and fibers all happening with hemp around the nation.

[mr x]

Grass, rip that shit out.

Drought -- and neighbors -- press Las Vegas to conserve water
Lake Mead, the reservoir that supplies 90% of Las Vegas' water, is ebbing as though a plug had been pulled from a bathtub drain.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-las ... z2zZAH7lGx" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

LAS VEGAS — Deep beneath Lake Mead, a 23-foot-tall tunnel-boring machine grinds through stubborn bedrock in a billion-dollar effort to make sure water continues flowing to this thirsty resort city.

For six years, the Southern Nevada Water Authority has been building an intake straw below the reservoir's two existing pipes. Due for completion in fall 2015, critics say it may not provide a long-term solution.

An ongoing drought and the Colorado River's stunted flow have shrunk Lake Mead to its lowest level in generations. The reservoir, which supplies 90% of Las Vegas' water, is ebbing as though a plug had been pulled from a bathtub drain. By mid-April, Lake Mead's water level measured just 48 feet above the system's topmost intake straw.

Future droughts and a warming climate change could spell trouble for the city's 2 million residents — and its 40 million annual visitors. Those people "better hope nothing goes wrong with the last intake," said water authority spokesman J.C. Davis.

"But if something does go wrong," he added, "we're in the business of making contingency plans."

For officials here, the scenario signifies a formidable job: providing water for the nation's driest city. Las Vegas uses more water per capita than most communities in America — 219 gallons of water per person every day — and charges less for it than many communities.

Summer temperatures top 115 degrees in a scorched environment that in a banner year receives a paltry four inches of rain. The inhospitable conditions have pushed officials to develop water conservation programs considered models worldwide.

Although this spring's snowmelt could temporarily replenish Lake Mead, the city's future still looks drier than ever, a prospect that has prompted the water authority to eye such long-term plans as a desalinization plant in California and a $15-billion pipeline to move water here from other parts of the state.

Environmentalists blast the proposed pipeline from central Nevada as irresponsible, calling it a resource grab comparable to William Mulholland's move that created an aqueduct to transport water south from California's Owens Valley to help expand Los Angeles a century ago.

They say the city has been cavalier about looming water shortages, pointing to projects such as Lake Las Vegas, a 320-acre artificial oasis built with man-made rivers and waterfalls amid the high-end homes and luxury resorts.

But water use — and how to curtail it — poses a complex puzzle, officials say. Take the casinos.

John Entsminger, the water authority's new general manager, says such seemingly careless spectacles as the elaborate fountains at the Bellagio resort feature recycled water. "The Strip uses only 3% of the region's water but supplies 70% of its economy," he said. "That's not a bad bargain."

Officials say they have prepared for myriad possible scenarios, including an emergency slashing of Las Vegas' annual water allotment. "It's important to remember that this would happen over a period of years, not months and not weeks," Davis said of such a cutback. "You don't wake up one morning and ask, 'Where did all the water go?'"

Still, water officials here acknowledge that their challenge is to keep Las Vegas livable while reining in several older neighborhoods that have resisted taking out lawns and other conservation measures. The authority has already achieved a remarkable feat: In recent years, Las Vegas and its suburbs have cut water use by one-third while adding 400,000 residents.

It was done in part with a $200-million fund to provide rebates for replacing grass with desert landscapes. Las Vegas also recycles all water that goes down the drain from dishwashers, sinks, showers and even toilets, and after reprocessing, it is pumped back into Lake Mead. With each gallon returned to the reservoir, the city gets to take another out.

The water authority plans to cut per-capita water use even further to 199 gallons a day by 2035, a rate still higher than California's present average of 182 gallons.

The Colorado River provides water for 40 million people across the Southwest — the majority of them in cities such as Las Vegas. The region's population is expected to almost double by 2060. In that time, Las Vegas will gain 1 million residents, forecasters say.

Many water experts say Las Vegas needs to immediately take a series of no-nonsense steps to help control its water shortage: Cut indoor as well as outdoor use; charge much more for water and punish abusers with precipitously higher rates; and start disclosing the rate of a neighbor's water use in residential bills to create more social pressure to conserve.

"At some point, you have to live within your means, but that doesn't fit with the image of Las Vegas," said Steve Erickson, Utah coordinator for the Great Basin Water Network, an advocacy group. "These people need to remember that it's a city built upon an inhospitable desert. What were they thinking?"

