take another look at the compensation v. output chart. see where the lines cross? it took government intervention to create that. So it is perfectly reasonable to use government to reverse this trend. The "free market" vs. "government intervention" argument is BOGUS. It is ALL government intervention, how you see it depends on whether you benefit or not. When owners benefit they call it free markets or deregulation, when their workers benefit they call it government interference. There is no deregulation, it is just re-regulation in favor of owners. If there were truly free markets, everyone who ran AIG, Bear Sterns, etc would be sleeping in a cardboard box right now.
Socialism, anyone? From each according to his ability to each according to his needs...sound familiar?
Yeah, and no thanks. While there are some who've profitted obscenely, they are balanced by those who live above their means and insist they're "worth more" when they're not.
When "wise fools" like you start spouting the "wisdom" of forcing people to "share" what they have with those who don't have...God save us.
Take a quick trip around your lawn before mowing. You will be amazed at how much debris has fallen from the trees or blown into your lawn. Its much easier to pick it up than replace the mower after you cut it up and messed up the mower. Also very good exercise.
When you start quoting Robert Reich, I know there's going to be a problem. He's the most pro-big-government voice outside the old USSR politburo.
More power to the Unions? What a concept. The American Auto Industry is in shambles and will probably become a faint memory in the near future. One of the reasons - certainly not the only one - are the unions. Incredible pay/benefit packages out of whack with reality.
How about Municipal Unions? As state/local/federal revenues plunge, those unions are not giving an inch. Hey, be a fireman and retire after 20 years for 90% of your pay for life! But first game the system by working overtime the last couple years. Just one example.
Blame the managers and CEOs all you want, but there's plenty of blame to go around.
While I agree that it's always good to practice good stewardship with mushrooms, I wouldn't necessarily agree that collection bag and picking techniques have been proven one way or the other. Many of the "facts" behind mushroom survival is mere speculation, as they is very little known about how exactly they reapper year after year. A few quotes from the website I use (The Great Morel):
What type of collection bag should I use?
There are many who believe you should use a mesh or onion bag to help in the distribution of the spores back to the forest floor. The Great Morel knows of no pure scientific data to support this.
However, Gregg Kathol (a renowned and legendary shoomer in his neck of the woods) did some research and reports the following: "I did a little research on the subject and came up with some interesting tidbits. I guess the spores can be compared to pollen. It takes hours for the spores to fall to the ground, so with even a slight breeze they can be blown miles away. I also learned that by the time a person picks them they have lost most of their spores anyways. Same thing for the roots being picked. I learned this is a story because the growth of the shroom is a one time process. These are just some things I found out, whether they are backed by 100% scientific data, I do not know. I'll continue to carry them in a mesh bag because I figure even if they get blown away at least they are going to the ground and not in my sink or house.
The Great Morel would find it hard to disclaim such research, so it is left to the shoomer.
And as far as the root theory goes, I will agree that it is best to leave it in the ground, but like Andrea said, they reproduce by spores, so picking the entire root on accident probably won't blow the whole future its offspring (very dry or loose dirt can make it almost impossible to remove the cap without the entire root coming out anyway.)
Along the same lines – many of you have had your favorite morel patches, which have just dried up so-to-speak. Those "sweet spots" that are no longer "sweet" anymore and you think they’ve been "picked into extinction". One has to understand that something in the biological and ecological makeup of that patch has changed. Did the spores that spawned that patch get blown there? Has the root system or the ground composition changed? Did something else change? Have they actually been "picked into extinction"? Based on basic research, it is most likely there has been a biological or ecological change, which has caused your morel patch to no longer be bountiful. Simply put – the source of the spore is no longer capable of propagating the great morel.
OK, Fred. You had me at "dropped from airplanes." It's possible that this method may work better for some than others. Where I live, it takes considerable effort to drive to the nearest store that even offers most processed foods, and then, you'd be lucky to find it for any kind of affordable price.
If there was a plane that dropped fresh fruit and veggies from the sky, however, I'd want to sign up for the service. Sounds like a great business plan for someone in the near future!
This is an interesting read..money and spread of swine flu do not seem to have any link to a normal person, but, these gentlemen have found a correlation between them. Very interesting.Hope the worst case scenario does not come about.
People who think government should stay out of the economy should play a game of Monopoly sometime. Is that really what you want? Government and unions potentially offer individuals some power to counterbalance the ability of wealth to completely dominate markets. Reagan began a push to shift the government into representing, not the interests of the people of the United States, but rather the interests of the super-wealthy all over the world. He broke the biggest unions and started reducing the high taxes on the super wealthy, while shifting the burden onto everyone else. He also allowed businesses to get much, much larger, which created a frenzy of acquisitions and forced businesses to make shorter-term decisions about profitability, at the expense of long-term stability. Bush took these positions to absurd extremes.
