RoguePundit

Reversing Course on Foie Gras

Chicago did something rather unusual earlier this week.

The City Council on Wednesday repealed its two-year-old ban on the gourmet dish, drawing dissent from animal rights activists who consider foie gras cruel because the birds are force-fed to make their livers bigger.

...

"You might disagree with serving foie gras, but you don't do a ban and forbid everybody to have foie gras," Durand said. His restaurant was one of many across the city that held foie gras dinners in the days before the ban took effect.

The animal rights group People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals called the repeal a political maneuver benefiting the restaurant industry. The Virginia-based organization said the council's first "compassionate decision was reversed in a secretive, rushed bow to special interests that benefit from the cruel treatment of animals."

Wednesday's vote was led by Mayor Richard M. Daley, who called the ban the silliest ordinance the council had ever passed. The repeal measure passed by a vote of 37-6 with no debate, an about-face from the original ban, which passed in April 2006 by a vote of 48-1.

PETA isn't concerned about animal welfare except as a means to further its animal rights agenda.  Only about 80 people showed up in front of city hall this evening to protest the overturning of the foie gras ban. 

During the ban, a number of renegade restaurateurs operated "duckeasies," ensuring that foie gras was readily available.  There wasn't much threat of punishment.

As city Health Department spokesman Tim Hadac told the Sun-Times, investigating foie gras complaints "is without question the least-important thing we're called upon to do."

I wonder though if radical activists will go back to vandalizing Chicago restaurants that serve the dish.  Returning to the original article.

Alderman Thomas Tunney, who brought the issue to vote, said the sentiments of most Chicagoans were served.

"Supporters of this legislation have accomplished their goal by raising awareness of this issue," Tunney said in a statement. "And while I respect their viewpoint, this is clearly a matter the council should stay out of and let the educated consumer and chefs make their own menu choices."

California's foie gras ban goes into effect in 2012.

Reopening the Libraries

Saturday will mark a year since our county libraries started closing their doors.  They were supposed to shut after voters rejected the library levy in Nov '06.  However, the commissioners waited a few months until the voters rejected the public safety levy. 

A short time later, despite clear voter feedback and continuing fiscal concerns, two of our three commissioners went ahead and promised some money to vocal library supporters.  If volunteers could raise $300,000 and come up with a plan to operate the libraries for 3-5 years, the commissioners would match that $300,000 ($75,000 of it from the library trust fund..previous blog here).

Here we are almost nine months later, and the non-profit Josephine County Libraries Inc. has raised about $120,000, almost a third of that in pledges and in-kind goods and services.  So to draw attention to their effort...    

Josephine Community Libraries Inc. will hold a Remember the Libraries memorial service at 11:30 a.m. Saturday. Mourners will gather outside the Growers' Market for a funeral march past the Grants Pass Library to the steps of the Josephine County Courthouse. At the courthouse, participants will celebrate the life of the library with stories and songs.

Know your audience--leave the pretentious crap to Ashland.  Same goes for..........don't get me started about how library advocates have hurt their cause in recent years.   

The organization is also collecting stories from community members about the impact libraries, open and closed, have had on their lives.

"Anniversaries are always a time to reflect," said Josephine Community Libraries volunteer Robin Elliott. "And on this anniversary in particular, one year of a shuttered library, we thought it would be appropriate to record and share the powerful stories we hear of how much people love and miss their libraries."

Stories will be saved in the organization's archives and used to illustrate the importance of libraries to future generations. They may also be reprinted in fundraising and promotional materials. Authors agree to permit Josephine Community Libraries to reproduce and disseminate submissions in print or electronically.

It would help to hear from people who need the libraries and have been hurt by their loss. It's harder to get folks to open their wallets when they can't see much in the way of tangible, measurable benefits from having libraries.    

Obviously, it doesn't help that the loss of timber funds is cutting deeply into the most basic of county services, like policing and jails.  The lead article in the DC today was "Public Safety Levy Moves Closer to Ballot."  It's still looking like we'll be voting upon a two-tier system, modeled after what Deschutes County has. 

District 1 is a countywide district that pays for jail operations, courthouse security, emergency disaster planning, search and rescue and other services that are countywide in nature.