When it comes to water, this city has long been at a disadvantage: A 1922 Colorado River water-sharing agreement among seven Western states — one still in effect nearly a century later — gives Southern Nevada the smallest allotment of all: just 300,000 acre-feet a year. An acre-foot can supply two average homes for one year.

Worse, unlike such cities as Phoenix and Los Angeles, Las Vegas has just one major water source — Lake Mead — putting it most at risk during a prolonged drought and dwindling lake water reserves. The city receives a scant 10% of its water from underground local aquifers.

Officials say Las Vegas uses only 80% of its Colorado River allotment and is banking the rest for the future. But critics say that even if the city taps all of its entitled water, that amount would still not be enough to meet its needs in a prolonged drought. And after years of recession, building is starting to come back here, leaving many to ask: Where are all these new residents going to get their water?

"How foolish can you be? It's the same fatal error being repeated all over the Southwest — there is no new water," said Tim Barnett, a marine physicist at UC San Diego's Scripps Institution of Oceanography and coauthor of two reports about dwindling Western water resources. His research concluded that without massive cutbacks in water use, Lake Mead had a 50% chance of deteriorating to "dead pool" by 2036. That's the level at which the reservoir's surface drops beneath Las Vegas' lowest water intake.

Yet casinos and developers continue to push growth, and critics say lawmakers often seem to lack the willpower to draw the line. "Will Las Vegas remain a boom town in the 21st century? The city wants to appear confident but it's a place built on illusion and luck," said Emily Green, an environmental journalist who writes about water issues on her blog, Chance of Rain.

"When it comes to water," she added, "those aren't very good guiding principles."

The real water hog is not people, many say, but grass: About 70% of Las Vegas water goes to lawns, public parks and golf courses. A rebate program has already ripped out 168 million square feet of grass, enough to lay an 18-inch-wide roll of sod about 85% of the way around the Earth.

But is Las Vegas ready to ban grass entirely? "Well, at that point you're seriously impacting quality of life. We're not being complacent. We're just not ready for draconian cuts," said Davis, the spokesman for the water authority.

Barnett argues that's precisely the wake-up call people need. "All these people assume this water thing will just work itself out. Well, suppose we're looking at a change in our basic climate, where scarce water is only going to get more scarce. That's the alternative you need to plan for — and no one's doing it."

Many ask why Las Vegas continues to allow projects such as Lake Las Vegas. The lake is filled with 3 billion gallons of Colorado River water, enough to supply 18,000 residences for a year. And 1.4 billion gallons must be added annually to stop the lake from receding.

Davis said the project was conceived well before the current water crisis. "Would we build another man-made lake today? Clearly not. But stop supplying water there and values will plummet. How many lawsuits do you want to wade through regarding people's quality of life?"

The water authority is pushing forward with a plan for a 300-mile pipeline to import water from the state's agricultural heartland. The project has touched off such old Nevada grudges as north versus south and claims about urbanites enriching themselves as the expense of rural dwellers.

Environmentalists are challenging in court the right-of-way permits already secured by the water authority, and are promising a long legal battle.

Entsminger, the head of the water authority, believes the American Southwest must fight its water crisis together. He said the seven states drawing water from the Colorado River collectively form the world's fifth-largest economy — just behind Germany but ahead of France and Britain.

Southern Nevada, he insists, will do its part. And a big part of that, he said, will mean turning off the lawn sprinklers. He acknowledged he's a culprit.

His front yard features a small patch of ornamental grass planted by the previous homeowners. "I know I should take it out," the water czar said with a grimace. "It's on my list."

john.glionna@latimes.com

[mikeorr]

From http://www.esquire.com/blogs/food-for-m ... -get-drunk

How to drink all night without getting drunk
Jim Koch knows beer. He also knows a beer trick that may change your life.

“That guy from the TV commercials!” That’s what they call him, either because they don’t know his name, or are by now too drunk to remember it. As the co-founder and chairman of the Boston Beer Company, he has appeared in countless Sam Adams commercials over thirty years. And, while this always-smiling man is a regular guy like you and me while walking the street, the second he enters a bar Jim Koch becomes a celebrity.

We met at a midtown Manhattan monstrosity called The Keg Room, where at least four people stopped Koch to say hello as we made our way to a table. One apologized for currently drinking something yellow and fizzy as opposed to a Boston Lager as we sat down.

“So many beer lists are poorly arranged, but this is pretty nice,” Koch noted. “A good mix of styles, not just a bunch of IPAs like most bars have nowadays.”

