Yep, they knew.

TEPCO knew about water flow two years ago

That's the headline today on NHK.

"A spokesperson for Tokyo Electric Power Company says the company has known for the past 2 years that a massive amount of groundwater was flowing beneath the Fukushima Daiichi power plant.

"Masayuki Ono said on Friday that TEPCO experts estimated hundreds of tons of the water could reach the ocean daily.

"Ono said the estimate was based on rough records of groundwater that TEPCO workers had collected.

"Until last month, TEPCO officials had denied the possibility that contaminated groundwater was leaking into the ocean.

"Ono said he is unable to explain why it took two years to disclose this fact.
Aug. 10, 2013 - Updated 07:48 UTC"

The URL, which will only work for a few hours:

http://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/english/news/20130810_99.html
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In case you missed it- I told you here I knew this- 2 years ago.  How?  Based on published information about where what kinds of radioactive materials were found.  Tinkerbelle does not go about creating Cesium 137 just for the fun of it- it had to come from someplace.  There is no "well, we're not sure" possible.

The greater question, still unasked by the media- why are our own nuclear scientists silent on this point?  I'm not one; I'm an evolutionary ecologist, which means with some training in chemistry and geology and weather.  But- the physicist in your university has to have known this- or is an idiot, take your pick.

What else do we know?  Three reactors have melted entirely through their containers, and are likely to be still melting their way to the earth's core- or will as soon as they quit pumping sea water in to cool - and leak.

And?  "Plausible deniability" is obsolete.  "Implausible deniability" is now quite adequate for government purposes.  Other world governments will back you up.

Slippery news

One of the things needed, if you're going to strive for rationality- is "facts" that have some chance of being real. And it's getting harder to get hold of those, or to keep them where everyone can see.

One of the news sources I regularly scan is the NHK World feed; the Japanese version of National Public Television.

For reasons that are fascinating to speculate about, this news source often seems to be almost "unfiltered" - they just blurt out the truth, as they record it from first hand sources.

Like this; for instance, in toto:

-----------------------------------------------------------

"40% of residents' exposure tops annual limit"

"More than 40 percent of the people surveyed in 3 municipalities near the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were exposed to radioactivity levels above the annual safety limit in the 4 months after the disaster.

"Fukushima Prefecture released on Monday the results of its survey of external radioactive exposure among some 9,750 residents of 2 towns and a village after the accident last March. This number excluded people working in places with high radioactivity, such as a nuclear plant.

"Participants were asked about their behavior over a 4-month period immediately following the nuclear accident in order to estimate their external exposure.

"Forty-two percent of the respondents are estimated to have received more than one millisievert --- the annual limit for the general public --- in the 4 months following the disaster.

"Estimated exposure exceeded 10 millisieverts for 71 people. The highest dose was 23 millisieverts for an adult woman.

"Among young people under the age of 20 at the time of the accident, the highest exposure was 18.1 millisieverts over 4 months.

"The prefecture is conducting the survey on all its 2 million residents.

Monday, February 20, 2012 19:28 +0900 (JST)"

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The thing is- the next day; you can't find that story anywhere. I'm pretty sure the "filters" kicked in. The original link does still work, one day later; but my experience is that in several days, they stop working; hence my in toto quote.

Do you suppose it would be news, of international interest, that where 1 millisievert per year is the "allowed" dose, they were finding numerous people with 10 millisieverts - accumulated in 4 months? And some up to 20?

Nah. Haven't seen anyone pick it up, yet.

Then; today's fun story from them:

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"Survey: 95% of disaster debris not yet disposed of

"The Japanese Environment Ministry says 95 percent of debris from last year's disaster in northeastern Japan has yet to be disposed of more than 11 months on.

"The March 11 quake and tsunami created more than 22 million tons of debris on the coasts of hardest-hit Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima Prefectures alone.

"The ministry said on Tuesday that just over one million tons, or 5 percent, of debris has been either incinerated or buried. 72 percent is still stored at temporary sites.

"The ministry says many of the incinerators planned for disaster-stricken municipalities have yet to enter operation. It cites the difficulty in finding sites for new incinerators.

