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This article is a response to a call for comments on Version Zero of the draft Principles and Criteria for Sustainable Biofuels written by the Roundtable for Sustainable Biofuels after extensive, multi-stakeholder, international collaboration. A running public dialog on these standards is available online at the Bioenergy Wiki.We need change to a renewable fuels paradigm and we need it to be

It’s amazing how much household waste can be reduced through composting organic scraps. I’ve been doing this for years so I don’t really notice any reduction in my rubbish anymore.

However, over the New Year break my family and I shared a holiday house on Smiths Lake with two other families. Since the house was a holiday rental there was no composting or worm farming facilities so all our organic scraps went straight in the bin. I was amazed at how quickly our bins filled up and how much was thrown out that could have been composted. It was enough to make me cry – well almost.

Although this was a holiday situation, with more families in a house than usual, according to the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) roughly 50 per cent of rubbish sent to landfill is food and garden waste. Not only does this compostable or reusable waste take up valuable landfill, it also produces greenhouse gas emissions.

The ACF says when one tonne of organic waste is diverted from landfill, nearly a third of a tonne of greenhouse gas emissions is saved.

So, composting food and garden waste could reduce a household’s waste by half - that’s roughly 560kg of waste kept out of landfill per person each year, according to the ACF.

A composting system is easy to set up in a backyard, and worm farms or Bokashi bins are ideal for flats, or small living spaces.

All sorts or organic scrap are compostable such as vegetable and fruit scraps, fresh lawn clippings, farm animal manure (no pet droppings), old vase flowers, garden clippings, coffee grounds, tea leaves and seaweed. However, before taking seaweed from a beach get permission from the local council first Even hair, fluff, vacuum cleaner dust, used potting mix, paper, cardboard, crushed egg shells and old clothes can be composted.

I’ve written some guides to setting up a compost system, how to build your own worm farm and looking after worms so have a read and good luck.

Let me know how you go or if you have any other tips.

With Christmas over and another year started, many of us are thinking about ways we can support our health or maybe shed a couple of pounds before the warm-weather-and-skimpier-clothes season arrives.

Kristie Leong, MD, offers some great insights into health and dietary matters.


Today's Top 10 Health and Diet Resources

1) Four Inflammation-Reducing Foods to Add to Your Diet

2) Build Strong Bones With These Foods

3) How to Choose a Vegetarian Diet

4) Four Types of Oatmeal and How to Use Them

5) Three Super Brain Foods that Will Help You Think Better

6) Five Fun and Fabulous Exercise Trends for 2009

7) How to Burn More Calories Walking

8) Should You Use Diet Pills for Weight Loss?

9) The Magnificent Health Benefits of Hiking

10) How to Lose Weight Using the Power of Fruits

Our thanks must go out to Kristie for providing this wealth of helpful information, which should help all of us in the coming year, as we form workable health and dietary goals.

Credit: snowbear

Today's post is about cooking. We all do it. We all look at ways to save time.

When I was a wee girl, my sister and I were given a recipe for what was called Master Mix. We dug out a huge plastic container with a lid, mixed up the ingredients, and then proceeded to easily make a whole assortment of items.

Now, being a little tyke, I loved the idea that with just the addition of an egg and some liquid, I could whip up cakes, cookies and muffins, etc. Basically, I thought I'd pretty much died and gone to heaven! Master Mix took the guesswork out of those recipes.

We used our baking mix for years and with maturity, our uses for this almost magical cooking aid expanded to include biscuits, dumplings, meat pies and casseroles.

If you've never tried a Master Mix, you are missing out on fast meal preparation. It's a good thing to have on hand for when you are in a pinch and need to whip up something quickly.

I remember asking a friend home for lunch and greasing a cake pan, dumping a can of peaches in the bottom, and topping it with my Master Mix cake recipe. My friend was stunned at how, in mere minutes, I had seemingly pulled a cake out of thin air.

The peach cake was wonderful and I've made it repeatedly.

* Master Baking Mix--caramel pudding, coffee cake, meat pie, among others.

You must be the change you want to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi

These sentiments are so true! Have you ever found yourself feeling frustrated at all the injustices in the world? I know I have.

We can't change the world but . . . we can influence it, baby steps at a time.

* Each time someone decides to live with integrity--no matter how others act, they create a ripple in a larger pond. If enough people did this, soon the ripples would become waves.
* Each time someone reacts with reasonableness and love, they set an example for others.

I've given a lot of thought to the concept that you can't change others but you can change how you react.

In tandem with this, I'm back into Silva and have been using the induction techniques to go down into Alpha and program my subconscious mind to bring about changes I desire in myself, in my home, in my province, and in my world.

* The Silva method teaches that thoughts are energy. What thoughts are you using to shape your world?

Change starts with each person, as Gandhi so aptly pointed out.

Fifty-three postmenopausal women completed a trial whereby they were randomly assigned to one of two groups: two capsules of Trifolium pratense (80 mg red clover isoflavones) daily for 90 days, or placebo.  Subjects were crossed-over for another 90 days after a 7 day washout period.  Total cholesterol (TC), triglycerides, high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (HDL-C), low-density lipoprotein (LDL-C) and lipoprotein A (LpA) levels were assessed at baseline, 90 and 180 days.  Women were also subdivided into those with BMI > 25 kg/m2  and those with BMI ≤ than 25 kg/m2.