People who think government should stay out of the economy should look at the protections we still have thanks to the New Deal and think about where we would be without them. Without the Federal Reserve, the entire economic system would almost certainly have collapsed last fall. Think default. Think chaos. Think war, famine, and pestilence. Where would we be without Social Security and Medicare -- or if the Republicans had managed to privatize it? How many old folks would be out on the street after the market collapsed? Where would we be without unemployment insurance? How many more families would be selling apples and begging in the streets? Is that *really* what you want?
We think a lot about this idea of optimizing your life, but more so from the POV of living more in the moment. This would entail less nostalgia as well as minimizing fretting over the future. It's very difficult to do, especially with the world the way it is, and especially with kids.
We look to the past less as a blueprint for the life we want to live, but more as a source of knowledge from the lessons we've learned that help shape the values we hold dear which will ultimately go to shape what we are looking for in life.
Simplifying our lives in terms of money and consumer culture are a big part of it. That's why we live in the countryside in Vermont. That is not to say that it is easy, it's hard work cutting firewood and tending the garden and all that good stuff, but there is someting to be said for being more directly responsible to what impacts your life (i.e., food, heat, shelter) as opposed to paying someone else to provide you with it.
Sure, it's not for everyone. In fact, it's probably not for most people, but it sure fits us well. And with direction that the world is going, it may be the wave of the future.
I don't exactly compost, but I do toss vegetable bits (apple cores, carrot tops, spinach stalks (I only like the leaves for my sandwiches) in the back yard. Before they decompose, they attract the bunnies which makes for free entertainment for my cats. And, once they decompose they're doing nothing bad to my lawn. I have found that this doesn't work very well with banana and orange peels though.
My track record in applying for online jobs is almost 100%... failure, that is. My experience thus far has been so miserable (with the exceptiion of the good folks at WB, of course) that I don't even get so much as a response. Maybe I need to cut my hair. My virtual hair, that is.
Thanks for the tips. In fact, I'm going to implement a few of them right away.
I'm not well versed in mushrooms and would never trust myself or my kids to eat the ones we pick, but I am aware of what a delicay they are. In fact, we just went to the local Fiddlehead Festival where they had presentations on what local flora (including fiddleheads) you can eat and they had the New England Culinary Institute come out and make meals with local mushrooms and greens. They are, after all, in our own backyard, so if you know what you're doing, you can't beat them for convenience and economy.
Good article - got my brain going better then my morning coffee is :)
While I agree that people won't change unless they are forced to, I don't believe it's govt's job to force that change (please note I'm not talking about current safety laws when I say that - just talking about the flow of money). If govt had stayed out of it then we'd be fine now. Govt has caused so much of this current problem I think it'll be impossible to fix without 'em :(
Government is for controlling the military, currency, foreign affairs, tariffs, intellectual property (patents & copyrights) and mail. If they had just kept their nose there, the world would be in better shape.
But what a great idea. It's amazing how a little planning can go a long way in terms of saving money, because when it boils down to the last minute, you always spend more than you had hoped you would. Then again, this could be way too much organization than I am capable of. Thanks for the tips.
Besides the monetary consideration, we just have philosophical issues with wasting food. Most of the leftovers we have in our fridge are ready to eat, so it's just a question of heating them up. In fact, we often make things like soup in large portions just to freeze the excess for another day. If give it a few days in between, then who's going to issue over the fact that their leftovers, much less even know?
Thanks for the informative (as always) post, but the truth is, as anyone who has watched the show Lost knows, eating on a deserted island is not a problem when tons of processed foods are continually dropped from airplanes.
I enjoyed reading this post because the subject discussed is one of my major problems. Some month ago i realized that i spend a lot on food until some day i changed the system. I started to think on things i really need, things that can be cooked and i can say it's great and cost effective.
I came across this as I was googling Best Buy Worms. Made me chuckle, all this chatter. I have bought from them several times over the last year as I am transforming my old backyard wasteland into an English cottage garden and there was not a single living thing in the soil - their garden variety is the best, lots of worms and healthy soil now - and I used Paypal. Every transaction was smooth. I like using Paypal for the very reason you don't have to enter all that information every time.
We make many pots of coffee throughout the day at my office. I save the grounds, filter and all and add it to my compost or even straight to the soil.
I also like to keep a container with lettuce growing in it throughout the season for fresh salad anytime. I just head out to the deck before dinner and pull a few leaves. Its super easy to grow and doesn't have to have full sun to grow like most veggies.
We make many pots of coffee throughout the day at my office. I save the grounds, filter and all and add it to my compost or even straight to the soil.
I also like to keep a container with lettuce growing in it throughout the season for fresh salad anytime. I just head out to the deck before dinner and pull a few leaves. Its super easy to grow and doesn't have to have full sun to grow like most veggies.
