Scottishpixies• Show poetry

I'll pretend to be a writer just like everyone else!  I'll be so uber-kewl.  Just like Bob Dole.  Yay for all the children!  

Since this page has been rather bleak, I decided to give into the trend of posting other people's work on my author's page.  They umm... inspired me. Yes... that's it......


Some interesting quotes:

"Poets have been mysteriously silent on the subject of cheese." -G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

"Having been unpopular in high school is not just cause for book publications." -Fran Lebowitz

"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism, to steal ideas from many is research." -Anonymous

"The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood." -Jean Cocteau (1889 - 1963)

"Brie and cheese." -George W. Bush

"Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and consciencious stupidity." -Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." -Albert Einstein

"Rarely is this question asked: Is our children learning anything?" - George W. Bush



And now, the news:


Argentina Eager to Rid Island of Beavers

By Correspondent Gary Strieker

TIERRA DEL FUEGO, Argentina (CNN) -- A stealthy invader from the north is wiping out large areas of native forest on Tierra del Fuego, an island at the southern tip of South America.

The invader, the North American beaver, has proliferated from only a few pairs 50 years ago to at least 100,000 today.

The Argentinean government imported the original beavers to raise on commercial fur farms. When the project failed, the beavers were released. They quickly spread across the island.

They have since chewed their way through river valleys and stream beds, felling the trees they need for food and building dams, which create even greater damage.

"What happens when the beavers take over an area like this, they raise the water level, the roots in the trees rot, and the tree dies," said Marcela Uhart of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

The population explosion has taken place because the beavers have no natural predators in this new environment.

"They belong in another habitat. Their native habitat is not this," Uhart said. "So there needs to be some kind of control here. They have no native species to control them."

Wildlife experts say the beaver population on the island would eventually be limited by available resources. But until then beavers would continue to spread, taking down countless trees in their path.

Gustavo Matteazzi, an animal control official with the Argentinean government, hopes to control the beaver population by supplying hundreds of traps to people like Estaban Rivero.

The rancher says he takes more than 1,000 beavers every year using the traps, which kill the animals swiftly and humanely.

If the government gives him more traps and some financing, he says he can take more than 10 times as many beavers.

Rivero can produce high quality furs, but currently the international price is depressed because of economic troubles in major markets like Russia and Korea.

If prices recover, and beaver trappers can make a profit, it may still be possible to control the invasion of beavers on this island.



Scientist Perfecting Planet-Friendly Plastics

By Environmental News Network staff

(ENN) -- When the snow melts on European ski slopes, many are littered with plastic lift tickets. But that could change if plastic manufacturers start making the tickets from the totally biodegradable plastic developed by Mrinal Bhattacharya and his colleagues.

Bhattacharya, a professor of biosystems and agricultural engineering at the University of Minnesota, uses protein found in cereal grains, along with plant starch and a degradable synthetic polymer, to make the plastic. Visit his lab and he'll show you golf tees, forks, spoons and doggie chew bones made from the material.

Kim Stelson, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, works with Bhattacharya and Civil Engineering Associate Professor Vaughan Voller to head the project. He describes starched-based plastic as a reacted blend of starch and synthetic polymer. Starch is a renewable agricultural product and the use of this plastic will reduce the world's dependence of oil -- a non-renewable resource.

"Starch-based plastics are recyclable and biodegradable, thus reducing the environmental impact," Stelson says. "They also can be made cheaper than other plastics."

The starch used to create the biodegradable plastic -- typically wheat gluten -- costs about 15 cents a pound. The cheapest commercial plastics cost about $1 a pound. Thus, when this starch-based plastic becomes available to manufacturers, it could be the cheapest biodegradable plastic. Now, most environment-friendly plastics cost about $2.50 a pound. In the first stages of the project, University researchers have brought the cost of their plastic down to about $1.50 a pound.

So what's keeping it off the market?

"It's still three times as expensive as regular plastic," says Bhattacharya. "We have to break into a very competitive market."

However the researchers pointed out that although the plastic is highly biodegradable, it will not break down in the same way and in the same amount of time in every environment. For example, microorganisms will devour the natural fibers of the plastic quickly in a warm and moist compost pile and slowly in a dry, hot desert.

The scientists found that in ideal environments warmer than 40 degrees Fahrenheit, the polymers could breakdown in as little as 15 days. However, in the winter with exposure of less than 20 degrees Fahrenheit, the plastic disintegrates in a much longer amount of time.

"Although (it's been) a two-year process, it is far from perfect," says Jacob John, a research associate in the Department of Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering who has worked on different aspects of starch-based plastics for more than two years. "The problem now lies in the process to create products made from this plastic."

Possible uses for the plastic include shotgun shell cases, plastic cutlery and dog bones. These products are particularly attractive for mass-production because the market for the biodegradable form of these products is so large.

For example, although it is illegal for a hunter to drop a shotgun shell in a pristine wilderness area, it does happen. But if the shell is made of this decomposing plastic, it could disappear by the next hunting season. Forks, spoons and knives made out of this material are also very marketable to seafaring organizations or businesses.

Bhattacharya also says there may be hope for getting a toehold in Europe, where fees for nondegradable garbage disposal are steep. Bhattacharya is also working with the Navy, which is interested in biodegradable cutlery for ships, where space is at a premium.



Would You Like Smaller Holes in Your Swiss Cheese?

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Ever wonder who measures the holes in an average slice of Swiss cheese? Believe it or not, someone does.

And now the U.S. Department of Agriculture is thinking about changing the rules to allow for smaller cheesy cavities. Wisconsin dairy manufacturers asked for a relaxation of the current standard, which calls for holes to measure between 11- and 13/16ths of an inch to qualify as "grade A."

The larger holes can wreak havoc in a slicer, say the cheese whizzes.

"It gets hung up in the machine," explains Gordon Brown, spokesman for the National Cheese Institute. "When a slicer is going that fast, there's a lot of waste, a lot of shreds that come falling out of the sides of the machine -- literally, falls on the floor and you've got to throw it away."
 
USDA monitors hole diameter and classifies Swiss cheese (an Emmental-style cheese) as fruity, nutty, bitter, weedy, gassy and even as "frog mouth." The new proposed standards would alter cheese aperture to 3/8ths of an inch.

"The difference between the America palate and the European palate, if you will, is that we eat more sandwiches," says Kathleen Merrigan, an administrator with the Agricultural Marketing Service, which is proposing the rule changes. "What this does is help the industry in marketing their cheese when you're really thinking about Swiss cheese slices."

Such are the cares that cloud cheese makers' minds.

Still, smaller holes may mean bigger profits for those cheese makers, who will be able to market a larger variety of cheeses as Grade A sandwich ready.

Per capita, people in the United States eat an average of 30 pounds of cheese per year. Just one pound of that is Swiss.

While marketers are hoping shrinking holes lead to expanding sales, some shoppers aren't sure it really makes a difference.

"Well, it depends on how much cheese you want in every bite," figures Marcia Horting.

"It's the same piece of cheese, same quality it's always been," says Bradley Legreid, a spokesman for the Wisconsin Dairy Products Association. "There will be no difference in taste, texture, feel -- nothing like that."

What there will be are pages and pages of adjusted government cheese standards. And, perhaps, more cheese on your ham and rye.