Comments anthony11 has made

  • confusing

    Dell doesn't manufacture printers, they resell Lexmark's.  They've also resold TV's, yet TV's aren't covered.  Hard to know what they will/won't take.On Computer maker expands recycling efforts posted 9 months, 3 weeks ago 1 Response

  • Sweet irony

    I chuckled when I read the author's (deserved) disparagement of HFCS, followed by his admission that he drinks coffee, which is no less nutritionally void or toxic.  On The FDA sat on evidence of mercury-tainted high-fructose corn syrup posted 10 months, 1 week ago 13 Responses

  • missing the point

    Fish are never sustainable food for humans.  Better choices would be eg. avocado and cucumber.On Green groups to release sustainable sushi guides posted 1 year, 1 month ago 5 Responses

  • partly right, partly red herring

    Many adults fade in the latter part of a long work day -- can't imagine it'd be any different for kids.  Schools could avoid this while still going with a 4-day schedule by dropping the stuff that has nothing to do with education, eg. "gym" (aka "phys ed").  An argument can be made that kids should be taught how to swim in school, but the rest isn't remotely educational.

    The issue of child care for parents is significant.  I telecommute and could adapt, but we're not going to see telecommuting rates climb significantly anytime soon.  Quite a few jobs don't lend themselves to it, but for the ones that do, corporate reluctance to change, and dependence on telecommuting-hostile tools (eg. Microsoft OS's) are a big roadblock.On More school districts consider four-day week posted 1 year, 4 months ago 4 Responses

  • hypocrisy abounds

    on all sides here.  Jason, do you eat animal products?  If so, then you're in no position to pretend to give a damn about the environment.  Drop your pretension and get off the religion-bashing bandwagon.  If you don't like this country's constitution, you're welcome to move to one that isn't encumbered by it.

    Yep, people have been burning wood and practicing selective breeding for millennia.  We didn't have 6+ BILLION of them doing it a thousand years ago, though, and farmers improving the characteristics of maize weren't splicing frog genes into it.

    I absolutely agree with caniscandida that animal rights / welfare are entirely in line with core Christian values -- eg., the sermon on the mount, and it's sad that more people don't see that.  I love what the CVA folks are doing along those lines, though.

    I do wish the RC church would drop the homosexuality thing, as there isn't a rationale that it hurts someone.

    Elective abortion, though, I don't jump on the bandwagon for.  The solution for an unwanted pregnancy is not to kill the weaker contestant, but rather to lose the elitism and NOT GET PREGNANT IN THE FIRST PLACE IF YOU DON'T WANT TO BE.  It's not that difficult.  The cause of pregnancy is well-documented, as are the trivial means to avoid it.
    On Pollution is on Vatican's updated list of mortal sins posted 1 year, 8 months ago 9 Responses

  • college laundry room vs. your living room

    Why pay and pollute twice for heat and drying when you can just pay and pollute once?

    Because the questioner is talking about a communal college laundry room, where it is unsafe to leave one's clothes. Who has 6 hours to burn every time something needs to be washed?
    On Umbra on communal clothes drying posted 1 year, 9 months ago 12 Responses

  • Oh boy

    Yet another recipe that requires the menstrual products of an animal.  WTF does this have to do with a site that's ostensibly about environmental awareness?
    On A pair of decadent desserts guaranteed to sweeten up your Valentine's Day posted 1 year, 9 months ago 6 Responses

  • Money makes the world go around

    When I was a kid trick-or-treating (before it was outlawed due to the apple/razor-blade urban legend) I would have been pissed to have been given a sticker or a card with a @#$ knock-knock joke on it.  Those are, however, great choices if one's goal is to scrape eggs off one's siding.

    The best suggestion I've heard for the trick-or-treating question is simple:  cold hard cash.  At the time a quarter was suggested, but today 50-cent peices or even dollar coins (though a dismaying percentage of even adults won't recognize those as US money) might be appropriate (or  just two quarters).

