I pour lots of things every day. I might pour myself a cup of coffee in the morning. A glass of tea with lunch. At dinner I might pour myself a glass of milk. Sometimes I pour laundry soap into the washing machine. Once every couple of months I’ll pour some new oil in the deep fryer.
If you only know Jack, You don’t know Dickel
And occasionally, I’ll pour a George Dickel Barrel Select into a rocks glass (for medicinal purposes only). I can usually do all of these things while spilling very little. I mean I might miss a drop here or there, especially when I’m on my third or fourth Dickel. But, for the most part, I do a good job at getting my fluids where they’re supposed to go.
Do you know what I can’t pour without spilling? No, it’s not the fifth glass of Dickel. It’s gasoline. Do you know why? Because I have a government mandated and approved gas can. I don’t know if you’ve had to get a new gas can in the last ten years or so, but if you have, you know my pain. All of the new spill proof gas cans make me spill gas more easily than anything else I’ve ever poured.
Seriously, how do you screw up a gas can? Can it get more simple. A bottle with a spout and a hole for air. That’s all you need. But somehow, our benevolent overlords screwed them up. Old gas cans are actually a commodity today. An old employee of mine mentioned that her father (a farmer in central Indiana) goes to estate sales to find the elusive gas cans from yesteryear that have disappeared from store shelves. He sells them to other farmers. That’s right. There’s a secondary market for old gas cans because of the government. There’s also an array of YouTube videos showing how to hack the new gas cans. Really, there are countless videos to tell you how to make a government approved spill proof gas can usable.
I guess I’m now one of the lucky ones though. A few weeks ago my neighbors’ garage got damaged in a storm. When they tore it down I saw an old fashioned gas can in the dumpster. I climbed in there and grabbed it. I couldn’t let it go to waste. I’m now using a functional gas can, my apologies to those who don’t have one.
It’s been a long, hard day. As you enter the room you let the last bit of your clothing drop to the floor. You’re already feeling good and you know that the hot and steamy water flowing over you will only further your ecstasy. You lift in one leg and then the other. As you turn the knob water begins to flow from the tub faucet. It’s getting hotter and hotter. Just when you’ve reached the perfect temperature you grab the knob and turn. You can hear the water running up the pipe to the shower head. You’re ready, you’re excited, and you’re disappointed. It’s a low flow shower head.
Yep, it’s an incredibly simple thing that the government screwed up. Now, if you live in California or some other arid climate, maybe there’s an argument to make for low flow showers (I have a free market base approach that might work here, but that’s a side debate). I don’t live in an arid climate. I live in Indiana with some of the most abundant water aquifers in the world. Not to mention one of the largest fresh water bodies on the planet that might just be a little bit north of my current location. With the exception of a minor, occasional mid summer drought. We don’t have a shortage of water here. Also, it’s incredibly cheap, so I’m not worried about price.
Now this has been an increasing problem throughout my life. But there is a solution. It involves a couple pairs of pliers. One to take the shower head off and a pair of needle nose to pull out the flow restrictor. It’s really simple. Just keep working at it until all the plastic and bits aren’t in the way anymore. In fact, I carry pliers with me on every road trip that I take. There are hotels as far east as Virginia, as far north as Montana, as far west as California, and as far south as Texas that have higher flow rate shower thanks to me.
Imagine water as a hot dog and this as the hallway. In this scenario it’s actually good for the hallway to be large.
Unfortunately, this solution is working less and less. They’ve figured out people like myself are doing anything and everything I can the thwart their efforts. Manufacturers are now incorporating low flow into the faucet valve. I have a solution to this to, but it’s not quite as simple. It involves a drill and being willing to buy the parts two or three times for when you screw up. It’s still usually well worth it. Or, if you don’t about aesthetics you can make your own flow heavy setup using ball valves. Now your wife may not like it at first, but when it no longer takes her 20 minutes to wash the soap out of her hair, she’ll hopefully come around.
In the meantime make sure you turn on a faucet and let it run for 15 minutes a day to counteract their measures.
Hola a todos, Brett is in meetings all day, so he’s letting me take over for the afternoon.