Seconds later, he learned that one of the two Sam Adams offerings on tap was their new IPA, Rebel. We ordered two, though there was another surprise: they arrived in shaker pint glasses, which "aren't right," he said. "You won’t get all the aromatics.”

He reached in his bag and withdrew a Perfect Pint glass, the shapely, angle-rimmed piece of glassware his brewery helped design back in 2007 and sent the waiter back to the tap. “I always carry one with me,” he said. “You’ll see…”

He was right – I did see. And then I saw a whole slew of beers almost magically appear on our table. Nitro stouts, sours, two big bottles from their Belgian-inspired Barrel Room Collection. That’s when Koch snapped into full salesman mode, enthusiastically talking about Brewing the American Dream, his brewery's micro-lending program which has helped over 300 food and beverage startups over the past half-decade. But as much as Koch likes to pitch his company, what the man really loves to do is drink beer.

He popped the top on Tetravis, the brewery’s version of a Belgian quadruple. I had never had it before and was blown away by its freshness and bursting dark fruit flavors, atypical of most quads, which are usually muted due to aging and oxidation. Noticing my pleased reaction, Koch quickly moved to uncork the second bottle, a Belgian stout named The Thirteenth Hour.

“I’m gonna be wasted before this interview is up!” I laughed.

That's when things got dead serious for the first time all afternoon. Koch leaned in toward me, stared straight into my eyes, and whispered.

"You wanna know my secret? How I can drink beer all night long and never get drunk?"

In fact, I had always wondered that. Though this was the first time I’d ever formally met Koch, I’d “met” him in the past at a few beer festivals. Those sorts of events are always kind of Bacchanalian shit shows, with people imbibing dozens of beer samples in a short period and soon stumbling around large convention halls drunk of their asses. Brewers included. But not Koch, who I’d long noticed was always lucid, always able to hold court, and hold his own with those much younger than him. This billionaire brewing raconteur was doing likewise with me at 4 PM on a Thursday afternoon despite the fact we were both now several beers deep. So what was the secret?

“Yeast!”

“Yeast?”

“Active yeast. Like you get at the grocery store.”

Koch told me that for years he has swallowed your standard Fleischmann's dry yeast before he drinks, stirring the white powdery substance in with some yogurt to make it more palatable.

“One teaspoon per beer, right before you start drinking.”

He’d learned the trick from his good friend “Dr. Joe,” a craft beer legend in his own right. Educated at Harvard with a troika of degrees (a BA, a JD, and an MBA), Koch is no slouch, but the late-Joseph Owades was a flat-out genius. With a PhD in biochemistry from Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute and an early job in the fermentation sciences department at Fleischmann's, Owades probably knew more about fermentation and alcohol metabolism than perhaps any man who has ever lived. Koch calls him, in fact, “The best brewer who’s ever lived.” He used that immense knowledge to eventually become a consultant for most of the progenitors of America’s early craft brewing movement such as Anchor Brewing in San Francisco, New Amsterdam Brewing in New York, and, yes, the Boston Beer Company. There he became good friends with Koch, helped perfect Boston Lager, and passed on to Koch his little yeast secret.

You see, what Owades knew was that active dry yeast has an enzyme in it called alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH). Roughly put, ADH is able to break alcohol molecules down into their constituent parts of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen. Which is the same thing that happens when your body metabolizes alcohol in its liver. Owades realized if you also have that enzyme in your stomach when the alcohol first hits it, the ADH will begin breaking it down before it gets into your bloodstream and, thus, your brain.

“And it will mitigate – not eliminate – but mitigate the effects of alcohol!” Koch told me.

In his final years Owades even patented a product called Prequel, an all-natural pill similarly designed to limit drunkenness. No companies wanted to deal with the potential liabilities of the product, and Owades died in 2005 at the age of 86.

Of course, I had to honor my longtime hero Koch, and a new beer hero I’d just learned about in Owades, and try this trick myself. So the next day I grabbed a six-pack of beer and a packet of Fleischmann's and went to work. The older I get, the more of a lightweight I surely become, but after shoveling down six teaspoons and tilting back six bottles I felt nothing more than a little buzzed. Koch told me he keeps a breathalyzer around at all times just to assure he’s never too drunk. He never is. And, though I had no tangible “proof,” besides the fact I was still awake, I was pretty sure I wasn't all that drunk either. Forever more I’d be yet another guy discreetly carrying a white powder around at bars. I’d advise you do likewise.