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Politics : Rat's Nest - Chronicles of Collapse -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: abuelita who wrote (1222)	7/24/2005 6:00:43 AM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 24210

We had another town meeting last night. I proudly announced that we had been the lead story on Energy Bulletin, and the moderator promptly trumped me by saying the next speaker was the woman who had written it. I think we will probably make it again, sooner or later. This woman is one of several people getting into yaks. Not the yakkity yak of women, but the animule. Somebody up north has 7 that they are giving away, and people here have figured out that they are a valuable multi-purpose animal; food, milk, wool, draft animals. Apparently they don't damage creeks like other grazers, because they don't like boggy areas. More efficient grazers than cattle. It sounds like the plan will be to get a small communal herd going. I believe somebody has already donated some rangeland, so people are starting to talk about "adopt a yak". Interesting idea, especially as draft animals. There aren't a lot of them around here; a few Clydesdales in Willits, but I think they are mostly for show. ============================================================ Yak Yak, wild or domesticated Tibetan ox native to the high plateaus and mountains of Central Asia, where the climate is cold and dry. The wild yak, considered to be an endangered species, is a massive animal, blanketed with a thick coat of long, blackish-brown hair. The males, which are larger than the females, may be more than 2 m (more than 6.6 ft) high at the shoulder and weigh up to 1000 kg (up to 2200 lb). The back of the yak is humped at the shoulders. The horns are long and spread outward and upward, and the tail is long-haired and bushy. The domestic yak is of various colors, including red, brown, black, and white, and of smaller size than the wild animal as a result of crossbreeding with cattle. Yaks are valuable as beasts of burden. Their milk is rich and yields excellent butter and curd, and the flesh, eaten roasted or dried, is of high quality. The hair is spun into rope and woven into cloth, and the hide is used for leather. Instead of lowing like an ox, the yak utters a low, guttural sound; hence it is called the grunting cow, or grunting ox. Scientific classification: The yak belongs to the family Bovidae of the order Artiodactyla. It is classified as Bos grunniens. encarta.msn.com

To: abuelita who wrote (1222)	7/25/2005 12:06:57 PM
From: Wharf Rat	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 24210

It may be time to change Canada likes to pride itself on being a leader in finding ways to save the environment, but we may soon find ourselves following the lead of the United States in the Next Big Thing: extending Daylight Savings Time. Monday, July 25, 2005 Deeming improved fuel-economy standards for SUVs too disruptive, the U.S. Congress thinks tinkering with time would make a great energy-saving measure. A new energy bill could, among other things, expand daylight-saving time, possibly by as much as two months. While this proposal is not, by any means, a solution to the North American energy problem, Canada may have little choice but to follow suit, if the benefits of synchronization outweigh the cost of change. The measurement of time remains downright quirky, particularly here in Canada, where "half an hour later in Newfoundland" has become an established part of the lexicon and where Saskatchewan stubbornly refuses to spring forward. Time zones themselves cause late-night or early-morning conference calls. To some extent, this is unavoidable: the sun will always be in a different place in the Vancouver sky than the Toronto sky. But unnecessary confusion could be bad for business. Canada and the U.S. are connected as never before, and having cross-border cities run on different hours in the spring and fall will created unnecessary complications. When deciding whether to follow the U.S. lead on extending summer time, provinces should consider this and other potential benefits. The energy-saving argument, for example, is an old one. Benjamin Franklin used it in 1784, in his humorous essay "An Economical Project for Diminishing the Cost of Light." Franklin was referring to the profligate use of candles and oil lamps by night-owl Parisians. But the cost of modern electricity explains California's enthusiasm for daylight saving, and was behind the extended daylight-saving the U.S. government mandated in response to the oil crisis of the early 1970s. Just how much energy an extension would save now is open to question. Lighting is becoming more efficient, with the widespread sale of compact-fluorescent bulbs. Compared with the energy used by air conditioning or water heating, lighting has never been a major consumer of power. An extra hour of sunlight a day for up to two months of the year might not save much energy. Indeed, office buildings that use natural light and solar heating might be a more significant way to use the sun for conservation. But even if saving daylight saves only a little energy, it could still be worth doing. It's an easy way to get stubborn North Americans to change their behaviour. Imagine if, instead of telling us to turn our clocks ahead in the spring, governments told us to get up and start work an hour later. North Americans might resent such an intrusion, although it is just a restatement of daylight-saving time. Perception is everything, and the division of time into hours is an illusion. No matter what the U.S. decides, the Earth will move around the sun at the same rate. No matter what Canada's provinces decide, the North American economy will remain integrated. Meanwhile, time is running out for both countries to find ways to save energy canada.com