Things Are Good

Before automobiles horse drawn buggies were used for trash collection and it looks like we’re going back to that classic solution. Garbage trucks have a hard time negotiating smaller streets and a benefit of the horses is less exhaust in the city.

For Jean Baptiste, mayor of medieval Peyrestortes, near Perpignan and one of 60 towns now using horses to collect waste, the benefit above all is practical. “You can’t turn a waste collection vehicle around here. We used to block streets to traffic and keep waste in open skips.” He sold off a dustbin lorry and acquired two Breton carthorses instead. Asked whether the changes are saving money, he says: “It’s too early. But money isn’t the only reason. The exhaust smells have gone, the noise has gone, and instead we have the clip-clop of horses’ hooves.”

In Saint Prix, however, in Greater Paris, Mayor Jean-Pierre Enjalbert is certain he is saving money as the novelty of the horses has increased recycling rates. “By using the horse for garden waste collection, we have raised awareness. People are composting more. Incineration used to cost us €107 a tonne, ridiculous for burning wet matter, now we only pay €37 to collect and compost the waste.”

Read the full article at the Guardian.

Recently Canada has been identified as being filled with fat people, and there’s a simple way to stop this waist problem from expanding: own a dog. Families that have a dog have kids who are fit and thinner than non-dog owning families.

Go play fetch and stay fit!

And an Australian analysis of 1,145 children found girls and boys with dogs 50 per cent less likely to be fat.

“If you’re a kid and a dog, you chase balls, you play soccer with them, you rumble with them, wrestle them on the carpet even if you’re watching TV,” said Jo Salmon of Deakin University in Victoria, Australia. “It’s activity and it’s a mind thing as well.”

Children whose families owned dogs were more active, with increased light, moderate and vigorous physical activity, regardless of race or gender, reported Christopher Owen, an epidemiologist at St. George’s, University of London, who led the English study.

“The more active lifestyle of children from dog-owning families is really interesting,” he said. “Is it that owning a dog makes you more active or active families choose to have a dog? It’s a bit of a children and egg question.”

Keep reading the article here.

Here in Toronto city hall continues to not act on taking down illegal signs, even in their own neighbourhood. There are a lot of them, and I mean a lot. It’s rather shocking actually. What’s a Torontonian going to do?

Start a blog about it at IllegalSigns.ca!

IllegalSigns.ca is a team of volunteers who fight illegal billboards and this is our blog. Half the billboards in Toronto are illegal — help us bring the vast, unlawful privatization of our public visual environment to an end.

Please pardon this Toronto-centric post.

As you have probably noticed, the site looks different. It’s not perfected yet (for example I still need to unify all the blue text to one shade) and I’m sure some bugs are going to pop up as the site as also been upgraded to WordPress 2.1. If you run into a bug, or have anything to say about the redesign (good or bad) please leave a comment.

This redesign of the site is not just aesthetic, so stayed tuned for some really groovy announcements.

The theme that the site is based on right now is the Silver Lexus theme.

Edit: Already found two bugs that I need to fix, let the fun begin!

The Pirate Bay wanted to buy Sealand or some other island to form their own nation or something along those lines. Anyway, as a result a group of Pirate Bay members (edit: the group started as a result of a conversation on the Pirate Bay and now has no association with the Bay) have decide to actually create their own free nation!

From the Freenation Foundation their mission is:
“To establish an ecologically sustainable society that provides the freedom to advance humanity through science, reason and cooperation.”