From My Bottom Step

Panhandler Rights

If politicians can ask for handouts, then homeless people can too.

Can We Toke Our Way to Prosperity?

Last Monday (2009/02/23), California Assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco) introduced California’s first marijuana legalization bill. His proposal would tax and regulate the commercial production and sale of cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol.

Many U.S. states are reeling from the economic crisis, and California is one of them. So it shouldn’t be a surprise that somebody would suggest trying to generate revenue this way instead of wasting money trying to enforce prohibition of the popular substance (this analysis projects that California would realize $1B annually). Continue Reading

Exporting Our e-Waste Problem

Although “the environmental and human health costs” of unregulated handling of e-waste … Continue Reading

Regulating Gift Cards

“You’ve got to wonder if these … Continue Reading

The Fight For Personal Privacy: Already Lost?

                    
Dan Brown’s post about stealth advertising (’There’s a new word for product placement: it’s now called “integration”‘; 2007/11/28) and his subsequent post about the modern technological capability to monitor your personal behaviour (’TiVo in Canada’; 2007/11/30) reminded me of the movie in which the multimedia display ads in various store windows automatically assailed one of the movie characters (personalized their content as he walked past). Somebody help me out… what’s the movie’s title?
Continue Reading

Pssst… Wanna Buy a Windmill?

It seems that there’s a UWO prof who’s peddling a 4′ wind turbine which “has been on display at the university for several months” and which “works perfectly!”(’UWO wind turbine for sale’; Wind Chasers; 2007/11/27).
It’d be interesting to know what restrictions there are on using this technology. For example, does each municipality decide for itself if/how they can be designed/constructed/located/used ? Any experts out there?

Proposed Hamilton Garbage Limit

Something that may be of interest, especially to those who like to gripe about London’s 4 x 20kg garbage container limit…
Staff at Hamilton’s City Hall are recommending the imposition of a one-bag or one-can-a-week garbage limit starting in March (”City aims for one-bag garbage limit in ‘08″; Eric McGuinness; Hamilton Spectator; 2007/11/17).
Hamilton has set a target of trying to divert 65% of household waste into blue boxes … Continue Reading

Garbage Incineration

“This summer, the government released proposed changes to the Environmental Protection Act and the Environmental Assessment Act. The aim is to pave the way for pilot incineration projects that would last as long as five years, with up to 75 tonnes of garbage burned daily.”  1

Countries which are “more environmentally conscious”  2 than Canada, “extensively”  2 use technologies like modern incineration, plasma arc gasification, and energy generation from waste.

One … Continue Reading