"The ministry also says disposal in other areas of Japan, expected to shoulder 4 million tons of debris, has hardly begun.

"Environment Minister Goshi Hosono told reporters the ministry's goal of completing disposal by the end of March, 2014 is unrealistic.

"He asked municipalities outside the disaster-affected region to help, noting that delays are greatly hampering reconstruction.

Tuesday, February 21, 2012 13:25 +0900 (JST)"

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The link for that is here.

Hey, I just wouldn't want you all to be worrying about Greece today, and forget that the problems in Japan are - pretty much entirely not dealt with. At all.

But hey- Technology will certainly come to our rescue; the free-market system guarantees it!

The Struggle for Rationality

Gaia's Daughter commented on the last post, and I was in the process of responding when I realized I had a new post on my hands.  Her second comment (read the first, too):


"Okay, my last comment was really depressing so I thought I might amend it a bit. I do think that circumstances may force Truth upon us sooner rather than later . . . the day of 'no other alternatives' may be closer than we think. I also believe that there are a lot of exceptional people out there planting those seeds for a better future -- a future that may surprise us."


 Gaia's- lots of things there I totally agree with; in fact I'd probably intensify most of them.  Your "People for the most part are not really rational beings -", for example, is wildly optimistic.   :-) And boy, am I not kidding.


   The vast majority of humans operate their entire lives on exactly the same mental levels as all the other species on the globe; we simply react to the environment around them.  Even the most enlightened and and aware of us mostly run on auto-pilot; and the illusion that our actions are based on "reason" is exactly that- illusion.  There are vast tomes written on this subject, which we reasoning people read, groan over, and ignore.  A good place to start investigating is the classic "Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds."  And I will again say, with no kidding whatsoever, boy, was MacKay ever an optimist. And you will note, from the date of the work, that this is hardly a new conversation.


   There is, however, a spark of rationality in our species.  We are aware that logic and reason exist.  And we know they can be useful.  History is almost our only real tool for demonstrating this, but its arguments are forceful.  The slow, painful, and intentional invention of Science being my best example.


  Persons striving for Rationality, like you and me, observed that the "knowledge" belonging to the human race, which we use for making life or death decisions of all kinds, was in fact an utter rag-bag of nonsense.  Aristotle, for example, propagated the most absurd information (geese grow from barnacles) as absolute fact- and these facts were accepted as gospel, for centuries.


  The founders of Science first - noticed that.  I will point out that "noticing" is an incredible achievement, and far from easy or simple.  It amounts to my statement yesterday that I spend most of my time trying to see - what is the problem.


  Then astonishingly, the Founders of Science did something second: they sought to do something about the problem.  I will point out here that they probably did not make a rational choice to pursue this huge problem.  It was more likely motivated by other animal drives.  But pursue they did; until the pursuit took on its own life, becoming a cultural force of its own.  The result; which took hundreds of years and hundreds of human minds to refine; is the Scientific Method.  It is now tightly formulated, in several places, most accessibly and neatly (to my mind) in Koch's Postulates.  Understand- the refining of the Method is not finished; and a huge number of people who make their living as "scientists" in fact do not follow the Method.  Many don't truly understand it; and like all tools in the universe it can be abused.  But.  Used carefully; the Scientific Method is an algorithm for Truth.  It can, and does, distinguish between illusion and components of Objective Reality.   (If you're one of those who dispute the existence of objective reality, you might as well leave now.  You will gain no traction here.  I believe on Gravity.)


Alas- here is where we are stuck.  We have a tool we can use to discover Truth.  But we became philosophically sidetracked when the vast majority of educated persons, putatively trained to rational thought, made the irrational and generally unstated assumption that Truth = Good; or more usefully and less commonly put, Truth = Wisdom.  We have, I will firmly state, abundant evidence that those equations are invalid.


  May I state it this way?  I have noticed that - our collections of Truths, or Knowledge now validated by Science, are assumed to operate also as Wisdom.  But in fact- we have a useless rag-bag of collective Wisdom.  Exactly equal to Aristotelian Knowledge.


