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Monday, June 10, 2002 |
Organic Farmng Could Kill Billions?
Interesting piece in Reason reports on a 21-year study of organic farming methods. The results are far from clear, to me, but are disturbing. For example, organic farming is much less productive than using artificial fertilizers, so to get the same amount of production, you have to use that much more land. Meaning that land can't be used for forests. Organic farming also removes minerals from the soil -- particularly phsphorous and potassium. So over time those minerals need to be replenished, or the soil is less useful for farming.
Now, I'm the kind of guy who's never been a big eater of organic foods, or been very picky about things, though I've always supposed I "should" be so. I'm also a skeptical person by nature, and am often skeptical about claims like those made by those in favor of organics. I'm also a little skeptical of the spin given to the report by this article. [via SciTech Daily Review]
8:55:31 PM Permalink
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Business Skeleton's in Cheney's closet
Well, I trust all those guardians of the public good who made such a big deal out of Whitewater and Hillary's investments are going to maintain their vigilance about tricky Dick. No?
The proximate cause of the SEC investigation is an "aggressive accounting practice" at Halliburton approved by the accounting firm Arthur Andersen - a little matter of counting revenue that had not yet been received, $100 million worth.
The New York Times reports that two former executives of Dresser Industries, which merged with Halliburton in 1998, say Halliburton used the accounting sham to cover up its losses. Dresser may have thought it got a bad deal in that merger because of that $100 million "anticipation" on the credit line, but it turned out to be much more sour for Halliburton.
Mr. Cheney bought himself a former Dresser subsidiary facing 292,000 claims for asbestos-caused health problems. He said at the time the merger was "one of the most exciting things I've ever been involved in," and predicted it would benefit Halliburton's customers, employees and shareholders. The first thing that happened was Halliburton eliminated 10,000 jobs. (It was amusing to hear Mr. Cheney on the campaign trail in 2000 claiming he had been out in the private sector "creating jobs.")
8:39:08 PM Permalink
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PHP Best Practices
This is a timely piece; just last week I was poking around a bunch of PHP sites looking for something along these lines. I doesn't answer all my questions, but points me in some right directions. I've been doing some scripting with PHP lately, and when you're just prowling around through documentation looking to solve specific problems, you don't necessarily know if you're doing it the "right way." In most languages, there are sevral ways to do things, and the language works better some ways than others. While this is a little more generic than what I was after, it's still pretty interesting.
8:29:58 PM Permalink
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Back yourself up!
Backing up Radio Userland
Just a reminder, since I'm in the process of getting Radio going again after a hard disk failure, that if you want to backup or move Radio between machines, you'll want to read the web page on How to backup Radio. [Kevin Altis' Radio Weblog]
What Kevin says. I too lost my hard disk a month or so ago, and I'm still picking up the pieces. Do it now, while you're reading this: back up everything on your drive that would take more time to reconstruct than it will to back up now.
2:16:43 PM Permalink
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Before Prohibition
These pages show package labels from the days when companies legally sold products based on psychotrophic substances. "Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup was an indispensable aid to mothers and child-care workers. Containing one grain (65 mg) of morphine per fluid ounce, it effectively quieted restless infants and small children. It probably also helped mothers relax after a hard day's work. The company used various media to promote their product, including recipe books, calendars, and trade cards such as the one shown here from 1887."
11:27:21 AM Permalink
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© Copyright 2004 Steve Michel.
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