http://permakent.com Building relationships between people and with nature. Mon, 08 Mar 2010 01:14:51 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Looks like the glass spray I described in "Get Ready To Eat and Wear Glass" is being joined by "hairy surfaces" in the war against consumable toxic cleaning products. The first description of the invention I read was a Slashdot post, "New "Hairy" Material Is Almost Perfectly Hydrophobic." According to the Science ... http://permakent.com/2010/03/07/toxic-cleaning-products-fear-the-future/ Bill Gates was in the news a few weeks back taking climate change deniers to task. I must admit I lean to the skeptical side myself. I'm for off-grid power for reasons such as the probable coming oil famine and hyperinflation. But I don't have the expertise and inclination to go ... http://permakent.com/2010/02/26/bill-gates-nukes-the-environment/ DVD at Amazon From Kurzweil AI comes a summary of a Physorg report that must be read completely about Turkish scientists creating a revolutionary glass spray that promises to "make cleaning obsolete" and even serve as a non-toxic barrier to pests for food crops. "The liquid glass coating is breathable, which means ... http://permakent.com/2010/02/22/get-ready-to-eat-and-wear-glass/ I've heard the Lifesaver bottle advertised on The Survival Podcast, but was not excited about it until I saw this TED Talk video from 2009 of Lifesaver's inventor and CEO Michael Pritchard's presentation at Oxford, England. The Lifesaver system filters out contaminants larger than 15 nanometers. It's 100% effective against the ... http://permakent.com/2010/02/12/off-grid-water-purification-breakthrough/ Justin Stout photo Guest blog post: The Mad Tea Party by Brad Linaweaver Here's a prediction. In the future the Tea Party movement will call for higher taxes. It will be done in the name of national security. Their beloved Leader, Sarah Palin, will be in the forefront of demanding the increased revenue. She won't ... http://permakent.com/2010/02/11/the-mad-tea-party/ Very Interesting. . . Brad Linaweaver says he's getting tired of the "Wall Street vs. Main Street" rhetoric, which he believes ignores the Empire as the dominant agency for the immiseration of the proletariat, comrade. (He wouldn't put it like that.) Brad suggested finding out if the Pentagon was located on a ... http://permakent.com/2010/02/05/nightmare-on-fern-street/ Courtesy of LJDopp.com SF Weekly just published an article about Shaxul Records in their "In Store" column about local record shops in San Francisco. Stone Clement runs Shaxul Records with a partner who, because of the exoteric absence in the article, evidently must not be named, in a hole in the wall ... http://permakent.com/2010/01/29/electric-lovecraftland-by-the-bay/ Tagari.com Sometimes you can be a prophet in your own land. Permaculture founder Bill Mollison was recognized for his work educating millions throughout the world by leaders in his native Australia. "Bill was awarded with the distinctive title of “Senior Australian of the Year 2010 – National Finalist” in a ceremony held ... http://permakent.com/2010/01/21/bill-mollison-wins-award-in-australia/ Digg front page item shows a very cool (sorry) NASA photo of Great Britain covered with ice from orbit. Global warming promoters have long said that the gulf stream is at risk. For example, this 2002 Science Daily story, "A Current Controversy: Is Europe About To Freeze?," excerpt: "One of the odd ... http://permakent.com/2010/01/14/will-a-frozen-europe-raise-earths-albedo/ No Secrets Allowed. My name was mentioned in J. Neil Schulman's latest blog post titled "No Secrets Allowed." "Oh, try taking photos someplace the government has decided is their turf." "On a Sunday in summer 2006, when the Las Vegas FBI office was closed, I tried to shoot video of a plaque honoring ... http://permakent.com/2010/01/09/transparency-privacy-and-freedom/ UrbanFarming.org Little House on the Urban Prairie announced this exciting permaculture workshop (e. e. cummings style): "urban ecology detroit presents a workshop with eric toensmeier - lessons learned from nuestras raices: permaculture for community and economic redevelopment, february 2nd from 10am to 2pm at the environmental interpretive center located on the campus ... http://permakent.com/2010/01/06/urban-farming-workshop-in-detroit-feb-2/ Karl Hess Club, Dec, 2009 California Legal Rights Fund founder, Geo. McCalip, laid out his strategy to radically change how the State of California enforces every law in his Karl Hess Club speech, "Fomenting Revolution for Fun and Profit." Here's a link to an MP3 recording of the talk at the CalRights.org ... http://permakent.com/2010/01/02/fomenting-revolution-for-fun-and-profit/ This ABC 7 online article, "Urban Farming Gains Popularity in Bay Area," features video of a small farm in Oakland, California and a store in Berkeley catering to increasing numbers of urban farmers in cities surrounding San Francisco. In San Francisco itself, from the YouTube description posted July 30, 2009, a ... http://permakent.com/2009/12/28/urban-farming-around-san-francisco/ ARS Technica describes a recent National Academies of Science report in an article, "New report offers grim assessment of plug-in hybrids." Several commenters to the article naturally rejected the report's fuel price assumptions as oil company fear, uncertainty and doubt (FUD). Which reminded me about the promising EEstor breakthrough that's supposed ... http://permakent.com/2009/12/15/plug-ins-panned-but-supercaps-coming/ Conservation Refugees In a recent podcast of the San Francisco radio show An Organic Conversation, with host Helge Hellberg, Guernica magazine and former Mother Jones journalist and now "investigative historian," Mark Dowie, talked about his career and plans for