District 2 consists of only the unincorporated areas of the county and provides funding for rural sheriff's patrol, investigation, traffic teams and other services. City residents receive those services from their city police department.

Sure seems like a logical approach.  Now if we knew how much money they'll be asking for. 

If we approve dedicated funding for public safety, you know the county will take the discretionary money it's been giving the sheriff's office and spend it elsewhere.  The only question is what percentage of our tax increase would actually go towards public safety.  The rest...maybe that's how our libraries are reopened.

Tiny Hemp Clothing Optional

She's trading one artsy and affluent community for another...that allows some nudity.

Jennifer Moss has moved on after a year in Ojai, where she often pedaled a bicycle around town in a hemp G-string and flower-shaped pasties to promote Earth-friendliness.

The 32-year-old said her new home is Ashland, Ore., which is about 15 miles north of the California-Oregon border.

Moss was arrested twice in Ojai and ticketed repeatedly for obstructing traffic. Her most recent misdemeanor arrest was for removing everything but her G-string and pasties in front of parishioners leaving an Easter Sunday Mass outside a Catholic church. Stunned parishioners thought she was naked, police said.

"We got several calls," said Ojai Police Chief Bruce Norris.

"Police attention was part of the reason I left," Moss said last week. "But the number one reason I left Ojai is they are not conscious enough about the air, the soil and the water. Either you get it or you don't."

Right.  She wants to inflict her values upon others, and thinks that if they push back, they're the ones that are intolerant.  So now the opinionated exhibitionist has run off to California-north, just in time for the warm weather.  How courageous.  Switching articles for a moment...

Originally from a small town near Corvallis, Ore., Moss gravitated toward Southern California in her 20s. Her upbringing was too restrictive for her taste, she said, and she wanted to explore her spirituality in a place that would be less judgmental.

She landed first in Venice Beach before making her way to Santa Barbara, holding small jobs along the way. The first time she donned her skimpy bike-wear was in Santa Barbara, where the cops promptly stopped her.

"They were very mean to me," she said. "They treated me like I'm insane."

Moss moved on to Ojai, working for a time as a waitress at a vegan restaurant in Ventura. For most city residents, last year's Fourth of July parade was her public debut. Jaws dropped as she whizzed past startled paradegoers on in-line skates, wearing not all that much more than suntan oil.

Yep, it's all their fault.  Returning to the original article... 

Ashland is perhaps best-known for being home to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. The city's nearly 21,000 residents might see even more of Moss than Ojai's did.

Moss said she confirmed with police that Ashland's laws do not prohibit public nudity. She celebrated by stripping off all of her clothes and doing a headstand right outside the police station. Then she rode her bike naked through the center of Ashland.

"This town is known for performance art. And even though it's not the status quo to ride around naked, it's been done before," Moss said. "So it was no big deal."

Said Norris, Ojai's police chief: "I hope she finds real happiness up there."

Actually about four years ago, I blogged about Ashland adopting a public nudity ban.  Here's what the ordinance says:

It is unlawful for any person to expose his or her genitalia while on public property in the C-1-D (Downtown Commercial) zone or in a public park. This provision is not intended to apply to a person who is prepubescent or who has taken steps to create an envelope of privacy upon their own property and the nudity occurs within that envelope.

Wonder when she'll find the limits of Ashland's tolerance?

Lots of Snow to Plow

Just a few miles to the west of me...

The biggest snowpack that anyone can remember means it will take at least 10 days to plow the snow on Bear Camp Road leading to the lower Rogue River, according to the Oregon Department of Transportation.

ODOT sent a crew up Monday, and most likely will begin Tuesday morning, said Gary Leaming, ODOT spokesman in Central Point.

"They're thinking that the drifts are 10 to 15 feet deep," Leaming said.

Some years the snow at the highest sections of road over 4,000 feet is only a few feet deep and covers only a few miles by early May.

But this year 12 1/2 miles must be plowed. ODOT's estimated cost of up to $25,000 is about three times the usual cost.

Yes, that's the same road that the Kim family tried to take to Gold Beach.  Rugged route, snowstorm, wrong turn...tragedy.  But in better weather, the Bear Camp provides access to some neat places, and it sure makes rafting trips more convenient. 