Although you never explicitly say it in your article it sure sounds to me like you are advocating more government intervention to redistribute wages between managers and workers. I sure hope that is not the case. I would argue that business owners and managers are a more important part of the economy as they are the job creators. They generally have a much higher financial risk threshold and are therefore the pioneers that not only create more jobs but advance human civilization through their ventures.
History has long shown that the freer the market the more efficient it will be. This current financial mess could easily have been averted had the government not meddled so much in the market and economics of the US.
take another look at the compensation v. output chart. see where the lines cross? it took government intervention to create that. So it is perfectly reasonable to use government to reverse this trend. The "free market" vs. "government intervention" argument is BOGUS. It is ALL government intervention, how you see it depends on whether you benefit or not. When owners benefit they call it free markets or deregulation, when their workers benefit they call it government interference. There is no deregulation, it is just re-regulation in favor of owners. If there were truly free markets, everyone who ran AIG, Bear Sterns, etc would be sleeping in a cardboard box right now.
Great ideas in this article - thanks Linsey!
Catch rain water by directing gutters into water barrels and use the water from the barrels to water your garden.
Socialism, anyone? From each according to his ability to each according to his needs...sound familiar?
Yeah, and no thanks. While there are some who've profitted obscenely, they are balanced by those who live above their means and insist they're "worth more" when they're not.
When "wise fools" like you start spouting the "wisdom" of forcing people to "share" what they have with those who don't have...God save us.
Take a quick trip around your lawn before mowing. You will be amazed at how much debris has fallen from the trees or blown into your lawn. Its much easier to pick it up than replace the mower after you cut it up and messed up the mower. Also very good exercise.
When you start quoting Robert Reich, I know there's going to be a problem. He's the most pro-big-government voice outside the old USSR politburo.
More power to the Unions? What a concept. The American Auto Industry is in shambles and will probably become a faint memory in the near future. One of the reasons - certainly not the only one - are the unions. Incredible pay/benefit packages out of whack with reality.
How about Municipal Unions? As state/local/federal revenues plunge, those unions are not giving an inch. Hey, be a fireman and retire after 20 years for 90% of your pay for life! But first game the system by working overtime the last couple years. Just one example.
Blame the managers and CEOs all you want, but there's plenty of blame to go around.
While I agree that it's always good to practice good stewardship with mushrooms, I wouldn't necessarily agree that collection bag and picking techniques have been proven one way or the other. Many of the "facts" behind mushroom survival is mere speculation, as they is very little known about how exactly they reapper year after year. A few quotes from the website I use (The Great Morel):
And as far as the root theory goes, I will agree that it is best to leave it in the ground, but like Andrea said, they reproduce by spores, so picking the entire root on accident probably won't blow the whole future its offspring (very dry or loose dirt can make it almost impossible to remove the cap without the entire root coming out anyway.)
Thanks for all your comments!
Linsey Knerl
OK, Fred. You had me at "dropped from airplanes." It's possible that this method may work better for some than others. Where I live, it takes considerable effort to drive to the nearest store that even offers most processed foods, and then, you'd be lucky to find it for any kind of affordable price.
If there was a plane that dropped fresh fruit and veggies from the sky, however, I'd want to sign up for the service. Sounds like a great business plan for someone in the near future!
Thanks for the comments!
Linsey Knerl
This is an interesting read..money and spread of swine flu do not seem to have any link to a normal person, but, these gentlemen have found a correlation between them. Very interesting.Hope the worst case scenario does not come about.
People who think government should stay out of the economy should play a game of Monopoly sometime. Is that really what you want? Government and unions potentially offer individuals some power to counterbalance the ability of wealth to completely dominate markets. Reagan began a push to shift the government into representing, not the interests of the people of the United States, but rather the interests of the super-wealthy all over the world. He broke the biggest unions and started reducing the high taxes on the super wealthy, while shifting the burden onto everyone else. He also allowed businesses to get much, much larger, which created a frenzy of acquisitions and forced businesses to make shorter-term decisions about profitability, at the expense of long-term stability. Bush took these positions to absurd extremes.
People who think government should stay out of the economy should look at the protections we still have thanks to the New Deal and think about where we would be without them. Without the Federal Reserve, the entire economic system would almost certainly have collapsed last fall. Think default. Think chaos. Think war, famine, and pestilence. Where would we be without Social Security and Medicare -- or if the Republicans had managed to privatize it? How many old folks would be out on the street after the market collapsed? Where would we be without unemployment insurance? How many more families would be selling apples and begging in the streets? Is that *really* what you want?
We think a lot about this idea of optimizing your life, but more so from the POV of living more in the moment. This would entail less nostalgia as well as minimizing fretting over the future. It's very difficult to do, especially with the world the way it is, and especially with kids.