his own radio show. I enjoyed the German, Hellberg's personal account of his experience ... http://permakent.com/2009/12/12/better-than-the-best-idea/ An item at The Permaculture Research Institute of Australia titled "How to Repair Our World" embeds a slick YouTube video about WeForest. The video's producer persuaded Stephen Fry to volunteer his time for narration during a chance meeting in Copenhagen (hence the "Fry-day" category and also because it's still Friday in ... http://permakent.com/2009/12/12/food-plant-reforestation-is-cool/ Coca Cola was one of the companies listed on an often played TV ad in the U.S. that shows the word "Copenhagen" morphing into "Hopenhagen." Maybe Coke's marketing department was thinking of their polar bear mascots. The solution to stopping global warming proposed by scientist Saul Griffith, in his SALT talk ... http://permakent.com/2009/12/10/what-freedom/ Newsweek has a reputation for bias toward the Democrat party in the U.S. Browsing their website tends to support that notion, because of the anti-Fox News and pro-Federal Reserve articles. That Fed support is a bit much even for most Democrats. Job numbers are "growing" (still at 10% unemployment) and ... http://permakent.com/2009/12/09/et-tu-newsweek/ Harvard Gazette photo If you're confused why something tagged "Winds-day" is being posted on a day other than Wednesday, let me remind you that the universe isn't tied to your homeworld's orbital position. Not by a strong force anyway. Moving on. . . Although the great Saul Griffith talks about global warming ... http://permakent.com/2009/12/05/kite-based-wind-power-generation/ The BBC online story "Hydro-electricity in Wales: Turning streams into cash" describes micro-hydro turbines gaining popularity among farmers. The small systems are generating the amount of power used in surrounding communities. For those who have streams, but without a steep waterfall drop that makes existing turbines worthwhile, Boing Boing's Mark Frauenfelder ... http://permakent.com/2009/12/01/power-from-water-makes-a-splash/ Josiah Warren began publishing his The Peaceful Revolutionist paper in 1833, and is most famous for promoting his version of "The Sovereignty of the Individual." He ran a successful "time store" in Cincinnati based on his theories and later founded entire utopian communities. Warren was the first of the American individualist ... http://permakent.com/2009/11/26/the-day-that-was-thursday/ Here's an excerpt from email I got from J. Neil Schulman: "Frankly -- as a subscriber to Permakent who has it as the only external blog on my blog roll at J. Neil Schulman @ Rational Review -- I'd been waiting for you to make a statement on this for several ... http://permakent.com/2009/11/25/objection-to-my-climategate-white-feather/ This Kurzweil AI item has a link to the Technology Review story, "Thin-Film Solar with High Efficiency." The article describes the San Jose based company, Solexant, in some detail including, "The company expects to sell modules for $1 per watt, with efficiencies above 10 percent." Nanotech leader Paul Alivisatos, of UC Berkeley ... http://permakent.com/2009/11/22/1watt-10-efficiency-thin-film-solar/ A recent WorldChanging article, which came to my attention in this TreeHugger article, complains about the alleged "Dark Side of Transition Thinking," and thus bashes a growing movement active throughout the world. The author, Alex Steffen, wrote in "Transition Towns or Bright Green Cities?" that "All over the world, groups of ... http://permakent.com/2009/11/15/farms-on-land-sea-or-skyscrapers/ Conscientious Projector is hosting a free showing of Dirt the Movie in Tustin, CA this weekend (Sun., Nov. 9, 5 pm), which I plan to attend. Here's the Soul at Home location website with the Tustin address if you're nearby and want to see the film. There will also be a ... http://permakent.com/2009/11/05/dirt-the-movie-at-conscientious-projector/ This is a response to my friend Brad Linaweaver's article "Repent, Roman!" and several comments in the Mondo Cult forum. Follow the links at Mondo Cult online. It's appropriate to review the real life horror story, Polanski 2: The Extradition, on Halloween weekend. An L.A. Times editorial published Oct. 31, 2009 defends ... http://permakent.com/2009/11/02/polanski-2-the-extradition-halloween/  I was surprised not to find Ruth Stout already here in a search of this blog. Ruth lived from 1884 until 1980 and is famous for her planting method of essentially pressing seeds into the ground, which she prepared by covering with soft hay to protect from the sun, suppress weeds ... http://permakent.com/2009/10/24/ruth-stouts-hay-mulch-planting-method/ Geeks and nerds everywhere are celebrating Monty Python's 40th anniversary. From USA Today: ""We should have had the 37th anniversary or the 41 and 1/2 anniversary; 40 seems too predictable for Python," says Michael Palin, one of six members of the comedy troupe that launched Monty Python's Flying Circus in 1969." Don't ... http://permakent.com/2009/10/15/giant-snakes-celebrate-monty-pythons-40th/ In the October, 2009 issue of Los Angeles Magazine, amongst the full page luxury car ads, guides to trendy clothing stores, restaurants, shopping in general, and Hollywood industry discussion, I was surprised to see "Homegrown" and "How to have a bumper crop right in your own backyard" on the cover. The ... http://permakent.com/2009/10/10/soylent-green-metropolis/ From Australia comes a story, "Trend blossoms," by Meg Sobey in the Moonee Valley Community News about neighbors doing an extreme makeover of a family's backyard. (Thanks, Google Alerts). "IT is difficult to imagine that Melanie Henkel's kitchen once looked out over a grey courtyard. Her backyard now resembles a miniature ... http://permakent.com/2009/09/28/permablitz-suburban-garden-trend/