The road, which connects to Galice Access and Peavine-Serpentine Springs roads, is used by rafters who float the lower Rogue River. Until the road is plowed, lower Rogue rafters are forced to travel on the Redwood Highway and go through Brookings and Gold Beach, nearly a 400-mile round trip from Grave Creek, the beginning of the 34-mile Wild Section of the river.

The northern route of BLM and Forest Service roads that connects to Eden Valley is also snowbound for now.

ODOT and the agencies made an agreement years ago that Bear Camp plowing would be paid for by rafting permit fees, paid by outfitters and by private citizens who earn spots on the Wild Section between May 15 and Oct. 1. Each private rafter pays $10 for a permit.

Despite the increase in cost, Burel said the money is still coming from the same source.

Let's hope they don't encounter rock slides or other issues which cause lengthy, expensive repairs.

Random Nature #167

Undesirable Glowing:  One of the things that CSI shows have taught us is that ultraviolet light can help us see things, like certain bodily fluids that are naturally fluorescent.  People can now buy portable UV lights (like this one) to check, for instance, the cleanliness of their motel room.  It makes an interesting tool for quality control. 

The bacterium Clostridium difficile (a relative of the one that causes botulism) is a common cause of diarrhea (previous blog here).  Add the right chemicals, and it can be made to glow under UV light.

Alfa's toilet inspectors smeared the UV lotion under the seats of 20 toilets and commodes being used by patients with diarrhoea at a hospital in Winnipeg. Seven of these patients had C. difficile infection, while 13 others did not. The toilets and commodes were tested every weekday for six months and checked using UV light to determine how well they had been cleaned. In addition, samples were taken from toilet surfaces to determine whether C difficile spores were present.

The UV marker revealed that the commodes for the seven patients isolated with C. difficile infections had not been properly cleaned 72% of the time. The toilets fared slightly better, with half of the samples taken showing no residual UV lotion after cleaning. The 13 patients not on isolation had much cleaner toilets, with only 14% glowing brightly under UV light. Further assessments showed that differences in toilet cleaning were “ward dependent” and since specific cleaners work on different wards, the results likely reflect characteristics of the individual cleaning staff.

More worryingly, C. difficile was still detected in 40% of samples taken from the cleanest toilets (i.e. those with no detectable UV marker). “This suggests that both the physical cleaning action as well as the disinfectant/cleaning agent were ineffective for killing and/or removing C. difficile from toilets,” notes Alfa.

Spores are harder to kill because they're designed to survive conditions that would otherwise kill the bacteria.  Worse still, hospitals in several nations (including the U.S.) have been struggling with a superbug version of C. difficile.  In the UK, it kills more people than MRSA.

Seeking Luminescent Feedback:  Researchers at Ohio State University were looking a better way to test of how potential cancer drugs--individually and in combination--impacted adult T-cell lymphoma and leukemia (ATLL).  This is a particularly difficult cancer for multiple reasons, including the following:

“We can inject these tumor cells into the abdomen of the mice and they will grow in the animals' lymph nodes,” explained Rosol, “but normally, you can't detect the extent of the animal's disease until the cancer is in its later stages.”   

Making the cancer cells luminesce on demand enables some rather precise feedback.      

...Rosol's team took a novel approach: They took a gene responsible for a firefly's glow and genetically inserted it into these tumor cells. That gene produces the enzyme luciferase in the insects which, when combined with another compound, luciferin, causes the firefly's distinctive glow.

The mice then received these genetically modified tumor cells and the researchers injected luciferin into the animals. Cancer cells containing the luciferase would combine with the luciferin and glow in the dark, giving the team a clear picture of the extent of disease inside the animal.

“We put these mice inside a blackened chamber with a digital camera and then took their pictures. The only light present would be the light emitted by the cancer cells,” Rosol said.

“We just measured the light that we could see coming out of the animal – the more light, the more tumor growth; the less light, less tumor.”

Here's another way to use luminescence in cancer treatment. 

A study was carried out by researchers of the University of Michigan Health System who inserted the gene which is responsible for the firefly glow-producing molecule into mice with cancer. The researchers kept the molecule from producing the telltale glow until cells started to die in response to cancer treatment given to the mice. Researchers then used a highly sensitive camera to detect the glow in the mice as the cancer cells were destroyed by the drugs which was being tested.

