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Holcomb coal plants and their proponents

Wow. I'm shocked. I'm ecstatic. The Governor's veto of the "Holcomb bill" stands! For those who don't know, Sunflower Electric and many in the Kansas Legislature have spent much of the last months attempting to ram through one of many different versions of a bill intended to "put in his place" the Kansas Secretary of Health and Environment, and to enact a law specifically to allow Sunflower to build two large coal-fired generators. To read a blow-by-blow account of the sordid story, read a couple months of history in CEP's blog. The drama isn't over yet, but does seem to have taken a very positive turn!

On the issue itself, I laud the legislators who chose to "do the right thing" and vote either against one of the "Holcomb bills" or against the override of the Governor's veto of said bills. Coal, with proper management of its emissions, will likely need to be a part of our energy mix in the near term, although energy policy must soon turn towards sustainable sources and efficient uses for our long-term well being. An excellent summary of the issues is available from CEP.

For what it's worth, for some time I've taken the position that, though it seems as though the weight of credible scientific opinion is that we're dealing with substantial anthropogenic global warming (AGW), I don't know enough about the subject to make any bold comments. I'm still not a climate scientist, but after reading The Hot Topic I do feel comfortable saying that some of the most credible arguments against AGW have been considered, and have been adequately refuted--it's a very readable, practical book that gives an excellent survey of the science, looks at some of the costs and benefits of adaptation and prevention (and of doing nothing), and dispels myths of both the "there's no problem" and the "there's no hope, the sky is falling" varieties. But, the take-home message is: we do need to act wisely for the future. The pigheaded insistence that these plants must be built, essentially as planned, no matter what, does not strike me as an especially well-considered approach to planning.

Finally, I'd sort of forgotten the kind of pressure that people voting against forcing the coal plants through might face. I'm guessing that some of those advocating for the plants do so because it seems like "the least of evils", and though I disagree strongly with them on the wisdom of that move (and plan to use that as a negative criterion for political support), I can generally respect them nonetheless. On the other hand, Speaker of the House, Melvin Neufeld is leading the charge for the coal plants--read the linked case for a window into the methods he's used in the past. To those standing up to the pressure...thank you!

More on sugar alternatives

In an earlier post, I provided links to some credible sources of information on the physiological effects of artificial sweeteners. I recently gleaned a couple more relevant links from a list to which I subscribe.

One: yet another meta-review that, based on numerous studies, found aspartame to be safe. Note that, apparently unlike some other cases, the study does follow best practices of disclosing funding.

Two: The FDA sent a warning letter to Celestial Seasonings about using the "unsafe food additive" stevia--a plant-based sweetener which many promote as a "safe" alternative to oh-so-toxic synthetic sweeteners. MSNBC talks about the letter:

It also said “literature reports have raised safety concerns,” including those “about control of blood sugar, and the effects on the reproductive, cardiovascular and renal systems.”

Wherever your treasure lies...

A brief from the Third World:

I read Randy Alcorn's The Treasure Principle a while back. It was fairly light reading, but combined with other stuff to become life-changing: basically, life's about a whole lot more than money.

I arrived here a week and a half ago. In the frenzy of preparing to spend a number of months outside the U.S., I didn't have a chance to roll over my "Magic Formula" investments (a terrible name, but see Joel Greenblatt's The Little Book that Beats the Market--really, he's credible) at the scheduled time. Since arriving, it's been on my "need-to-do" list, but hasn't carried great urgency. I've checked my portfolio a few times since arriving, checked my checking account and bills a few times, but have thought much less about such matters than when stateside. In short, I've been letting my finances slide as much as I can without terrible consequences, and not caring a whole lot....it's a wonderful feeling!

Anyway...not sure what all this signifies, but it is interesting to see how much my finances have been in my thoughts stateside.

Health Effects of Artificial Sweeteners

I've had a number of encounters over time with horror stories about the ill effects of aspartame, saccharin, sucralose, and other artificial sweeteners. I've done some searching for hard facts regarding such sweeteners, and came up with a few links that seem fairly helpful.

First, an excellent speech on "Poisons of the Mind", a good "backgrounder" in evaluating claims such as those above.

First, here's a review of reports that aspartame becomes toxic when stored at temperatures exceeding 85 degrees Fahrenheit (conclusion: the reports are false). The list of references at the bottom may be helpful.

