Microbeads in your toothpaste may be hurting our water supply

While looking through a list of recent legislation for the Great Lakes states and provinces, I see most are trying to institute a microbead ban--didn't see anything for Ohio but we're still working on BS blooming in Lake Erie. Apparently, they are common in toothpastes, including some of the Crest brands I like. Yuk. Check the label for polyethylene. They can't be filtered out of the waste water.

http://dentalpatientnews.com/which-toothpastes-contain-microbeads/#sthash.fUwEqA9H.jMFu2ajU.dpbs

“Typically, microplastics are defined as plastic pieces measuring less than 5 millimeters (mm). The microbeads found in personal care products are almost always smaller than 1 mm. These micro particles are made of polyethylene (PE), polypropylene (PP), polyethylene terephthalate (PET), polymethyl methacrylate (PMMA) and nylon. Microbeads of polyethylene or polypropylene are the most common.”

http://www.watershedcouncil.org/learn/microbeads-in-the-great-lakes/

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/tiny-plastic-microbeads-pile-problems-great-lakes/

Water not oil is priceless and scarce--biofuels won't save us

CABS, the Ohio State bus system, received a one star green fleet certification from the Ohio Green Fleets Program on August 13, 2009 for using B20 biodiesel in all its transit buses and para-transit vans. CABS began in September 2003 with its first soy B20 fueled bus and by June 2006, extended B20 to all its fleet of 27 transit buses on 6 different routes.

The Ohio Green Fleets Program is part of CleanFuels Ohio, a non-profit funded by the U.S. Department of Energy. CleanFuels Ohio. It was created with federal money in 2002--so this isn’t a recent development, it‘s a Bush Administration program. However, V. P. Joe Biden stopped by in August to announce that this Bush era alternative fuels program was receiving stimulus funding. The CAB accomplishments preceded that announcement.

“the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded $11.04 million in economic stimulus funding to Clean Fuels Ohio's Ohio Advanced Transportation Partnership through the U.S. DOE Clean Cities Grant program. Funds will be used to support the deployment of 283 alternative fuel and advanced technology vehicles plus refueling infrastructure for 26 government and private sector partners throughout Ohio. Including matching support from local partners and additional industry supporters, the award embodies an investment of nearly $30 million in alternative fuel vehicle and infrastructure projects across the state.”

So now, while millions of people are struggling in third world countries for enough to eat, and the most valuable commodity we have is water, a major input for biofuels, we worsen the condition of millions by putting soy and corn products in our gas tanks. Doesn’t anyone remember the food riots of just two years ago? It doesn’t help the environment, and we knew even before Climategate that global warming isn’t caused by humans. I’m all for a clean environment and more efficient fuels, but you don’t have to read too far into the biofuel publications to see we’re going backward with expensive inputs, more water usage and waste water, and pollution.

Conservatives who don't get it

When I listen to Rush or Hannity or read Karl Rove or Victor Davis Hanson, sometimes I just shake my head. They are speaking/writing as though Obama really intends to save the country instead of destroy it. They ponder the stupid, idiotic, unpatriotic things he is doing and wonder why he thinks they will work. He's not stupid, gentlemen, and those things like the apology tours or taking over car companies only look dumb if you still believe he has any intention of being a real president. Haven't you ever known anyone whose job it was to fire all his co-workers after a merger, and then finally lock up the empty store and walk out with his paycheck?

Hanson (a classicist and a farmer) begins an excellent story of his relationship with a very difficult neighbor over water rights with a note about the trillions and trillions of national debt Obama is ringing up and how there aren't enough "rich" to tax, so that will leave it to the rest of us to bail him out. He closes with

"Obama will come to his senses with his ‘Bush did it’, reset button, moral equivalency, soaring hope and change, with these apologies to Europeans, his Arab world Sermons on the Mount to Al Arabiya, in Turkey, in Cairo, etc., his touchy-feely videos to Iran, his “we are all victims of racism” sops to Ortega, Chavez, and Morales. It is only a matter of when, under what conditions, how high the price we must pay, and whether we lose the farm before he gains wisdom about the tragic universe in which we live." VDH June 5

No, he won't "come to his senses," and it isn't just a matter of time, because he hasn't lost them and there is no more time. He is doing exactly what he planned to do, just a little faster than we all expected.