Researchers concluded that the results of the study indicated that the glow molecule could aid in faster testing of new drugs for cancer, blood diseases, autoimmune disorders, heart attack damage and others, as these molecules could provide real time information about the effectiveness of new medications.

Some day with radiation treatments, maybe we'll nuke 'em 'til they don't glow.

Lumenoscopy:  The human papillomavirus (HPV) doesn't just help cause cervical cancer.

It has long been recognized that oral cancer kills one American every hour, but even health experts thought the primary causes were smoking and heavy drinking, and the main victims were older men. Fresh research and a new FDA-approved technology are putting a whole new light on all-too-common, and all-too-deadly oral cancer, indicating new causes and much younger male and female victims.

Johns Hopkins researchers, writing in the February 1 issue of the Journal of Clinical Oncology, reported that the sexually transmitted HPV virus, a major cause of cervical cancer, causes as many cancers of the upper throat as tobacco and alcohol combined. Oral sex is the likely method of transmission. The researchers say HPV is the primary cause of some 5,600 cancers per year in the tonsils, lower tongue and upper throat. And, they found, the incidence rate for HPV-related oral cancers among males has been rising steadily for three decades. Co-author Dr. Maura Gillison told the Associated Press, "If current trends continue, within the next 10 years there may be more oral cancers in the United States caused by HPV than tobacco or alcohol."

Here's a description of the technology.

ViziLite Plus with TBlue is an oral lesion identification and marking system that is used as an adjunct to the conventional head and neck examination. It is comprised of a chemiluminescent light source (ViziLite) to improve the identification of lesions and a blue phenothiazine dye to mark those lesions identified by ViziLite. ViziLitePlus with TBlue is designed to be used in a patient population at increased risk for oral cancer. ...

In clinical trials involving 13,000 female patients, abnormal squamous epithelium in the cervical complex appears distinctly white after washing the cervix with a dilute acetic acid solution and viewed under chemiluminescent light (Speculite).  Similarly, examination of the oral cavity under chemiluminescent light (ViziLite) after rinsing with a dilute acetic acid solution, abnormal squamous epithelium tissue will appear distinctly white. Lumenoscopy has demonstrated in numerous studies to improve the ability to visualize mucosal lesions and initially identify clinically suspicious lesions.

The rinse (flavored vinegar) and ViziLite glowstick combine to make tiny lesions a bit easier to see. 

TBlue is a patented, pharmaceutical-grade toluidine blue-based metachromatic dye.  It is used to further evaluate and closely monitor changes in ViziLite-identified lesions.  It has been proposed that living cells will differentially accumulate toluidine blue based on parameters related to metabolic activity.  TBlue packaged in an easy to use 3-swab system, provides the deep blue staining that allows ViziLite-identified lesions to be seen clearly under normal light.

The FDA approved the ViziLite in 2001 and the TBlue oral lesion marking system in 2005.  But, the American Dental Association still doesn't endorse the test.  This article helps explain why the ADA denied its seal of approval.  Nonetheless, the ease of testing more people has brought to light the increasing prevalence of oral cancer in groups who weren't thought to be at high risk.

Eyeing Drying

The Trinity River system feeds the Klamath River and, through diversions, the Sacramento River system.  Some folks were trying to sidestep the rules and boost the amount of water headed south this year.  Not any more.

The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has backed away from a proposal to take more water from the Trinity River this year, citing a 2000 Interior Secretary decision on fisheries restoration.

Reclamation was considering a shift from a normal year to a dry year, which would have stifled releases from Lewiston Dam to the river. Water managers were looking to possibly adjust the seasonal forecast used to craft the flows to reflect conditions in May, instead of the April 1 date called for in the 2000 record of decision.

”It's what the record of decision calls for,” said bureau spokesman Jeff McCracken.

Much of the state is headed for drought, and snowpack in the Sierra Nevada is poor. Conditions have been dry in the northern part of the state as well, after substantial precipitation earlier in the year. Trinity River advocates protested the possible decision by reclamation, saying the river should not suffer because of what they called mismanagement of the Sacramento River delta water system in recent years.