California is still on fire, and a former nuclear research site got burned. Oops. Fires are currently burning across the mountain west with concentrated activity in Idaho/Utah/Nevada and just east of the Cascades, which is just crazy since everyone knows that California’s forestry management policies are causing the fires…across 8 states.
Floridian—who looks like every middle aged man I know who does local community theater—has a bunch of jihaddi preferred explosives “for homemade fireworks.” “‘The white crystal powder [TATP] has been referred to as ‘Mother of Satan’ by terrorist organizations who have used it in deadly attacks around the world,’ the Volusia County Sheriff’s Office said in a statement.”
Speaking of Florida, our solar system is apparently about to get rocked by a “dark matter hurricane” but you probably won’t notice much unless you have severe axion sensitivity along with your EMF and gluten sensitivity.
Lotta folks are on losartan thanks to the Western Pattern Diet, if you are one of those people, you might want to have a chat with your GP about this recall. In related news, the USG is *begging* you to at least take the stairs instead of your off-road-capable mobility scooter. The big take away is that even brief activity counts toward the backstop goal of 150 minutes of activity per week (a week is 10080 minutes) as recommended by the AHA.
I’ve been thinking about writing an article on this for some time as an example of the runaway regulatory state, since it is within my field of expertise. And because it is also a fine example of a regulatory agency finding excuses to regulate more things just because they can, regardless of whether there is an actual quantifiable threat to human health and the environment. So what the hell, I’m giving it a shot, and if the admins choose to post it, feel free to have at me.
I have been in the environmental consulting and remediation field in New Jersey for approximately 30 years. New Jersey is a fine place for such work, since it has been industrialized since the early 1800s; in fact, Paterson was one of the very first industrial cities in the nation. Until about the 1970s, there were few rules regarding handling of hazardous materials and wastes, so there is ample work here for someone in the business of environmental remediation.
The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection, (NJDEP) has recently developed policies and requirements regarding chemicals known as Contaminants of Emerging Concern. These contaminants are chemicals that have been used in various manufacturing and production processes, but were previously not identified as contaminants of concern, and could not be easily identified via laboratory analytical techniques and detection limits. In other words, these contaminants were previously not a concern because available laboratory methodologies were not sensitive enough to detect them at the levels they are typically present. These chemicals can be found in drugs, fragrances, detergents, pesticides and disinfectants, among other common products.
Due to the new analytical abilities of laboratories, it has allowed detection of the exceedingly low levels at which these chemicals typically occur in ground water. Although the understanding of the toxicity and health effects of these chemicals is still developing, the NJDEP has issued guidelines under authority from the Technical Requirements for Site Remediation, N.J.A.C. 7:26E which requires all contamination, including all discharged substances, hazardous waste, and pollutants, must be remediated. In other words, even though there is no data which demonstrates human toxicity at these low levels, the State is regulating it anyway, by claiming authority under a broad general statute.
Therefore, responsible parties at a site under environmental investigation must ensure that the potential presence of these chemicals must be investigated if there is any (any!) potential that they could have been used or stored on site or were contained in any of the products and materials used on site prior to closing the case.
A little more background: In New Jersey, there is a program under the Site Remediation Reform Act which licenses environmental professionals with specified education, training, and experience to become Licensed Site Remediation Professionals, or LSRPs. If any site in New Jersey requires any environmental remediation, it must be performed by an LSRP, and only the LSRP can eventually close the case by issuing a letter known as a Response Action Outcome, or RAO.
Since these contaminants include chemicals such as Per- and Polyfluoroakyl Substances (PFAS) that are not included in the standard Target Analyte List, analysis for these chemicals must be specified to the lab if the LSRP suspects that they may have been present on the site. Although the science regarding health effects is still emerging (currently no data showing human toxicity), the NJDEP typically uses advisory limits recommended by the New Jersey Drinking Water Quality Institute (DWQI), which are overly conservative. The recommended limits for different PFAS range from 10 nanograms per liter (10ng/L) or 10 parts per trillion (ppt) to 70 ng/L, or 70ppt. Therefore the laboratory must be prepared to achieve the required detection limits for analyses in order to properly investigate the ground water at the site.