We look to the past less as a blueprint for the life we want to live, but more as a source of knowledge from the lessons we've learned that help shape the values we hold dear which will ultimately go to shape what we are looking for in life.
Simplifying our lives in terms of money and consumer culture are a big part of it. That's why we live in the countryside in Vermont. That is not to say that it is easy, it's hard work cutting firewood and tending the garden and all that good stuff, but there is someting to be said for being more directly responsible to what impacts your life (i.e., food, heat, shelter) as opposed to paying someone else to provide you with it.
Sure, it's not for everyone. In fact, it's probably not for most people, but it sure fits us well. And with direction that the world is going, it may be the wave of the future.
I don't exactly compost, but I do toss vegetable bits (apple cores, carrot tops, spinach stalks (I only like the leaves for my sandwiches) in the back yard. Before they decompose, they attract the bunnies which makes for free entertainment for my cats. And, once they decompose they're doing nothing bad to my lawn. I have found that this doesn't work very well with banana and orange peels though.
My track record in applying for online jobs is almost 100%... failure, that is. My experience thus far has been so miserable (with the exceptiion of the good folks at WB, of course) that I don't even get so much as a response. Maybe I need to cut my hair. My virtual hair, that is.
Thanks for the tips. In fact, I'm going to implement a few of them right away.
BTW, great pic. I loved it.
I'm not well versed in mushrooms and would never trust myself or my kids to eat the ones we pick, but I am aware of what a delicay they are. In fact, we just went to the local Fiddlehead Festival where they had presentations on what local flora (including fiddleheads) you can eat and they had the New England Culinary Institute come out and make meals with local mushrooms and greens. They are, after all, in our own backyard, so if you know what you're doing, you can't beat them for convenience and economy.
Thanks for the great post.
Good article - got my brain going better then my morning coffee is :)
While I agree that people won't change unless they are forced to, I don't believe it's govt's job to force that change (please note I'm not talking about current safety laws when I say that - just talking about the flow of money). If govt had stayed out of it then we'd be fine now. Govt has caused so much of this current problem I think it'll be impossible to fix without 'em :(
Government is for controlling the military, currency, foreign affairs, tariffs, intellectual property (patents & copyrights) and mail. If they had just kept their nose there, the world would be in better shape.
But what a great idea. It's amazing how a little planning can go a long way in terms of saving money, because when it boils down to the last minute, you always spend more than you had hoped you would. Then again, this could be way too much organization than I am capable of. Thanks for the tips.
Besides the monetary consideration, we just have philosophical issues with wasting food. Most of the leftovers we have in our fridge are ready to eat, so it's just a question of heating them up. In fact, we often make things like soup in large portions just to freeze the excess for another day. If give it a few days in between, then who's going to issue over the fact that their leftovers, much less even know?
Thanks for the informative (as always) post, but the truth is, as anyone who has watched the show Lost knows, eating on a deserted island is not a problem when tons of processed foods are continually dropped from airplanes.
Don't cut the grass too short.
"Getting caught with your pantry down" . . . HILARIOUS!
Henceforth you shall refer to your children as employees. =)
I enjoyed reading this post because the subject discussed is one of my major problems. Some month ago i realized that i spend a lot on food until some day i changed the system. I started to think on things i really need, things that can be cooked and i can say it's great and cost effective.
I came across this as I was googling Best Buy Worms. Made me chuckle, all this chatter. I have bought from them several times over the last year as I am transforming my old backyard wasteland into an English cottage garden and there was not a single living thing in the soil - their garden variety is the best, lots of worms and healthy soil now - and I used Paypal. Every transaction was smooth. I like using Paypal for the very reason you don't have to enter all that information every time.
We make many pots of coffee throughout the day at my office. I save the grounds, filter and all and add it to my compost or even straight to the soil.
I also like to keep a container with lettuce growing in it throughout the season for fresh salad anytime. I just head out to the deck before dinner and pull a few leaves. Its super easy to grow and doesn't have to have full sun to grow like most veggies.
We make many pots of coffee throughout the day at my office. I save the grounds, filter and all and add it to my compost or even straight to the soil.
I also like to keep a container with lettuce growing in it throughout the season for fresh salad anytime. I just head out to the deck before dinner and pull a few leaves. Its super easy to grow and doesn't have to have full sun to grow like most veggies.
Although you never explicitly say it in your article it sure sounds to me like you are advocating more government intervention to redistribute wages between managers and workers. I sure hope that is not the case. I would argue that business owners and managers are a more important part of the economy as they are the job creators. They generally have a much higher financial risk threshold and are therefore the pioneers that not only create more jobs but advance human civilization through their ventures.
History has long shown that the freer the market the more efficient it will be. This current financial mess could easily have been averted had the government not meddled so much in the market and economics of the US.