Half of the Trinity River's water is diverted to the Sacramento, then pumped from the delta to farms and cities to the south. Flows meant to aid fisheries restoration are released beginning in April. A shift in the water year type would have crimped releases to the river.

The Shasta Reservoir is below two-thirds capacity.  And downstream, the Sacramento River can't expect major contributions from the Sierras...runoff is expected to be just 55 percent of normal.  Switching links:

Just two months ago, it appeared that Northern California was in store for a nice wet year--or at least a year of normal rain and snow levels--following a dry 2007.

But March and April were the driest months in the Sierra Nevada since records were first kept in 1922, state water officials announced Thursday (May 1).

As a result, the Sierra Nevada snowpack averaged 67 percent of normal for May 1 in the state's final snowpack measurement of the year, down from 95 percent April 1.

...

...this April and May, only 2.3 inches of rain fell in the Northern Sierra between Lake Tahoe and Mount Lassen - the lowest since 1922.

Last year, the snowpack in the Sierras was even lower.

Notice how few years the snowpack is near normal.  Volatility is normal.

Temporarily Blue

My parents--lifelong Republicans--recently received their first ballot as registered Democrats.  It came with a note that explained why they'd accidentally received a Republican ballot a few days earlier.  They, like so many here in very red Josephine County (which has non-partisan local elections), faced little of interest to vote upon as Republicans in the primaries. 

- McCain obviously has things wrapped up.

- Senator Smith may as well be unopposed.

- Rep. Walden is unopposed (and once again may as well be in November), and no one in either party is running against Rep. DeFazio.

- There's one candidate each for Secretary of State and State Treasurer, and none for Attorney General.

- In State Senate District 1, Kruse has no opposition.  Same for Atkinson in District 2.

- In House District 3, Maurer is unopposed.  Richardson may as well be in District 4.  For those who live in the NE corner of the county, it looks like there's an actual race to see who will replace Susan Morgan in District 2...but Douglas County dominates that vote.  That's it on the red side.

Little wonder a number of local Republicans are trying to influence the genuine contests that the Democrats are having.  When my folks went in to change their registration, they got talking to the crowd in the County Clerk's office...all were there to temporarily become Democrats. 

- Obama has done the impossible; he's actually convinced some Republicans to vote for Hillary...once.  Besides the fact that keeping her in the race extends the bitter battle, Hillary isn't quite as far left as Obama.

- Merkley and Novick are both trying to convince us that they can be less ineffective than Senator Smith.  If they could help on timber payments, that would be a plus.  In today's Daily Courier... 

Sen. Ron Wyden said last year he'd attach funding for rural Oregon timber counties to every bill he could.

On Thursday, Oregon's Democratic senator said he has received assurance from Democratic leaders on the Appropriations Committee that a Senate bill funding the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan includes $400 million for rural counties in 39 states to pay for schools, libraries and other services.

President Bush has repeatedly said he would veto any domestic spending attached to an emergency spending bill.

...

"It's a crisis and I'm just doing everything I can back here, looking for any and all opportunities to attach it," said DeFazio, a Democrat whose District 4 includes rural Josephine County. "It's a real uphill battle. If we could stay alive for one more year, then we'd have at least two of three presidential candidates saying they want to continue payments. If we could get an advocate of county payments in the White House, we'd be in better shape."

Once again, the best that Wyden can do is attach timber payments to a bill that's dead on arrival.  DeFazio can't even get that done...it doesn't help that his majority leader opposes the payments (previous blog here).  Until Congress passes a bill that forces President Bush to veto timber payments, this failure is on the Democrats.  Neither Merkley nor Novick would have any seniority, so who would be better at working with others?  Well--for better and worse, mavericks tend to have more difficulty at pushing legislation in DC.

- Unless something unusual happens, the Democratic primaries for Secretary of State and Attorney General will determine the winners in November.  That leaves Republicans hoping for Democratic candidates that show a bit of independence from the existing power structure.  Simple, luke-warm choices there.

Tuesday's results will certainly be interesting.  Come November, most of our temporarily blue voters will hold their noses and vote for McCain and Smith...the remainder will likely abstain or offer a protest vote, bemoaning the weak selection of candidates in recent years. 