Since these Contaminants of Emerging Concern can be found in a wide variety of products and materials at extremely low levels, there are recommendations for precautions to be taken when conducting sampling, in order to avoid cross-contamination and potential false positives. Among the recommendations are: don’t wear coated Tyvek protective coveralls; don’t use Teflon sampling equipment, even though Teflon sampling equipment is required for all other ground water sampling; don’t wear clothing that has been washed using fabric softener or certain detergents; and avoid fast food containers and wrappers, as they may contain PFAS. That’s right, something that is safe enough to be used to wrap and contain food for human consumption may cause an exceedance of the regulatory standard in your ground water sample if it cross-contaminates it.
So, even though people are constantly exposed to these very low levels of PFAS in clothes treated with fabric softener, fragrances, and even fast food containers and wrappers, which are deemed safe for those purposes, and there is currently no data showing human toxicity from low-level exposure, the State has decided that since modern laboratory equipment can now detect these very low-levels (parts per trillion!) of these substances, it will now regulate them, and require full investigation and remediation, at considerable expense, because they can.
After all, the regulatory state isn’t just going to grow organically, it needs a little help now and then.
I recently returned from the Undisclosed Location at the Rio Grande National Forest in the San Juan Mountains of Southwestern Colorado. Beginning in approximately 2002, a spruce beetle (Dendroctonus rufipennis) epidemic has been spreading across this region, peaking in 2014 but still going on to this day. For those not familiar, the primary pests of slow-growing mountain conifers are bark beetles; spruce, fir and pine all have closely related species of this pest that will attack. About the size of a pencil lead, these little buggers are naturally occurring in all mixed conifer forests at varying background levels. They survive by boring into tree bark where they then lay their eggs. The larva hatch and grow within the tree, typically taking two years before reaching maturity and going out on their own to a new tree.
Spruce Beetles
As the larva mature, they burrow around within the tree creating a “gallery”. The larva, along with the adult beetles, disrupt the flow of xylem and phloem in the tree. The trees do have natural defenses against the beetles and a tree that is attacked does not always die. The tree will usually push sap through the gallery to try and push out enough of the invaders so that their activity is not fatal. However, every so often, conditions become favorable for a population explosion of the pests. They’ll multiply like crazy, finding abundant resources and will go on a mass killing spree until they run out of food. Before you know it, you have a ghost forest.
Rio Grande National “Forest”
For the past 20ish years, the mean temperature in the Southern Rockies has been about 2F higher than historic averages. This gets environuts’ panties in a twist even though mean temperature is meaningless when it comes to the beetles, except indirectly in how it relates to drought (don’t worry, this is not going to turn into a rant against “climate change”, though warm winters are part of the issue). One of the negative feedbacks against beetle epidemics is transient extremely low temperatures. If the temperature drops to -40F for a continuous 24-hour period, the beetles will die and the invasion will end. Temperatures that low are not unusual in the Rockies, but it is unusual for it to stay that low for that long. The other factors important to an outbreak are drought and overall tree health. Drought is also not uncommon in this part of the country; in fact it’s been part and parcel of life in the American Mountain West since long before the alphabet soup networks even existed, let alone took notice of it in service to their agenda. More precipitation provides more resources for the trees to defend themselves.
None of that matters though if the forest is overcrowded, creating a high median tree age and fierce competition for resources. All of that increases tree stress and makes them much more susceptible to attack. Decades and decades of fire suppression and forest mismanagement in the West has created extreme overcrowding in many of the forests. Forest fires also get environuts’ panties in a twist, but they, in their hubris and stupidity, fail to understand that small fires thin out and renew forests. By suppressing fire completely (which has been policy for 100 years) the forest gets beyond crowded, making a catastrophic fire that completely sterilizes the landscape much more likely. If you keep suppressing so that even such a catastrophic fire doesn’t happen, the beetles move in; which leads me to the first lesson of the ghost forest.