Isoflavones derived from Trifolium pratense had a beneficial effect on the lipid profile of postmenopausal women with a BMI > 25. There was also a significant decrease in TC ( 4.6%) LDL-C (15.6%) and LpA levels  (63.8%) in those that received the red clover isoflavones.

Commentary

At least five previously published reports of T. pratense isoflavones on lipid profiles in men and premenopausal and postmenopausal women have been positive, and at least two have shown no effect. This is the first published report on postmenopausal women with an increased BMI using T. pratense isoflavones to lower lipids. These decreases in TC, LDL-C and LpA correlate with findings that support a meaningful reduction in cardiovascular risk, and even more so in postmenopausal women with high lipid values. This study is promising and provides another important lifestyle supplemental tool for women who do not want to use or may not be good candidates for hormonal or statin therapies to lower their risk of cardiovascular disease.

References

• Chedraui P, San Miguel G, Hidalgo L, et al. Effect of Trifolium pratense-derived isoflavones on the lipid profile of postmenopausal women with increased body mass index. Gynecological Endocrinology 2008;24(11):620-624.

In late 19th century England, Herbert Joyce wrote a book about the history of the postal service entitled succinctly, The History of the Post Office from Its Establishment Down to 1836.

“As early as 1735, Members of Parliament had begun to complain that their letters bore evident signs of having been opened at the Post Office — alleging that such opening had become frequent and was becoming a matter of common notoriety … it transpired that in the Post Office there was a private office, an office independent of the Postmaster-General and under the immediate direction of the Secretary of State, which was expressly maintained for the purpose of opening and inspecting letters. It was pretended, indeed, that these operations were confined to foreign letters but, in the matter of fact, there was no such restriction… it was in June 1742 that these shameful facts became known through the report of a committee of the House of Commons.”

Communications, electronic or otherwise, have a long history of being intercepted by third parties — usually under the guise of “domestic security,” “protecting our business interests,” “protecting ourselves from ourselves,” etc. Our own National Security Agency was created in secret by President Truman on November 4th, 1952 — the same day his successor, Dwight D. Eisenhower, was voted in to office. Its inception began much earlier in Truman’s Presidential career but was hardly the first organization of its kind in national or world history. The timing struck me as significant not only to the Korean War and Second Red Scare politics of the time but it also draws comparisons to our own recently departed lame duck that claims he did what was “necessary to protect this country.”

Those of us who have read James Bamford’s books about the history of the NSA were not surprised to learn about the NSA’s domestic surveillance program or that it’d been around for some time before 9/11. I was, however, pleasantly surprised when convicted felon and former Qwest CEO, Joseph Nacchio, spilled the beans that he would not turn over his company’s communications records without a court order. Am I the only one that remembers when it was considered rude to spy on your neighbors? It was even made light of in 50s and 60s era sitcoms. Spies used to have codes of conduct but Joyce, David Kahn, and many others have written extensively about the history of governments that have spied on their own population for the greater good. That’s hardly cricket, eh, old chap?

While the 4th Amendment bears some text protecting our homes from unlawful search and seizure, our founding fathers (and mothers) were unaware of the upcoming inventions of the telegraph, the radio, satellites, and Facebook. But the right of privacy has a long history both in America and abroad — a history that may be traced four thousand years back to when Egyptian scribes began to subtly alter their heiroglyphs. A cuneiform tablet was once found in an archeological dig at the ancient city of Seleucia (about 30km SE of modern Baghdad along the Tigris river). This precious tablet bore an encrypted recipe for pottery glazes — written in cuneiform but with strange groups of vowels and consonants in order to protect its valuable trade secret.

But why should the average person care if their government is secretly reading their email, logging their phone calls, or intercepting their postcards from Auntie Sue? Public video cameras in the UK protect the population so why not snoop through my porn to see if any terrorists are secretly trading in weapons of mass orgasm? Should we believe that FBI’s COINTELPRO ended in 1971? Or was it merely parted out to less public organizations within the “shadow government’s” octopus of black chamber operations?

Will the Obama administration allay our worst fears? Who watches the watchmen? The X Files was a huge hit during the Clinton era — will shows like Fringe and Warehouse 13 be the equivalent pop culture paranoia for the masses during the current regime? Or will it be more drivel from the military industrial entertainment complex designed to distract us from the real covert operations being formulated and enacted every day? I’m sure there’s an entire warehouse of ideas waiting to be made in to pablum for the proletariat.

I don’t know about you but I’m inclined to agree with former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan that “the wind of change is blowing through this continent. Whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact.” Let’s hope that our vigilance will only strenghthen and that the new administration will fulfill their promise that change has come to America in an era of new responsibility.

Your comrade in cognitus en crypto,
Stanley

Great article about GM foods, and why we should avoid them. How? Buy fresh, organic foods grown locally, or grow your own!

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/01/19-5