environmentally friendly | Ain't Complicated

The Larger the Family

“Studies have indicated that
the larger the family,
the less healthy the children are likely to be
and the less likely they are to realize their potential
levels of achievement.”
—Ecoscience: Population, Resources, Environment

Nuke Woodburn?

The first comment on the following story says so:

Woodburn police say more than a dozen people, some of them gang members, got into a street fight late Thursday, sending one person to the hospital for stab wounds.

Source: Woodburn Police Respond to Large Street Brawl

Weird 🙄

(We used to live in Woodburn. We still do lots of business there. We like Woodburn.)

Anyway, here’s some Oregon news causing less of a flap:

In thousands of Oregon neighborhoods and condo buildings, covenants and other rules ban clotheslines, even from private backyards. Homeowners using clotheslines face threatening letters from their homeowners’ associations and potential fines — not to mention simmering tension with neighbors who consider hanging clothes an eyesore or an emblem of poverty.

[…]

A bill that may soon become law would prohibit homeowner associations and condo associations from banning clotheslines in areas maintained by individual homeowners. House Bill 3090 cleared the Oregon House and could soon reach the Senate floor.

The effort joins others from Hawaii to Connecticut, where state lawmakers are caught in clothesline politics.

Source: Oregon legislation puts backyard laundry on the line

I’m all for clotheslines. In fact, we used them extensively in the past. I’ve even posted about them previously:

Driving

Under the Influence

Forget fast-food waste or kitchen grease: Real aristocrats use wine to make their biofuels. Britains Prince Charles recently jumped on the biofuels bandwagon, converting his seldom-used 1960 Aston Martin DB6 to a biofuel system that allows him to run his classic convertible on wine rather than gasoline. "Charles only [travels] two or three hundred miles a year in the Aston but he wanted it to be environmentally friendly," an aide told the Daily Mail. The prince gets his wine from an English vintner who would otherwise have to destroy any wine produced above the European Union quota. Charles switch to a biofuel may curb a smidgen of carbon dioxide emissions, but it likely wont save him much money: The wine costs only slightly less than the gasoline hed buy for his classic.

Right

High gas prices arent forcing UPS off the roadways. Theyre just forcing the companys drivers to the right side of the road. According to executives at the international package delivery service, computer mapping software and traffic modeling has led them to conclude that delivery drivers should avoid making left turns. By mapping out routes that aim for only right-hand turns, the company saved 3.3 million gallons of gasoline in 2007. According to UPS research, drivers waste time and gas idling while waiting for left-hand turn signals. Even with the more circuitous path, the company estimates that it saved more than $9 million in 2007.

HT: WORLD Magazine.