PermaKent Permaculture Ideas of J. Kent Hastings

From the description at YouTube:
“In this segment from Hippy Gourmet TV we visit with Michael Funk, an organic food entrepreneur who lives in a sustainable home that runs off of solar power and solar hot water. On the Yuba River, Michael is also involved with SYRCL (the South Yuba River Citizens League) - established to […]

The neocon war blog China Confidential takes the Obama-Biden campaign to task for pushing “biodiesel baloney.”
“. . .biofuels are so menacing that opposition to their use cuts across political and ideological lines to an astonishing extent–from Cuba’s Communist leader, Fidel Castro, to America’s libertarian Cato Institute and conservative Heritage Foundation.”
“But Barack Obama apparently sees the […]

This just in! (That’s what she said.) This Boing Boing post points out a New Scientist report titled “Horny goat weed could be better than Viagra.”
“Viagra’s active compound, sildenafil, works by inhibiting an enzyme called phosphodiesterase-5 (PDE5). Because PDE5 helps control blood flow to the penis, inhibiting PDE5 promotes male erection.”
“Dell’Agli and his colleagues tested […]

From YouTube Description:
“Google is already investing $10 million into its RechargeIT plug-in vehicle program,and plans to make investments into green cars this summer through the plug-in program. The Google RechargeIT team also made this short video clip to explain what their 7-week drive test was all about.”

Researchers have done the math on how much CO2 would be offset by more reflective cityscapes.
Given the day of financial reckoning to come, only delayed a bit by GWB’s bailout (the largest since the Great Depression), maybe ”Get Out Of Town” would have been a more helpful headline for you. But enough of my obsessions.
White […]

Seasteaders beware. Today there be more pirates afloat.

Some of my friends are tired of me bitching about city life, telling me how they’re there for “social” reasons. Yeah. Too bad they can’t tell me their neighbors’ names on either side of their house or across the street.
My neighbor in Pahrump, a small town 70 miles from Vegas, is “Dan.” I chat with […]

Watching satellite HD channels on an off-grid homestead without a handy bowl of freshly popped snack food seems like a serious human rights violation to me.
That horrifying snackless scenario prompted some serious research. Is there a practical alternative to driving to the store for that vital popcorn? Or can we just grow it ourselves?
After laboriously […]

Here’s a debate between Paul Ehrlich and George Carlin (even if they never met). But first, some background on why I embedded their respective YouTube videos.
My motivation for this blog about permaculture is “carbon neutral.” Do ignorant government politicians use pseudoscience to whip up bogus threats? All the time. But do corporations cover their ass […]

In an editorial in the latest issue of Backwoods Home Magazine online, editor and publisher Dave Duffy was surprised by the following admission by a board member of the MREA Midwest Renewable Energy Fair:
“He [MREA Fair’s Mick Sagrillo] said the Board meeting to ban BHM did occur (he was at it), but that it was […]

The Domestic Fuel article, “World’s Biggest Camelina Grower Fueling Biodiesel Production,” has much to say about the virtues of Camelina. Here is just one of them:
“Camelina does not take away from land currently being utilized for food production because it has the ability to grow on marginal land utilizing very little moisture.”

Video report on Veracifier’s YouTube channel:
“This incident ended a day that saw multiple pre-RNC raids, which some legal observers believe is a coordinated pre-emptive effort by local and national law enforcement agencies to chill RNC protest action.”

Ausearth reports “Remembering a Great Man: Masanobu Fukuoka”.
Fukuoka’s work was described here recently in this post, which included links to free versions of his books (perhaps only legal in Australia).
“What impressed me about Fukuoka’s approach, even beyond “minimal labor,” is what he called “do nothing” agriculture. Now that’s what I’m talking about! I can do […]

A recent BioDiesel Magazine article announced that researcher Zhiyou Wen, “assistant professor of biological engineering systems at Virginia Tech’s College of Agriculture and Life Sciences,” has converted biodiesel byproduct “crude glycerin” into Omega-3 fatty acids using microalgae.
“After the fatty acids are produced, the algae can be used as animal feed. The animals are then consumed […]

Matt Mayer from Groovy Green recommends more recently published books about raising chickens in his post, “Raising Chickens on an Urban Homestead,” than I did in my post, “Eggs OK Twice Per Day.”
Matt’s article is the first in a series of posts about his undertaking to raise chickens in an urban environment. Good luck to […]