  What we need is another collective effort to establish the equivalent of the Scientific Method; but it needs to be a method that will return Wisdom; valid, reproducible, objective, operable.


  Recall that it took hundreds of years and hundreds of minds to sort the Scientific Method out of the tangle of mental processes that preceded it.  Ignore for the moment that it's still only a tiny minority of human minds that actually use or comprehend Science- remember that that tiny minority, and Science, have utterly and irrevocably altered the world.  Acknowledged or not, the power of the Scientific Method is irrefutable.


  That's what I'm asking of you all.  Gaia's Daughter- your thinking shows me you are on the path.  You're finding it depressing.  So do I; but realize you are in the same place as the scientific thinkers in the 11th Century- struggling through millennia of mental murk.  


   And I'm afraid I must add a depressing observation of my own, re: your comment  "I do think that circumstances may force Truth upon us sooner rather than later . . . the day of 'no other alternatives' may be closer than we think. "   Alas, the astonishing durability of delusional systems is broadly demonstrated, historically.  The US Wall Street Stock Markets being a case in point- there's no shred of rationality anywhere; yet it keeps going.  


   We can all see, very clearly, that the path humanity is currently on cannot endure, and is deeply unjust in many ways; but I'm beginning to suspect it can keep going, in robust zombie mode, for a long time.  Change may not be able to depend on collapse; likewise collapse might not enforce change.  If we want a healthy, just planet, we may have to find new ways.


  It is not easy- to see where no one has seen before.  I doubt that one mind can do it all.


  But we need to try.  And why should we not start here?


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   And, another "tsk-tsk!" from the New York Times today, with a story of Truth inserted into the system and ignored, leading to disaster.  Do read it.  And the fate of the poor fellow who tried to make the system work; expected it to; trusted it to.  This is our reality- across the board.  Not the exception.  Yet the great majority of us still come out of higher education, and find this surprising and counter-intuitive.  
   
   Then we get depressed about it, and withdraw (I'm not an exception.)  


   What we need to do, is find a new way to engage the problem.  Entirely new.  The "Occupy" people are on the right track- they have no stated agenda- because they are smart enough to know they do not know what is needed.  


   Like the invention of Science- progress on problems of this magnitude come very slowly and in tiny pieces.  Put it on your list.

So; the problem is...

   That, actually, is what I spend most of my time trying to see.  Exactly what is - the problem?

   I can tell you this; 9 times out of 10, in our world, "the problem" is misidentified or unrecognized.  Or even more frequently, denied.  What problem?

   There is an excellent bit of investigative reporting in the New York Times today (alas, not all that common).  It details how one determined man uncovered virtually all the abuses in the mortgage industry, years ago- reported it to all the various relevant authorities - and was ignored completely.

   It's an excellent study in the powerlessness of the individual, these days.  And to my mind- the reporter, well buried in the story, entirely misses her own point.

   She thinks this is a story about corruption in the mortgage and financial industries.  But it isn't.

   It's a wonderful, excellent, exhaustively documented story about how "truth", clearly and authoritatively presented, fails to penetrate our cultural apparatus to bring about corrections and change.  Systemically.

   This is "the problem" I'm talking about in the blog title.  Here on this blog, and on the various companions we all tend to peruse, we have an unusual collection of highly intelligent folks, able to see through the various cultural smoke screens, and see, really, truly, how this or that societal practice is inadequate to our needs, and we can recommend excellent possibilities for how it could, really, be made to work better.  We do it all the time.

  But The Truth -whichever one we're talking about at the moment - has no traction.  Systemically.

  The problem about this problem is- we believe otherwise.  The true religion of Academia, in particular, is the belief that discovering truth will bring change, progress, justice - good.  You just have to discover it.  Then, magically, Truth brings good.

  Manifestly- this is not so.  The present article in the Times documents that, in detail- and yet, still ends on the hopeful note that now, at last, these truths will bring change for the better.  100% of experience to the contrary notwithstanding.  Faith - not reason - claiming that reason will prevail.