Next, a couple of seemingly fairly authoritative publications: a position paper from the American Dietetic Association, and the "Sugar Substitutes and your Health" booklet from the American Council on Science and Health (click on "View PDF Version" below the image of the book to access the free online version).

Next, the FDA's evaluation of "the Ramazzini Study", a study often held forth by anti-aspartame advocates as evidence of aspartame's deleterious effects (for the "mental antidote" to citation of this study, see the papers listed above). Also, the European Food Safety Authority's evaluation of same.

Finally, a guide to "deconstructing Web pages" to determine their credibility; this is probably unnecessary for most readers of this blog, but is interesting nonetheless in providing a bit of a "critical thinking" checklist for readers.

Blogging and privacy

I've just been engaged in a bit of a "cleanup" operation of my online profile. There's nothing really bad out there, but I have a fairly "searchable" name, and occasionally find myself in situations in which a fair amount of discretion is advisable.

I hope my friends, relatives, acquaintances, etc. read Blogging Basics 101: Privacy--and, please, don't use my family name! In the meantime, I've found several ways to increase your online footprint:
* Leave comments in guestbooks (d'oh!) I have a few of these from my young-and-stupid days (that time which preceded the current iteration of said state). Fortunately, all are in very innocuous locations.
* Participate with organizations with misconfigured servers. I found that one (I thought closed) list server apparently at some point made its archives searchable by Google. Another rather frightening find was that the server which my school used for online classes last semester apparently had *all* of its internal contents available to the Internet at large without authentication, and indexed by Google. These contents included a few papers written for classes. I've alerted the school and received a response (some personal information of my contact is indexed as well, so he has some incentive to get it taken offline (or at least behind walls) and removed from Google's index as well). However, when I checked today, the server's still up. I don't have anything extremely confidential on the server, but...yikes!
* Have relatives and friends who blog. The number of vectors for information leaks is amazing...but is made all the worse by having a searchable name. I'm trying to mitigate this by asking said relatives and friends at least to use a truncated version of the name, decreasing "searchability".

Simply in self-defense, I'm thinking I should perhaps start building an online profile, to crowd out some of the less-controlled search hits on my name. In the meantime...back to the Google patrol...

2007 farm bill--opportunity to act

I've written before (here, and here) about the ways our current agricultural subsidy system militates against both free markets and poverty-alleviation efforts. The last chance to make any substantial changes to the 2007 Farm Bill may come as soon as tomorrow, in a vote on the bipartisan Fairness in Farm and Food Policy Amendment to the bill. This amendment alters the subsidy scheme to distort trade much less than the current production-based scheme, establishes new caps for subsidies (to avoid the current problem of a few huge producers walking away with almost all of the support, leaving little for smaller producers), supports conservation, fruit and vegetable producers, and low-income food assistance, increases investments in rural America, and would decrease the deficit by $10 billion over the next 10 years.

For more information, see Oxfam's briefing. My local contact summed it up well:

This vote is extremely important. After all, the 2007 Farm Bill will govern our farm, food, and conservation policy for the next five years. The current Farm Bill represents a broken promise to America's farmers and rural communities, and it falls short of meeting its obligations to families that depend on food stamps and conservation programs that protect rivers and streams. Worse yet, commodity subsidies actually hurt poor farmers in developing countries. By encouraging the overproduction of crops such as cotton, some agriculture subsidies actually create a glut that drives down world prices, undermining the livelihoods of millions of small farmers around the world.

Unfortunately, the House Agriculture Committee has approved a new Farm Bill that takes our broken food and farm policy from bad to worse. It continues massive taxpayer support to the biggest and richest farmers, while doing little for small farmers, minority producers, anti-hunger programs, or the environment, all while continuing to encourage the overproduction and dumping of agriculture surpluses on developing country farmers who are struggling to lift themselves out of poverty. THIS IS NOT REFORM.

If you want to try out a little political activism, Oxfam has set up a line to help you connect with your representative; you'll get an automated message on connecting to their number, and then can hit # to be transferred to the Capitol switchboard. This seems a rather worthwhile cause, for America and for the rest of the world.

1. Please call 1-800-977-1912
2. An automated message will give you a brief introduction.
3. When prompted, press the pound key (#) to reach the Capitol switchboard and ask to be connected to your representative's office.