    If I were pressed to provide candy, I'd get the mini Chick-o-Sticks.  They don't readily melt, and unlike most chocolate candy, don't [appear to] contain animals.
    On Umbra on Halloween posted 2 years, 1 month ago 15 Responses

  • bandwagoning

    There is nothing sustainable about mistaking animals for food, yet this "sustainable" chef freely encourages the use of cattle (including veal), pigs, and birds.  It may be local, but it sure isn't sustainable or even food, and it doesn't grow in that "finest" soil touted here.

    The first definition at dictionary.com for "food" is:

    any nourishing substance that is eaten, drunk, or otherwise taken into the body to sustain life, provide energy, promote growth, etc.

    The corpses of animals don't nourish those who aren't designed to eat them, notably humans.

    Please stop glorifying these greenwashing hypocrites.On The savory challenges of being a sustainable chef in Big Ag country posted 2 years, 1 month ago 34 Responses

  • It has to be said

    I for one welcome our new Birthday Overlords.
    On Umbra on kids' birthday parties posted 2 years, 2 months ago 15 Responses

  • Stop kidding yourselves

    1. There is no such thing as sustainable meat.  Look at the widespread devastation that grazing has brought our lands.  Somewhere between 60-70% of the grain grown in the US is fed to livestock, and pigs in the US generate more bodily waste than humans.  If "sustainability" is what people seek, cessation of the mistaking of animals for food is one of the biggest and easiest steps to take, for the preservation of farmland and aquifers.  Land currently used for livestock could be turned to other, better uses.

    2. "Free-range" is meaningless.  Anyone who doesn't understand this has had their head buried quite deep in the sand.  One hundred thousand debeaked mutant chickens (meat chickens are wholly unnatural) in a barn with a 10x10 concrete pad open at the top count as "free range".  There are a very, very few truly pastured livestock out there, but it's not finacially viable at any scale, and the large amounts of land needed to support such are incompatible with any dream of "sustainability".

    3. "Would it be beneficial and productive to promote the use of free range instead of avoiding all meat-eating altogether?"  That's tantamount to fighting lung cancer by smoking only thin cigarettes.  Even if "free range" animal products truly were available, polluting our watersheds with tons of animal shit, our skies with prodigious volumes of methane, and our bodies with  prions, antibiotics, hormones, and other toxins (commercial chicken feed, fed to "free range" chickens, deliberately contains ARSENIC!) is incompatible with the concept of sustainability - all it does is demonstrate that people don't want change, only the illusion of change to wrap themselves in because it's currently "chic".  If you want to do something beneficial and productive, stop rationalizing your laziness and get off the animal products.  "Free range" CJD, colon cancer, kidney stones, coronary disease, and diabetes are hardly "beneficial and productive" to anyone other than Cargill and all the other huge  agribusiness zillionaires.

    Meg, if you'd like to have reasons to give people for not mistaking friends for food, hand them a copy of T. Colin Campbell's "The China Study".  Campbell isn't even a vegan (but rather a strict vegetarian) and this book is packed full of science -- epidemiological and (unfortunately) animal studies of diet and chronic disease.

    Howard Lyman's "Mad Cowboy" tells the story of a cattle farmer who saw the light.

    You can't teach compassion, but you can teach people nutrition and environmental cause/effect.

    As for the original article's notes about pesky USDA inspection:  "Umbra", clearly you've had your eyes and ears closed for the last 20 years if you believe that USDA inspection safeguards anything.  The USDA's charter is agribusiness protectionism, and they don't even deny it.
     On Umbra on sustainable meat posted 2 years, 3 months ago 32 Responses

  • It's too late, baby

    Humans have already pretty much wiped out lobsters in the northeast.  Unmolested, they live and grow slowly.  They used to reach 40+ pounds and grow quite large, but idiot human predation has made that a thing of the past -- a 2 pound lobster is now a "big" one.On As Long As the Sox Are OK posted 2 years, 4 months ago 3 Responses

  • Fooling yourself

    We've seen clearly (eg., the footage in "Earthlings") that kosher slaughter doesn't happen.  Stop fooling yourself that there is any "humane" consumption of animal products.On Welcome Back, Kosher posted 2 years, 4 months ago 3 Responses

  • Red Herrings

    Claims about organic cattle milk, chickens, and other animal products are red herrings, as they simply aren't foods for humans to begin with.  Anyone who claims environmental concern yet uses animal products is at best fooling themselves and at worst a hypocrite.
    On The Way to a Manchester's Stomach posted 2 years, 9 months ago 2 Responses

  • VLT, outreach, etc.