A Fancy Still

Speaking of locating a micro-refinery nearby...

E-Fuel Corp unveiled on Thursday the "MicroFueler" touting it as the world's first machine that allows homeowners to make their own ethanol and pump the brew directly into their cars.

The portable unit that sells for $10,000 resembles a gasoline station pump and nozzle -- minus the slot for a credit card, or the digital "SALE" numbers that whir ever faster at retail pumps as global demand pushes fuel prices to record levels.

Instead of tapping gasoline from an underground tank, the pump's back end plugs into home power and water supplies to make ethanol for as little as $1 a gallon (3.8 liters), according to E-Fuel.

The company says one of the machine's top selling points is its sweet tooth. It ferments fuel from sugar, the price of which is historically cheap as global supplies are glutted.

That means it avoids the Achilles heel of today's US ethanol system -- reliance on corn -- which has been blamed for helping to spike global food prices.

The specialized still is about the size of a stackable washer-dryer.  Rather than using processed sugar at $0.20 per pound, E-Fuels recommends using low-quality Mexican sugar at $0.025 per pound (courtesy of NAFTA).  Wonder how long prices will remain that cheap if demand suddenly rises?

"We will break the traditional ethanol system," said Quinn a California computer and computer games inventor, who has bankrolled the company with what he calls "millions, but not multimillion" of dollars.

He said despite the steep upfront costs, the machines will pay for themselves quickly. For a two-car family that drives about 34,500 miles a year (55,520 kilometers), the MicroFueler will pay for itself in less than two years, assuming average gasoline prices of $3.60 per gallon, the company said. The unit makes up to 35 gallons (132 liters) of 100 percent ethanol per week.

Switching to the more recent link...

Ethanol has long had home brewers, and permits are available through the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau. (You must be a property owner and agree to make your ethanol outdoors.)

Need to be careful...200 proof alcohol is rather flammable.  And don't forget to pay those road taxes, fill out the rest of the necessary paperwork, etc.

Mainstreaming Biodiesel

How would you feel if someone built a micro-refinery nearby, whether it was in a business district or in your neighborhood?  If it only produced enough fuel for a vehicle or three, would that make a difference?  Well, I'm sure you'd at least hope that the people involved had the proper equipment and training to ensure the operation was clean and safe.  Thus, it might help if the micro-refinery required some sort of license and was periodically inspected.

Oh wait, this is about biodiesel.  Heck, some of that's just waste cooking oil that's been recycled...and filtered...and maybe deacidified...and maybe mixed with something to make it less viscous, et cetera.  And then there are issues regarding potential spills, the emissions, taxation, heck even firefighting.  Time to get the bureaucracy up to speed.   

Dave Eck, a Half Moon Bay mechanic, had attracted a media spotlight with his fleet of vehicles fueled by used fryer grease from a local chowder house. So when Sacramento called, he figured officials wanted advice on promoting alternative fuels.

Not at all. The government rang to notify Eck that he was a tax cheat. He was scolded for failing to get a "diesel fuel supplier's license," reporting quarterly how many gallons of grease he burns, and paying a tax on each gallon.

"All of a sudden they nailed me for a road tax," said Eck, who drives a Hummer converted to run on vegetable oil. "I said, 'Not a problem. I'll do my part. But what do I get? At least let me into the carpool lane.' "

No such luck. The state offered Eck only a potentially large fine -- and not just for failing to pay taxes. He can also get in trouble for carting kitchen grease away from eateries without a license from the state Meat and Poultry Inspection Branch.

Or for not having at least $1 million in liability insurance, in case he spills some of the stuff. Or for not getting permission from the state Air Resources Board to burn fat in the first place.

The vehicles are still causing wear and tear on our roads.  Thus, the owners shouldn't get away with not paying the $0.18 per gallon road tax just because they avoid filling stations.  It turns out that Governor Schwarzenegger hadn't been paying the road tax either...his spokesman promised to remedy after the LA Times asked the question.  The Governator's Hummer burns cooking oil from Costco. 

The state is now working to make compliance easier for biodiesel users, most of whom only deal in small volumes of the fuels.

