Everybody is talking about Africa, these days. Often not because they really care about Africa, but because it’s good business to talk about Africa. Does Bob Geldoff care about Africa? I think the number of African artists allowed to share the limelight with Madonna and Pink Floyd answers that question (none). How can you pretend […]
The “Unity Parade” is one the highlights of the Eno Festival. The 26th Festival for the Eno is one of the biggest community events here in Durham. The festival lasted for three days, Saturday thru Monday and it was, as always, great family fun. This year, the 4th of July weekend (US Independence Day) was […]
The first day of the Festival for the Eno here in Durham was fun and seemed like a great success. The festival was packed and gaggles of children were frolicking in the cool waters of the river. Throngs of people were checking out the crafts stands and info booths around the five stages in the […]
Laura just called and pointed me to a story on biodiesel on NPR’s Morning Edition: Mike Pelly, owner of Olympia Green Fuels, uses bio-diesel fuel to power his two cars. He makes the mixture from used vegetable oil discarded by Chinese restaurants and fast-food joints. Pelly tells Steve Inskeep how it works. NPR : Driving […]
America’s addiction to oil is one of her most serious problems. It is a burden on the economy because it drains trillions of dollars from this country every year. And it is the Achilles’ Heel of the economy because oil is getting more and more expensive, and eventually we will run out of oil. At […]
So I guess I survived the first day back at work after our awesome, two-week vacation in Iceland and Germany. We are still processing the sights, sounds and cultural impressions. Iceland struck us as a very cool and quietly very powerful place. Huge geological forces are at work here, glaciers and volcanoes shape this island. […]
Wow – back in silly-visation after 5 days in Iceland! What a gorgeous, wild raw place! Pictures to follow. After that, Germany seems twice as hectic and crowded. But the weather is great and the beer is a LOT better and more affordable than in Iceland.
Oh boy! Don’t take your greasecar into Yellowstone (via Sustainablog): Larry Joy, a 53-year-old electrician, said the bear shattered a window on his 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit, tipped the plastic fuel tank on its side and gnawed on car hoses about two weeks ago. He said the evidence included muddy paw prints around the broken window […]
Great news: the first real biodiesel pump in Durham is ready to roll! Leif and the crew from Piedmont Biofuels today installed the pump and plumbed the tank expertly. Then they filled the tank with the “good juice” and I had the extreme pleasure of being the first customer to pump six gallons from our […]
When Dr. Bush exhorted the benefits of renewable fuels recently, I was suspicious. This snake-oil salesman of a president has put one over the American taxpayer so many times, I am not inclined to take anything he says at face value. Point in case: the biodiesel tax incentive could potentially damage the nascent biodiesel industry […]
Considering the Chinese government’s record of dealing with public health issues (SARS!), I had been wondering about all these reassurances from Chinese officials that “Everything is OK. Don’t worry. Just a couple of dead birds …” But if there is no reason to be alarmed, why has China rushed to shut down all its national […]
Our juice box is almost ready. All that’s missing is the flowmeter and some biodiesel and we’re ready to fill’er up. Marc got help from Filiberto, who runs the garage we’re sharing the space with, and Filiberto’s assistant Celso. They picked up the tank with the forklift, picked up the forklift with the tow truck […]
As the Abuja meeting between the RPT and the opposition concluded, not surprisingly without any tangible results, news broke yesterday that the opposition candidate of the last “election” in Togo had fallen ill: Emmanuel Akitani Bob was flown on Thursday to a hospital outside Paris, where he is being treated for neurological problems, doctors say. […]
Recently I embarked on quest to launch a biodiesel distribution coop in Durham, and the project made a great step forward today. I teamed up with Marc of Forests of the World who has been working on plans to start a biodiesel production plant in Durham. To get the distribution coop started, we are planning […]
Over at Au Village, my friend Agbessi has posted some of his horrific experiences as a student in Togo, at the Universié du Benin in Lomé. I saw the tension between the students and the “security” forces myself when I was in Togo. Akila is trying to get used to his glasses … Maggie went […]
Uh – oh! I hope this is not the Kiss of Death for biodiesel. Hark the shrubman: “Biodiesel is one of our nation’s most promising alternative fuel sources and by developing biodiesel you’re making this country less dependent on foreign sources of oil,” [President Bush] said. “Americans are concerned about high prices at the pump […]
Here we go: I finished the new dress for this blog. It’s just the WordPress default theme with new graphics. I am not much of a graphic artist, but it’s good enough for now. The hardest thing about amateur graphic design is to resist the PowerPoint effect. That’s what happens when the VP of Marketing […]
Today is World Fair Trade Day and we spent a good part of the afternoon at One World Market in Durham, where Laura works. To celebrate, they offered refreshments and snacks, and they had Fair Trade quizzes and contests with prizes. The point of Fair Trade Day is to educate people and to “promot[e] fairer […]
Recombination or mutation, that seems to be the big question regarding the avian flu (H5N1) virus in Viet Nam. In yesterday’s edition of the journal Nature, Klaus Stöhr reports that the WHO has not received enough samples of the virus to judge the genetic changes it has found in the few availabe samples. With so […]
After the so-called elections in Togo on April 24, the opposition decried the fraud, the stuffed ballot boxes, the disappeared ballot boxes, the stolen computers, the armed raids of opposition offices, and the general intimidation of the electorate. Shortly after the election, the opposition website diastode.org published a confidential document in which European Commission delegates […]
