Ray LaHood, current US Secretary of Transportation and a former Republican member of the House of Representatives, may want to stay off the road, where it’s safe. His new proposal plans to give bicycling and walking the same importance as automobiles in transportation planning and selection of federal greenbacks. “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at the expense of non-motorized,” he wrote in his blog. In my opinion, it seems he wants to add a little European flavor to the way we travel. If that’s where his policies are headed, I am totally on board. During 2004 I spent 3 weeks in Slovakia and during my time I observed that damn near every person got around on bicycles, scooters, walking, trolleys, micro cars, etc; AND they had no translation for the word “obese.” However, many people will stay in their box, calling the policy “nonsensical.” Congressman Steve LaTourette reacted to LaHood’s policy by asking, jokingly, if the department still has mandatory drug testing.

An extension of Obama’s “livability initiative,” which seeks the creation of alternatives to driving – buses, streetcars, trolleys and trains, biking and walking – as key components of the solution to the American transportation headache. One included idea in the policy that gets the Mr. Hats seal of approval is the creation of biking and walking lanes on bridges and clearing snow from bike paths. The biking lane is key in American culture, where many 3 person families absolutely must have an H3 to get around the world. I like riding my bicycle, but not sharing the road with a murderously angry soccer mom in a Hummer full of sugar-crazed children.

As Jon Stewart puts it, Secretary of Transportation is the “least glamorous cabinet position.” However, LaHood has been the gung-ho transportation policy point man on a multitude of high-profile issues, from hi-speed railways to the recent issues with Toyota. His new policy has garnered him understandable celebrity status wtihin the cycling subculture. “LaHood went out on a limb for cyclists,” Joe Lindsey wrote on Bicycling.com. “He said stuff no Transportation secretary’s ever said, and is backing it up with action.”

Word of the policy is still seeping beyond the transportation world, and the initial reaction from conservatives and industry has been: hostile, of course. The National Association of Manufacturers’ blog, Shopfloor.org, referred to the policy as “dumb and irresponsible,” going on to say that “LaHood’s pedal parity is nonsensical for a modern industrial nation,” said the blog. “We don’t call it sacrilege, but radical is a fair description. It is indeed a sea change in federal transportation policy that could have profound implications for the U.S. economy and the 80 percent of freight that moves by truck.” LaHood has said he was surprised by their response, “it didn’t seem that controversial to me,” he wrote in a second blog item. “After all, I didn’t say they should have the only voice. Just a voice.”

I can understand why conservatives and big industry representatives are hostile to the concept. It proposes possible change… possible big change to the way they do business. And we are all very familiar with how Americans often treat change: hostility, stonewalling, and blathering confused resilience. However, it’s LaHood’s view that our federal government simply shouldn’t take a position that roads and trains simply trump walking and biking. He views all modes of transportation as “real” transportation, and funding should support all of it as a whole. I think if we approached all transportation with equality, it would help change America for the better on more fronts than just transportation. We could probably stop putting so many extra notches in our belts, and be able to breathe easy.

        

I haven’t put up an article recently, sorry to any readers I may still have. I’ve been busy drafting concepts for t-shirt ideas, new articles, how to survive the snowpocalypse, and reformatting my resume. For your viewing pleasure and presumable disembowelment, please see this video on making your own wind turbine for some home-made green energy.

        

In the age of technology, it’s good to see a product that has its roots seated in nature. In ancient times, the best way to freshen up a room was to poop somewhere else, open a window, and have fresh plants to exchange all that CO2 for sweet delicious oxygen. The botanical air purifier harnesses a plant’s natural phtyoremediation abilities to remove volatile organic compounds (VOCs) from the air. In layman’s terms, it’s a plant inside of a fancy encased fan. Winner of the Popular Science Invention Award, it draws on NASA research  to remove VOCs such as toxic emissions from paint, carpet, adhesives, as well as formaldehyde. Regardless of how cool this concept may be, I wouldn’t recommend blowing $200 on it. Better to save that for something more cost effective. Like pogs.

A better way to spend your time and money, put further research into precisely what kinds of volatile organic compounds your daily routine is releasing into your atmosphere. Once you’ve figured that out, starting growing your own fresh air by figuring out what plants are best. The Peace Lily, Madagascar Dragon Tree, Spider Plant, and Aloe are especially effective. Also, Aloe has the added advantage of harvesting it for theraputic applications. If you’d like further information on which plants to use, check out this book on Amazon: How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 House Plants that Purify Your Home or Office.

- Mr. Hats

        

Keeping track of paper receipts is pure hogswallop! I hate it. Either you’re super organized and there’s a place for every one in its own category. Or, you’re like me and they end up in a pile, with most of your day-to-day spending tracked either in your brain or via your online bank statement. This isn’t a problem that just plagues the customer, I know a few people with small businesses who would be happy to streamline their commercial enterprises in a quick, easy manner.

Enter Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey with Square. Essentially, you plug the quarter size device into the audio jack of a smartphone and it works as a credit card processor. You can swipe all the customer cards you want, and it will track their purchases and give each of you e-receipts and invoices. Vendors at art shows, health fairs, street food carts, etc will be able to easily accept payment from customers at the swipe of the plastic. On the flip side, consumers who sign up with Square can keep track of their purchases via their Square account. According to the website, you’ll be able to accept payment via any device with an audio jack.

Hilariously, when I first heard about this I thought about something a little more nefarious than was probably intended. With the advent of internet everywhere and now the Square, drug dealers may finally take credit! Now I just need an iPhone. Donations would be accepted with squeals of joy.

        

And presumably smokes a bowl with that damn wolf and everyone lives happily ever after… Actually, a recent study at the University of Bath has shown that prefab panels composed of straw-bale and hemp are just as fire resistant as conventional building materials (if for some horrible reason your hemp house does burn down, you will have to actually deal with it as hemp contains none of the psychoactive chemicals that cannabis does). Researchers at the University of Bath tested one of the panels for fire safety by exposing it to temperatures of 1000°C and greater. Two hours of testing later, the panels had not failed. In the scientific community, this is known as a “FTW moment” followed by high-fives and possibly bong hits or beers (or both!).

This research on the BaleHaus (click the picture for videos on its construction) is being funded by both Carbon Connections and the Technology Strategy Board, the latter’s marketing department having no creativity whatsoever. Two researchers from the University’s BRE Centre in Innovative Construction Materials, Dr. Katharine Beadle and Christopher Gross, will be checking on the haus for a year. They will monitor the insulation efficiency, humidity levels, air tightness, and sound insulation to asses the performance of the straw/hemp panels as building materials. Hemp and straw are great sources of materials as they have an incredibly low carbon footprint. Craig White, director of ModCell (another company involved) had this to say about the project: “It is unacceptable that 27 per cent of CO2 emissions currently come from the energy we use in our homes, it is just as unacceptable to continue to emit CO2 through the energy we use to make them. If we are completely serious about being “carbon free” we need to rethink the design of our buildings on a large scale. The ModCell BaleHaus system is designed to deliver just such a sustainable method of construction. These tests will offer proof that sustainable building materials are a realistic option for building on a large scale.” BaleHaus’ materials are the brain child of White Design in Bristol and Integral Structural Design in Bath, and they were used last year by Kevin McCloud to build an eco-friendly house for the Grand Designs Live exhibition. The haus was then used as a safe haven for his fellow highlanders and pilots on the Star Fox team (citation needed).