  Personally- my own religion is - action.

   Now that I know The Truth Has No Traction - what do I do about that?

   First, tell you.

   Second - ask you: ok, so- from the cultural standpoint- how can we systemically give tank treads to Truth?

Greenpa's Rules of Real Economics.

Gee whiz, everybody is talking about the price of oil, the price of gas at the pump, and how we're all helpless in the hands of foreign oil producers.

Here's a comment I made over on the NYT Green Blogs

#1. When they tell you, "Sorry, but this is simply too complex for untrained people to understand." - they are lying. If you managed a B in 5th Grade addition and subtraction, you CAN understand it.

#2. When Joe Sixpack looks at the prices at the gas station, and says, "That just doesn't make sense." he is 100% correct, and he only got a C+ in 5th Grade.

#3. When Big Oil reports record profits - of billions - and they say "Look, we couldn't help it, these prices are set by the international markets-" they are lying.

#4 Could Big Oil cut the prices they charge the gas stations - and still make exactly the same profits they did last quarter? Why, yes, they could.

#5. But they don't.

-----------------------------

Of course, immediately after I hit the "post" button, a few more occurred to me...

#6. Does that mean Big Oil is ripping off the public - and they know it? Yes, it does.

#7. Does that mean Joe Sixpack's Aunt Ruth, the retired, pensionless, Kindergarten teacher, will finally go bankrupt, fail to pay her mortgage, become homeless, and die of exposure on the street? Yes, it does.

#8. Does that mean that when Aunt Ruth's bank can't sell her foreclosed house, loses money and gets sold to Bank of America for 10¢ on the dollar, and there is no one in town who will loan money to local businesses, some of them will have to close? Why, yes, it does.

#9. Wouldn't the Homeland Security Administration consider anyone causing such widespread economic damage as a threat to National Security, guilty of murder, and possibly guilty of Treason? Only if they're not a large multinational corporation.

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Ok, yes, I have this bad habit of thinking that something obvious to me is of course obvious to everyone. Yes, that makes me an idiot.

:-)

As first commenter Eric pointed out; maybe it's not instantly obvious. So here was my answer to him; this is the simple math:

Here's how! Remember - it's their PROFIT that is UP. Are they making ENOUGH profit already? They certainly said so in their last stockholder's letter. They make more, automatically, because they've rigged it so their profits are figured as a PERCENTAGE of the price. Price goes up; profits go up. Making the exact same profit wouldn't hurt them a tiny bit.

And- seriously - do businesses have an ethical responsibility to NOT HURT their customers? Every business ethics class in the world would say so. Are their customers being hurt? Ask them. Millions have had to quit marginal jobs because they can no longer afford the commute; I know some of them; some of them have had to quit working for me.

Here's the math (I'm making these numbers up):

Overhead costs $80/bbl. Profits are figured in automatically at, say 20% of that; $16, so cost at the pump is now $96/bbl.

Ok; so; the price goes to $100/bb. Now, the automatic profit margin is $20. Price at the pump; now $120/bbl. And their PROFITS just jumped from $16 to $20, on every barrel.

Exactly what did they do to EARN an increased profit? Not one damn thing. But they still take more money out of YOUR pocket; and put it into theirs.

Could they??? Gosh?? Just continue to harvest a profit of $16/barrel? Yes, the cost at the pump would still go up. To $116/bbl. Yes, it would still hurt me, and my workers; but just a little less. Maybe Aunt Martha could squeak by.

nah. why bother?

Really Great Britain points the way...

It's the panacea Wisconsin has been pining for. Really Great Britain has come up with THE answer to unemployment, and the budget crisis.

It's an answer Charles Dickens would have applauded. It corroborates so thoroughly his many observations of human nature.

No money to pay for cops? Obviously, then- you should enlist people willing to work, as police- for free. (oh, and, town clerks, postal workers, whatever...)

Ok, actually, the "volunteers" do have some incentive to show up for work. The way they have this rigged, if you want to work as a paid police person someday - then :

"Cash-strapped Scotland Yard, for instance, has instituted a policy mandating that most recruits spend a minimum of one year on the job for free..."