Human Hubris is Boundless
Humans’ relationship with Nature has changed significantly since the Industrial Revolution. In a primarily agricultural society, people view Nature with fearful awe; it is either a life-giving force that helps your crops grow and provides for you, or it is a cruel puppeteer starving and torturing you. As humans have become more urbanized and less connected to this dichotomy, they have begun to view Nature through rose-colored glasses and idealize it as a long-suffering Mother ruined by the sinfulness of human existence (see also: watermelon cult of Gaia). In our hubris, we began thinking we could save Nature from our nefarious influence and started meddling. Admittedly, some of this has resulted in positive outcomes and we have cleaner air and water as a result. But most of the time, when we try to manipulate Nature, even with noble and pure motives, we just fuck things up worse once Nature reasserts itself.
When looking at the ghost forest around the Undisclosed Location, I’m filled with sadness at the destruction, but I also laugh at Nature smacking down our forestry “experts” for trying to circumvent its will. The trees must die off; whether that be through fire or through disease, Nature will find a way no matter how much we try to fuck with it. Which segues to lesson two.
Nature is Right and We’re Wrong
The miraculous thing about this process is that, not only is it necessary, it’s healthy. To us, forests are immovable, unchanging monoliths. Especially in coniferous forests, the trees grow so slowly and live so long that in our limited view, we think that they will continue in their present form perpetually. Therefore, again in our hubris, we believe that preserving that form at all costs is the right thing to do and that we are actually helping Nature. We’re wrong. The forest is a living organism just as much as a human city. There are cycles of birth, death and rebirth happening all the time, even if it’s on a timescale too long for an individual human to appreciate. Pioneer species move in, thrive, die off and make way for new species over hundreds of years. After all, trees, just like us, don’t live forever, but we like to think they do. Understanding that something so huge, ancient and apparently implacable as a 500-year-old, 150-foot-tall Engelmann spruce is mortal brings our own fleeting mortality into stark relief. Protecting the forest really means protecting ourselves from the inevitability of Death.
The beauty of this system, however, is that the beetles only attack trees over a certain trunk diameter, leaving the babies (“only” 30 or 40 years old) unharmed. Unhobbled by competition for resources from their elders, and with new, abundant access to sunlight, the babies have explosive new growth; up to a foot per year in some cases (insanely fast for high altitude conifers). Furthermore, the aforementioned abundant sunlight activates dormant underground complexes of aspen (which can’t grow without it) to start sending up shoots. Aspen is the weed of the tree world and will grow like a plague if given the chance. Soon (only 10 or 20 years) the forest will be filled with aspen and the baby spruce will slow down again (but not die). If you were able to peer down to the forest floor of the picture above, you’d see an explosion of life restarting the endless struggle of existence. Which leads me to the final lesson from the ghost forest.
The Two Most Important Survival Qualities are Resilience and Determination
The forest itself is incredibly resilient. It bounces back amazingly quickly from a beetle Holocaust, fire or even human-caused catastrophes like clear-cutting. But I speak now not of the overall resilience and health of the forest as amazing as it is, but of individual trees. Walking through the ghost forest, very occasionally, maybe 1 in 500 trees, you’ll see a tall, noble, ancient tree that stood its ground and survived the onslaught. You’ll see the sawdust from the beetles at the base and the holes made as they emerged. You’ll see the “pitch out” where the tree tried to flush out the invaders with sap. Somehow, while all its peers were succumbing to the epidemic, it stood tall and survived. How? Why? Was it pure luck? Probably. But I like to think that somewhere deep down in its non-sentient existence, it just wouldn’t give up. Its determination to survive and resilience in the aftermath mean it stands alone and earns the privilege of life. Even if that’s overly romantic anthropomorphizing, I still think it’s a very valuable lesson.
Coda
All susceptible trees around the Undisclosed Location died in 2010. The beetles have moved on and will continue moving on until they run out of food and eventually they too die. In the intervening years, it has been amazing to watch the forest begin the long process of regeneration. Already in places that just five years ago were bare, aspen are six feet tall. The ghosts of the past still haunt the forest, and will likely continue to stand for another decade or two before falling down and returning their life essence to the ground from which they sprang. Someday, in a couple hundred years, the baby spruce that survived this plague will have grown beyond the aspen, blocking out the sun and thirstily drinking up all the resources. The aspen will then die or go dormant in the ground, waiting for the next unspeakable massacre; just as we, along with who knows how many subsequent generations, will be dead. And so it goes.
