Gasoline-powered Leaf-blowers: stupid, loud, unnecessary and irresponsible

electric Toro Super Blower/Vac

We need to change to electric vacuum mulchers.

Small gasoline engines are notorious polluters, not to mention viciously loud. And, what they do is blow leaves from one person’s yard into, eventually, other people’s yards…where other people with gasoline-powered leaf-blowers will continue the cycle.

Some communities have decided that there is only so much stupidity that can reasonably be tolerated. And since there is no market force that will stop the GPLBs, laws are the only solution.

Bravo !!

Now, it is certainly possible to “leave your leaves.” The heck with the appearance. But in the first place, these leaves will kill anything, like grass, underneath them. And they will mildew as they rot, not to mention their acid content. And, they stain your concrete.

Raking: yes, the time-honored method still works. But, talk about a waste of time. And then you have to pick them up and do something with the enormous mass. Lawn sweepers are faster, but bulky, and have the same limitations as raking.

Another alternative: mulch the leaves with your lawnmower. This works, although it still involves, in many cases, the small gasoline engine. And, I can’t recommend it for irregular areas, stone yards, and it obviously won’t get the leaves out of your hedges and plants.

Here’s a good alternative for most of us: Go down to your hardware store and look for the Toro Super Blower Vac, a powerful electric item that you can use to vacuum up your leaves, if you have small problem areas. If you want to use it for larger areas, you first use it to blow the leaves into a big pile, then suck them up, mulching them into a small volume as you do so. Costs about 60 bucks and produces air flow as good as the gasoline ones. It will clean your hedges, though that requires a bit of muscle power to horse the thing around. It comes with a strap to help stabilize it.

Sure, you have to have a long extension cord, plug it in…but come on, you don’t have to keep a gasoline can on hand, with the oil blending, blah blah.

It makes some noise, of course, but nothing like the penetrating gas engines.

I hope that more communities will outlaw the gasoline blowers, and that even without new laws, people will start converting to electric, and putting pressure on their “yard guys” to also do so.

Robert Gates gives Stephen Hadley a big red D on his Iran homework

Robert Gates

Someone in the Bush administration has called bullshit on the justification for airstrikes on Iran, and that person, obviously, is Robert Gates. And the main bullshitter is Stephen Hadley, the man who got the famous “16 words” deception on Iraq’s WMD’s into the 2003 State of the Union speech.

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Those 16 words may have been crucial to the successful effort to fool the American public into approving the illegal war on Iraq. Well, Hadley apparently tried to get some sort of similar crap, this time to get us into a war with Iran, past new Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and it didn’t fly.
Maura Reynolds of the Los Angeles Times:

U.S. can’t prove Iran link to Iraq strife
Bush administration officials acknowledged Friday that they had yet to compile evidence strong enough to back up publicly their claims that Iran is fomenting violence against U.S. troops in Iraq.

Administration officials have long complained that Iran was supplying Shiite Muslim militants with lethal explosives and other materiel used to kill U.S. military personnel. But despite several pledges to make the evidence public, the administration has twice postponed the release — most recently, a briefing by military officials scheduled for last Tuesday in Baghdad.

“The truth is, quite frankly, we thought the briefing overstated, and we sent it back to get it narrowed and focused on the facts,” national security advisor Stephen J. Hadley said Friday.

The acknowledgment comes amid shifting administration messages on Iran. After several weeks of saber rattling that included a stiff warning by President Bush and the dispatch of two aircraft carrier strike groups to the Persian Gulf, near Iran, the administration has insisted in recent days that it does not want to escalate tensions or to invade Iran.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates seemed to concede Friday that U.S. officials can’t say for sure whether the Iranian government is involved in assisting the attacks on U.S. personnel in Iraq.

“I don’t know that we know the answer to that question,” Gates said.

Earlier this week, U.S. officials acknowledged that they were uncertain about the strength of their evidence and were reluctant to issue potentially questionable data in the wake of the intelligence failures and erroneous assessments that preceded the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Make no mistake; this was a huge embarrassment for the Bush administration, who are not accustomed to being held to any sort of standards of rationality or truth.

I think it is fair to speculate that Gates holds veto power over any new adventures. As the new guy, he was probably easily persuaded that the “surge” in Iraq was compatible with the Iraq Study Groups recommendations. And, he apparently acquiesced to the recent fiasco in Somalia, but perhaps learned something about the “1% chance” standard of proof required by the Cheney rump government.

Can he now face down Cheney over Iran? perhaps not in the usual sense. But he has the power of resignation, which in this case would be a devastating condemnation of the Bush administration, which could ultimately bring down the government, I think it is fair to say.

This is a game of chicken. You know he is on the phone to Pappy Bush three times a week; is there the will to stop the frat boy who fell in with the wrong crowd?

It is lined spiral notebook paper, slightly singed and
dripping beer, covered with handwriting. In the upper right-
hand corner is the name Lawrence Sellers, and under that,
Mrs. Jamtoss 5th Period. The theme is titled “The Louisiana
Purchase.” In red ink is a large circled D and some
handwritten marginal comments; misspelled words are circled
in red throughout. –The Big Lebowski

Texas Gov. Rick Perry orders cancer-preventing vaccine for all girls

link

human papillomavirus infection

Bypassing the Legislature altogether, Republican Gov. Rick Perry issued an order Friday making Texas the first state to require that schoolgirls get vaccinated against the sexually transmitted virus that causes cervical cancer.

By employing an executive order, Perry sidestepped opposition in the Legislature from conservatives and parents’ rights groups who fear such a requirement would condone premarital sex and interfere with the way Texans raise their children.

Beginning in September 2008, girls entering the sixth grade — meaning, generally, girls ages 11 and 12 — will have to receive Gardasil, Merck & Co.’s new vaccine against strains of the human papillomavirus, or HPV.

Perry also directed state health authorities to make the vaccine available free to girls 9 to 18 who are uninsured or whose insurance does not cover vaccines. In addition, he ordered that Medicaid offer Gardasil to women ages 19 to 21.

Perry, a conservative Christian who opposes abortion and stem-cell research using embryonic cells, counts on the religious right for his political base. But he has said the cervical cancer vaccine is no different from the one that protects children against polio.

“The HPV vaccine provides us with an incredible opportunity to effectively target and prevent cervical cancer,” Perry said.

Merck is bankrolling efforts to pass state laws across the country mandating Gardasil for girls as young as 11 or 12. It doubled its lobbying budget in Texas and has funneled money through Women in Government, an advocacy group made up of female state legislators around the country.

Perry has ties to Merck and Women in Government. One of the drug company’s three lobbyists in Texas is Mike Toomey, Perry’s former chief of staff. His current chief of staff’s mother-in-law, Texas Republican state Rep. Dianne White Delisi, is a state director for Women in Government.

The governor also received $6,000 from Merck’s political action committee during his re-election campaign.

Perry panders to the religious right, but he was re-elected in November so he doesn’t need them anymore. Now it’s just all about the money. This is essentially like Bush’s Medicare part D: a bonanza for Big Pharma. It is not mentioned anywhere in the article but I’d guess that, in spite fo the reassurance of free vaccine for those who can’t afford it, Merck will getting full retail. Which, by the way, is something like $380 for the series of three shots. Perry is also taking a page out of Bush’s unitary executive playbook, by just ordering something done that would customarily have been decided by the legislature. In this case, in Texas, it would have never happened.

Incidentally, or perhaps not so, I do think that the vaccine is a wonderful advance and very worthwhile. If you have a daughter, get it done.