Friday Linkage 10/11/2013

Do you ever have weeks go by where you stop. Look up, and wonder, “Where did the last month or so go?”  Yep, I am having one of those periods of time.

On to the links…

The Huge Chill: Why Are American Refrigerators So Big?—I found this exploration into the gargantuan size of American refrigerators fascinating.  Maybe our fascination with giant sized cooling boxes and Costco sized quantities is a bad thing?  Hmmm….

How America Cultivated a Generation of Obesity—The idea of a hamburger’s pickles being considered a vegetable in terms of a serving is just asinine.  But, someone figured out a way for a few parties to make money so it became law.  I do like how the anti-fat crusade of my childhood is getting some of the blame for our current dietary straits.  When I was a kid no one wanted to eat anything with fat.  If a package said “fat free” it was carte blanche to eat.  Too bad all those carbs made us fat.

Unease in Hawaii’s Cornfields—You do not think about Hawaii having corn or soybean fields, but such fields are very common on Kauai.  There is a growing sentiment on the islands that these fields of GMO crops are not welcome visitors from the mainland.

How to Build a Cider Press and Harvest Apple Juice—After reading this I spend my days walking around the area looking at the apple trees dropping fruit no one wants and daydreaming about making gallon upon gallon of fresh pressed cider.  I am also daydreaming about using my homebrew skills to make some homebrew apple hooch.

Just What is in a Chicken Nugget—I am glad that someone asked the question and did the science, but I am now even more disturbed.  Only 40% meat?  Fat, cartilage, and pieces of bone make up the rest?  Reminds me of the classic John Candy movie The Great Outdoors when the he is challenged to eat the Ol’ 96er.  At the end the cook says he needs to eat what’s left on the plate.  But it’s just fat and gristle.  Part of the weight.

All You Can’t Eat, Pigs Will—This is a great story from a while back about a hog farmer that takes the leftovers from Las Vegas buffets and feeds them to his animals.  I wonder if the animals also wake up in a few days sunburned and full of regret.

The Largest Coal-Fired Power Plant In New England Is Shutting Down—It’s not the dirtiest coal plant in New England, but the Brayton Point Power Station is the largest of six coal fired plants in New England and it will be retired in 2017.  Good riddance!

Illustrating How the Keystone XL Tar Sands Pipeline Fails President’s Climate Test—This article is just filled with data and charts that show just how awful the Keystone XL pipeline would be for the environment.  As if most people with half a brain who follow the news did not already know that.  There are three or four such people out there.

New Arizona Solar Plant Uses Salt To Keep Producing Electricity When The Sun Goes Down—It’s electricity derived from solar energy after the sun goes down.  It’s not from a traditional battery, per se, but rather a bank of molten salt that stores heat to create steam to drive turbines later.  Freakin’ cool.

Is Solar Power Facing a Dim Future?—Too often the story about solar power focuses on the panel makers and the trouble that these providers are having.  Panels, however, are turning into a commodity and that business is defined by the race to the bottom in terms of price.  Solar is here to stay!

Could Mexico be at the Start of a Solar Boom—Mexico has some pretty audacious goals.  It wants to generate 35% of its power from renewable sources by 2026, which would be up from ~15% today.  Solar is part of that equation because like the American Southwest a large swath of the country is bathed in excellent solar resources.

How Apps are Helping Us Drive Less—The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG)—an acronym that is almost as convoluted sounding as SHIELD—released a report that finds our mobile technology is helping drive the trend toward less driving.  Anything that gets us out from behind the wheel is a good thing.

Industry Ahead of Schedule on Mileage Goals—According to an official at the EPA, the auto industry is ahead of pace to meet the new mileage goals instituted recently.  It’s amazing how these new targets were going to be catastrophic according to the pundits on the right, but now industry is ahead of the game.  Oh, and how is the auto industry doing right now?  Pretty dang well.

Plastic Waste is Hazardous for Sub-Alpine Lakes as Well—Is there anywhere that our plastic pollution will not soil?  Just asking.