The veggie oil crowd is hardly on the radical fringe anymore. Garages report being overwhelmed with conversion business, and restaurants throughout the Southland are contending with raids on their used-grease tanks.

Advocates say more than 250,000 Americans are running their vehicles on cooking oil, with the biggest concentration in California. Drivers do it for different reasons: to protect the environment, to reduce dependence on foreign oil or to save money. Those using vegetable oil say they do so for as little as $1 a gallon, even though grease yields better mileage than gasoline and about the same as diesel fuel.

Almost all of them are doing it underground. The state tax board has processed fewer than 70 of the required "fuel supplier" licenses, according to a spokeswoman. Most of those are for businesses selling commercial biodiesel, a more mainstream fuel that is typically mixed with as much as 80% petroleum.

The Meat and Poultry Inspection Branch requires a $300 transport license for the "inedible kitchen grease;" the concern is spills.  And just because biodiesel emissions can smell like food doesn't mean they aren't a concern if beyond a certain concentration.

Although most drivers burning kitchen oil have managed to evade enforcement -- government agencies say they have handed out few citations -- those who attract attention to themselves by promoting the alternative fuel tend to hear from regulators.

Craig Reece, owner of PlantDrive in Berkeley, which sells kits to convert diesel engines to run on vegetable oil, said he got a call from state officials about paying the road tax. He has since been sending the tax forms to all his customers, but he figures only a few are actually registering with the state and keeping logs of how much oil they burn.

"A lot of my customers think this fuel should be exempt from taxes," he said. "They feel they ought to get something for the climate-change-neutral aspect of it."

Illinois, North Carolina, Texas, Rhode Island and Indiana have exempted drivers burning kitchen grease from paying such a tax. In North Carolina, the move came at the behest of a state senator who motors around in a small car powered by soybean oil. The legislator said it wasn't paying the taxes that bothered him so much as the hours required to do the paperwork.

It's not enough for many folks to do what they feel is right.  Screw altruism--they want to be rewarded for their actions.  But at least the government could streamline things so that being green isn't unnecessarily difficult.

Learning to Find a Hidden Giant

Activists have been trying to have the giant Palouse earthworm listed as threatened or endangered (most recent blog here).  But since few people ever look for the worm, it's rather difficult to determine how many there might be.  It had been thought that nearly all of the worm's habitat had been put to plow, meaning that few probably survive.  Lately, that theory has been taking a few hits.

In March, researchers digging in a remnant of native prairie near Moscow, Idaho, accidentally minced one of the creatures and collected the bits. The rolling grasslands of the region, called the Palouse, are believed to be the species' historic habitat.

But the second worm came from a more surprising location: a forested slope above the Chelan County town of Leavenworth.

"If it is the correct species, it's pretty exciting to find it in an area where it hasn't been described before," said University of Idaho soil scientist Jodi Johnson-Maynard, who has been stalking the giant earthworm for years. "Maybe it's not just tied to the prairie."

...

Both of the specimens were too damaged to identify conclusively, Johnson-Maynard cautioned. Based on outward appearance, though, Driloleirus americanus seems the most likely bet, she added. The scientific name means "lily-smelling American worm," presumably because early naturalists reported the worms spit floral-scented mucous.

Now that the story of the giant earthworms has gained some publicity, more folks are keeping an eye out for them.

...Seattleite Lee Matthews, who collected the Leavenworth specimen, said he's seen several odd worms since buying his property near the Bavarian-themed town in 1991. One of his first sightings came as he chipped away at a dirt bank to widen a roadway. A chunk of clay broke off and he saw something white.

"It was big enough that we thought it was a white snake," he said. "There must have been 12 to 16 inches sticking out."

He's seen one or two of the worms nearly every year, usually in wet weather.

"I haven't been hunting for these worms," he said. "They just pop up."

After reading about a University of Idaho student's discovery of a giant Palouse earthworm in 2005, Matthews contacted Johnson-Maynard. Last November, he scooped up a worm that appeared near death from the cold, and FedExed it to the University of Idaho.

Johnson-Maynard now hopes to search his property for the worms.  The article also noted that she and another researcher are working on a DNA test to make the giant earthworms easier to identify. 

Maybe someday we'll find out if the related Oregon giant earthworm is truly rare (at best) or just rarely seen.