    A few thoughts:

    Hillside Quickies in Seattle / Tacoma have a VLT on their menu which is quite good.

    Quorn is meat in disguise.  If you don't consider eggs to be meat, you either haven't thought about it, or are a weasel of the highest order.

    I'm on the board of an AR 501c3, and I hand out anti-meat and pro-veg literature all the time.  I tend to not be in-your-face, but do lots of outreach with a positive slant.On Why the vegetarian critique of meat-eating should make meat-eaters squirm posted 2 years, 10 months ago 103 Responses

  • plant-based diet

    The environmental motivations for not mistaking friends for food are much wider than species extinction.
    On A moment of silence posted 2 years, 11 months ago 15 Responses

  • suggestion

    A simple way to address a far-reaching environmental issue would be to serve only vegan food, and include a note about the devastation that the animal products industry wreaks on the planet.  This goes right in hand with abstaining from animal cruelty.On Umbra on eco-tips in event programs posted 2 years, 11 months ago 7 Responses

  • Quorn

    Some of us refuse to eat it for other reasons:

    o It contains chicken ova, so it's really no different from tradtional meat as far as animals go.

    o The fungus they use in can be allergenic.

    o It tastes, as Cartman would say, like ass.

    I suggest a Tofurky or -- better yet -- an UnTurkey instead.  They taste better and no male chicks are macerated alive to make them.
    On Two non-turkey recipes for the Thanksgiving feast posted 3 years ago 19 Responses

  • Charbucks, neoprene, etc.

    Please distinguish between a "neoprene-type seal" and a "rubber" one, as they'd appear to be the same thing.

    Ceramic mugs:  I wonder about lead glazing, especially on ones from other countries.

    Is microwavability really an issue, given the mention of trips to Charbucks for coffee?  Those who spend $8/day on $1 of coffee aren't going to be tre gauche by reheating their status symbol in something as pedestrian as a microwave.

    Lastly, Charbucks does indeed deserve your ire for their support of rodeos.
    On Umbra on travel mugs posted 3 years ago 22 Responses

  • AC

    In the late 90's I had an accident in my 1989 Accord that emptied the AC system.  I elected for a retrofit to R134a.  The process was very expensive and the new system never worked worth a damn.  I suggest that an existing R12 system that's functioning well should be left alone.
    On Umbra on car trade-ins posted 3 years, 4 months ago 12 Responses

  • It has to start somewhere

    I agree that local and organic are often not mutually exclusive.  Farmer's markets here often sell what's at least claimed to be organic produce, and the PCC co-ops do their best to provide items that are both local and organic.

    As for cost - I don't shop for food by cost.  Any price differential between conventional and organic food is going to be dwarfed by other expenses and decisions - and of course how do we measure the cost of eating heavy metals and pesticides?

    Latenac, if you truly care about "better food", why do you mistake animals for it?  If you abuse your body with corpses it's not designed to digest, the benefits of conventional vs. organic are moot.
    On Local or organic? It's a false choice posted 3 years, 6 months ago 9 Responses

  • re: Finding eco-minded singles

    George:  FWIW, veggielove and greensingles both suffer from rather a lack of critical mass, and eHarmony keeps throwing carnivore grandmothers at me.
    On Umbra on love posted 3 years, 9 months ago 7 Responses

  • Spot on

    Thanks for recognizing this phenomenon and laying it bare.  As a single vegan, I've been disappointed and dismayed at times at how often those on both sides of the chromosomal divide dismiss someone who'd be great with them, for lack of something trivial like extreme height or the wrong color hair.  Recognition of what is/isn't truly important in a partner seems to be a rare commodity, at least in my age bracket.On Umbra on love posted 3 years, 9 months ago 7 Responses