Engine Exhaust May Be Contributing to Bee Colony Collapse—Is there anything that we humans do anymore that is good?  It seems like every action we take has a dark side that harms the environment.  It’s enough to get someone down in the dumps.

Fall of USSR Locked Up World’s Largest Carbon Sink—Apparently, when the USSR fell into disunion millions of acres of farmland went fallow.  Over the years those millions of acres have sucked up carbon to become one of the biggest carbon sinks in the world.

The Scary Truth About Antibiotic Overprescription—Most of the press on this issue relates to the insane amount of antibiotics that we feed farm animals in feedlot operations.  However, humans are over prescribed antibiotics as well.  Great.

Dirtball’s ‘Green’ Jeans Are Made In U.S. From Recycled Water Bottles—It was not the recycled content of the jeans that really caught my eye, but the infographic showing where all of the components were sourced from.  Too often we think of “Made in the USA” to mean assembled here from foreign parts, but the supply chain is critical to creating sustainable industries.

Super Bowl Beer Temptation

If you watched the Super Bowl and watched the ads—who am I kidding, watching the ads is like a national event in the U.S.—you probably noticed a plethora of ads for two beers:  Budweiser Black Crown and Redd’s Apple Ale.  I am weak before the marketing powers of macro-brewers and feel the pull of the six-pack.  Okay, that creepy fish promoting Beck’s Sapphire made me want to run away because I felt like its eyes were staring straight into my soul.

Following the release of Bud Light Platinum, a high test version of its flagship Bud Light product, A-B InBev decided to go all “premium” with Budweiser Black Crown.  Ostensibly a lager, Black Crown is the brewer’s attempt to inject some buzz into its traditional Budweiser brand that has been lacking since no one drinks the stuff in the “red can” anymore and Budweiser Select is little more than tailgate swill.

Well:

It tastes like someone increased the percentage of “real beer” flavor at the mega-beer mixing machine in St. Louis or whatever monolithic facility this stuff was brewed within.  It’s a Budweiser product through and through, e.g. totally non-offensive and lacking any sort of personality other than pure consistency can after can or bottle after bottle.

The problem I see with any premium label from Budweiser or another macro-brewer is the value proposition.  It cost ~$8 for a six-pack of Budweiser Black Crown 12 ounce bottles.  Within less than a dollar price difference I had probably twenty five excellent craft beer choices including several from the St. Louis brewer of note, Schafly.  Why bother with a Budweiser Black Crown?

By the way, what is up with the ads for beer and liquor taking place at these parties that are one disrobing away from turning into a sequel of Eyes Wide Shut?  Every time I cracked open one of these bottles I felt like I needed to don a black, single button suit and make sure my stubble was the appropriate length before attending the party at a baroque ballroom.

Redd’s Apple Ale is a totally different beast.  Produced by Redd’s Brewing Company…who am I kidding?  This is a brand under the house of SABMiller that is trying to pose as something other than a beer made by a macro-brewing giant.  It draws on the now grand tradition of Blue Moon or Icehouse or any other brand that hides its affiliation with the big corporate parent.  I do not want to argue about the definition of craft beer, but something made by SABMiller is not craft.

Described as an ale with a bit of apple, Redd’s Apple Ale is trying to tread a fine line between real beer and whatever drinks like Mike’s Hard Lemonade are:

Too bad the best description I can come up with to describe this drink is alcoholic apple juice.  Seriously, if you were trying to pass off booze to your children this would be the vehicle because there is little or no beer taste at all.  How they can even begin to pass this off as beer is beyond me.

See the total lack of head in the picture above?  Yep, that was how it was poured straight from the bottle into the glass.  It took me maybe five seconds to grab my camera and snap the picture.  Huh?  And talk about sugar.  My teeth hurt just thinking about how sweet each sip was.  Ugh!