The mind boggles. Really really boggles.

Never mind the obvious fact that "cash strapped Scotland Yard" could have its budget entirely restored by the confiscation of ONE hedge fund manager's annual "bonus"... ("Look, Basil, I've got the little monkeys chanting 'No new taxes! No new taxes!' You've really got to help me look through Machiavelli and see what else we can find!")

I wonders, I does - just how much do you suppose you'd have to bribe an unpaid cop, to look the other way for a few moments?

And I wonders, too - who is going to pay the hospital (or burial) costs, when one of these unpaid volunteers gets themselves hurt in the line of "duty"?

And how dutiful do you think they'll be, on a nasty windy cold night?

And how likely to reach for the gasoline, when after volunteering for "at least a year" - they don't get the real job, after all?

Really Great, Britain.

-------------------------------

Tiny minor update: Minnesota, home of politics as gallows humor, has just provided us with a good specific example of what happens to un-employed wanna-be law officers.

"Just let The Market work!"

I know, I owe you guys a guinea update. :-) Working on it. Meanwhile, I just made this comment over on Richard Black's BBC environment blog, and kind of liked the way it turned out - so, I'll repeat it here. This is part and parcel of the Sociopathic Business syndrome- the insistence that The Market will solve all problems - if only those nasty regulators will allow it to-

-----------------------------------------------------------

A couple of years ago, I got a nice lesson in reality. My very ugly truck was stolen.

I'd bought the truck specifically as a farm-only vehicle; ugly but functional. Very ugly, rusty; but mechanically reliable, like a tractor. "Nobody in their right mind would steal it", was our firm belief, so it was left commonly in the field, in sight of the public road, where we were working. Everyone agreed- "nobody would ever steal that old piece of junk". We de-registered it; no license, since it never went off the farm.

Guess what? Some people- who were NOT in their right mind, but hopped on meth - stole it, and wrecked it. Actually causing us substantial loss; it was a tool we needed.

Now- I'm not considered a dumb person- but how did I forget that the world is teeming with people "not in their right mind"?

Humans are outstanding at simultaneously believing two different things- which they know are mutually exclusive; "incompossible", as they used to say. First world farmers, for example know that if they don't produce as much food as possible, "the world will starve"; and simultaneously know that overproduction of food is responsible for their low prices and constant dance with bankruptcy. So they support burning the food they grow, and get very huffy about it if you suggest that burning food is, um, questionable.

SR wrote:
"I think what a lot of people tend to forget is that if it weren't for market mechanisms and the *generally* efficient allocation of scarce resources thereof, we would still be floundering in something resembling a Dicken's novel."

The concept that "markets efficiently allocate resources" is another one of these beguiling fantasies. I'm delighted to see the "generally" added- perhaps a bit of reality is slipping in.

The illusion stems from an underlying and rarely stated part of the belief; which is that markets will, and do- operate "honestly".

All of history- and blatantly all of very recent history- agrees that markets NEVER operate honestly. Never. It just doesn't happen. Never has. The Code of Hammurabi contains death penalties for people who cheat in business.

Sure, there are plenty of plain honest business people who run beautifully honest operations (I'm one, in fact). And in case you hadn't noticed, they're the ones who wind up in the newspapers- for going bankrupt, after years of hard honest work. While the dishonest ones- wind up in the papers for mind-blowing bonuses; wrist-slap legal fines for their illegal operations; and the fact they resent being called dishonest.

It has always been that way. Yes, indeed, markets allocate resources fairly; and if my Aunt had wheels, she'd be a Ferrari.

Or we could always say, anyone in their right mind, will obviously conduct business honestly and fairly.

That'll work.

-------------------------------------------------------

What they teach, in the Business School Of Sociopathy- is that if you simply keep repeating the mantra of "The Market Will Solve All Problems" - a huge number of voters will believe it, forever. Which will then ensure that Regulations are kept to a minimum; and "business opportunities" are not abridged.

Which means- opportunities for theft, fraud, and piracy- will alway be available; thank goodness.

----------------------

That post on the BBC generated some following discussion; maybe worth looking at...

More to be pitied, than scorned.

For you infants, that's an old put down for a young lady who got herself knocked up without benefit of matrimony.

But it's also a shoe that fits many MBAs and businessmen. They're in a sociopathic culture; and indeed many have been sucked in and indoctrinated in it, without being, at their cores, actual sociopaths.

There are real, genetic, natural sociopaths on Wall Street, to be sure. But if you'll check the definitions there, sociopaths love to manipulate people; it gives them big warm fuzzies down in their iceberg hearts. They love to be admired. Worshiped.

Emulated. So indeed, one good born sociopath thriving as a successful hedge fund CEO (for example) will spawn dozens more; the weak, easily led, who follow in the shining footsteps, and, of course, often will strive to "out Herod Herod", as they seek their idol's praise.

Nasty little positive feedback loops, all over, in this mess.

But. Before the entire business community descends on me in fury, explaining they are not sociopaths, at all, but "good people"; who kiss their children good night, and give money to the United Way once a year -

Sure. Not all businessmen and women are sociopaths - by nature.

But. Take a good look at what you do, every day. And. How many times a week do you find yourself justifying some hurtful, harmful activity with "Look, this is business."

Yes it is. Blind pure self-interest, all others be damned.

So, if, dear businessman, you're feeling wounded that the entire world (it's not just me, you know) is starting to actually speak up and say we all loathe you- keep in mind that like the pregnant 15 year-old, many of us out here can see your problem, and we do feel compassion.

It's a sad place to be, no doubt.

What we need, obviously, is a good Twelve Step Program; to become a "Recovering Business-Sociopath."

And don't I wish I were joking.

How to fix the Gulf oil leak. Seriously.

  I wasn't going to do this.  Because it seems such a waste of time; first, tons of good people thinking hard, and second; the thousands of idiots yelling moronic ideas about how to fix it make any sensible suggestions impossible to hear.

  But.  It occurred to me today that I have US, Chinese, and Canadian patents on a metallurgy process.  Which is based on the work of brilliant engineers.  Who totally failed to see; or even look; outside their narrow focus.

 They can do that.  And watching them today, carefully grinding down the cut off pipe so it will be nice and neat- I'm thinking  WTF!!!!!!??????

  The focus on precision is a disaster; it's why they keep failing; and it's utterly unnecessary.  If you just think in a different direction.

  Now.  For any serious engineer readers.  This is not a technical spec sheet.  It's a broad concept.  Don't let me catch you knee-jerking "that won't work because...".  When you spot a problem, ask instead, "ok, how do we get around that??"  Because I assure you- I've thought of it- and there are ways around.  Enumerating them would make this incomprehensible.

  For technical critics:  keep in mind: US Patent Office certified thinking here; on a very technical process where very bright people failed to understand their own work.

  In a nutshell:

  DO NOT try to fit a pipe onto that sawed off riser.

  Instead- think of the riser as the nozzle on a tank full of helium.  And put the equivalent of a balloon onto it.

  Loosely.

  The crude is coming out at something like 9,000 psi, yes?  And what is the pressure of the oil about 30' away from the pipe; after exit?  Why- zero, relatively speaking, and velocity is reduced to the speed of oil rising due to differing density.

  Seriously.  Go get a big hot-air balloon, today; the big ones have a capacity of over 200,000 cubic feet; around 1.28 million US gallons; about 30,000 barrels.

  The point to the balloon is to create a large reservoir, with lots of buffering capacity.  You hook your FLEXIBLE and OVERSIZED pipes up to it, and then hook up to suction pipe, and take it to the surface.

  You could easily have a capture envelope big enough to allow gases and liquids to separate; so you could suck gas out of the top of the envelope, say, and liquids out of the middle regions.


  Ok.  Really?  A hot air balloon is not big enough; or strong enough; but it gives you the idea.  And you could practice with one today.