Here’s the problem for A-B InBev, SABMiller, and MolsonCoors…sales of their traditional volume products is flat to declining.  Investors look at the growth in craft beer with lustful eyes wondering why the big boys can’t do the same thing.  So, some marketing honcho reached into the MBA bag of tricks and pulls out brand extension, e.g. Budweiser Black Crown, or house of brands, e.g. Redd’s Apple Ale.  Too bad they are not addressing the core problem that is they are not innovating enough to capture people’s imagination.

Friday Linkage 12/2/2011

Black Friday is over, Cyber Monday has passed, the leftovers from Thanksgiving have been eaten, and the assault of Christmas music has begun.  BTW, has anyone recorded a new Christmas song, as opposed to covers of classics, in the last twenty or so years?

On to the links…

Don Young is an Ass–It is worth a moment to watch U.S. Representative Don Young (Republican-Alaska) make an ass out of himself during a hearing.  Granted, historian Douglas Brinkley does a wonderful job of skewering this bully with forthright responses.  Don Young deserves a Google bomb to associate his name with something appropriate.

There’s Arsenic in Your Kids’ Apple Juice–I do not know if I will be able to look at a juice box the same way again after reading about the arsenic content of apple juice.  The failure to regulate this in a coherent way is why people distrust government.  Granted, letting industry regulate themselves will just leave us drinking arsenic smoothies.

Secret Sara Lee Memo Leaked–Looks like a nice load of greenwashing to me.  I guess if Tostitos can try and pass off industrial tortilla chips as “artisan” than Sara Lee can try to pass off the products of a brutal factory farm system as somehow wholesome.  It is sickening what marketing hacks will appropriate in service to their corporate masters.

World’s Largest Marine Reserve Proposed–Australia has proposed creating the world’s largest marine reserve in the Coral Sea, site of some pretty ferocious naval battles in World War II.  Additionally, this would be considered a “no take” area so fishing would be prohibited entirely.  Between this and the carbon tax those folks down under are getting it done.  Too bad that on a per capita basis they emit more carbon than any one else on the planet.

Landmines as a Tool of Preservation–On the other hand, there is the law of unintended consequences.  This reminds me of reports on the pristine nature of the DMZ between North and South Korea.  By forbidding humans to occupy and in most cases even transit an area for over 50 years nature has filled the void.  Obviously, the bucolic nature of the DMZ or Bosnian landscapes is marred by the reality of what drove the lack of human presence.

Retirement Home for Orangutans–It may not be Boca or Sun City, but don’t these wonderful animals deserve some sort of home to call their own without having to worry about deforestation and predation?  Just asking.

Natural Garden Enemies–The University of California-Davis has published a great poster of the beneficial insects in your landscape.  These are not your enemies, but rather the enemies of the insects that you dislike because they ravage some part of your garden.

American Wrest Wrangles with Renewables–I wish people would stop using so many western metaphors when referring to anyplace that remotely smacks of rugged America.  Judging by the issues surrounding drilling within city limits in Colorado the American West is wrangling with energy issues in general.

The Death of the Fringe Suburb–It is my belief that the death of the suburb is greatly oversold for the simple reason that people like the living arrangement.  Sure, living an hour or more away from your job via a car based commute is insane.  However, a lot of the suburban world does not live in that kind of arrangement.

The Myth of the Road Tax–As a cyclist this is one of my favorite arguments to have with car lovers who despise anything that does not belch fumes in copious amounts from a tailpipe sharing the road with their steel beasts.  Every year someone will come up in a legislature to claim that cyclists are not paying their share for infrastructure, etc.  However, neither are car users because the gas tax is so insignificant compared to the costs of the infrastructure.

Nowhere Else in the World is the Validity of Climate Science Debated–As the primary season heats up the rhetoric from the blowhard Republican candidates for President of the United States are sure to rally around the whole “climate science is not decided” camp.  Too bad this is the only place in the world where the validity of the science is so commonly questioned by the relative mainstream. Ugh!

Don’t Buy this Jacket–Patagonia was really screaming at the rain on Black Friday when it ran this ad.  There were still lines at the big boxes, pepper spraying for video games, and general silliness surrounding shopping.  At least someone is trying to cut through the marketing and messaging to say something substantive.