You make the envelope out of industrial neoprene; with a mouth about 60 feet wide.  I'd make mine about 300 feet tall, and 200 feet wide, to start.  Bigger is better, but manipulating it and mooring it are better learned smaller.  You move the mouth over the plume at a distance of 20 feet or so, and then move it down; and moor it to the floor in 5 places. The envelope will  inflate; just like your helium balloon.  You, of course, have 8 different flexible suction hose ports already attached to the envelope in different places.

  Hook up, and suck.

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  Could this be done so it doesn't work?  Hell yes.

  Could it be done so it DOES work?  HELL YES.

  You'll probably have to try a couple times to figure it out.

  Beats the bloody hell out of what's going on now.

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Folks; if you think this has merit; pass it on.  Who knows; eventually the right person might see it.

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  Oh, yeah.   An expected reaction to this is "Why, that's obvious.  I'm sure they've already thought about THAT.  Must not work for some reason."

  You may want to check on that.  Totally obvious ideas have gone unthought of for millennia; in fact, that's the usual path of progress.

Hunger in the USA #2

Yesterday, three teenage girls were killed by a train in Florida.  So far the news isn't defining "teen"; my guess would be 13-15.

They were on a railroad bridge over a river.  Just goofing around together.  A train came, and hit them.

There were people yelling at them to jump into the river, about 20 feet down according to some reports- another one says there was a parallel track they might have jumped to; old and rusted- but without a train on it.

Yes indeedy; they made really bad choices, every step of the way.

Sharon Astyk is writing about living on food stamps today, and has this to say at one point in the comments:   "Look, no one is going to argue that it would have been better for her to make better choices, but when you start 500 yards behind everyone else, you are going to lose the race unless someone provides some extraordinary help."

In my previous post on this topic we got to this point: " Very simply- lack of food is NOT the problem; and money is NOT the answer. Can't get much simpler than that."

Which is not a very useful place to get to, unless, maybe, it can suggest a new way forward.  What is the problem?  What is the answer?

I have one.  Answer.  Not, alas all of them; but maybe one.

Which hit me as a result of reading all the comments on that post.  Good stuff; good thinking- stimulating.  I'm proud of you readers.

One of the problems is - people making bad choices; repeatedly.  Being judgmental about that is totally useless; finger-shaking never fixed anything.  Besides which- if you know anyone in this kind of fix; it usually turns out there's a real, unfixable, reason for how they got there.  Being abused as a child being one of the most common.

We can't go back and fix that.  So- what could we do; now?

You know- there is something; and it actually hits several needs, in a really serious way.

Typically, with a person like Sharon's Eva,  or our Christina, when they go for help, they are connected to some kind of social worker.  An overworked one.  And most likely, since humans work this way, someone they may fear, or just not be able to connect to.

The social worker gives advice- the client listens, and takes a crack at it- and nothing happens.

Eva, and Christina- and those 3 dead girls - never had anyone teach them "how to live".

They really don't know how; for one reason or another, their ability to deal with reality is just very thin.  (My suspicions would be dismal parenting; and too much "screen time".  It's easy these days to grow up in a world where when you die, you just go get another life, and try over.  I think kids really need to fall out of trees- and we've made it very difficult.)

What they need is - someone to teach them now.

Who?

Not the social worker.  The woman down the street who is in the same financial fix- but is coping.  A peer.  A neighbor.  Someone with the time to come and cook with them; and coach- to show them not just what to do, but help them build the habits that are so crucial.  Probably share a little child care.  Maybe share a ride to a good grocery.  Shop together.

Now- the social worker knows both these ladies.  They're both on food stamps- it's just one is lost, and one is struggling through.  The social worker could put them together.

Are we throwing tons of money at this problem?  Is it helping?  (that would be 'yes', and 'no').

What we truly could and should do is start a "coach" program.  Let's pay the lady who is coping, to spend time with, and teach, and coach, the lady who is failing.   (What the hell, we're printing money like it's going out of style already- just not getting any of it to anyone who needs it.)

Somebody would get paid a little money (JOBS!!) - and - an ineffective program could be make somewhat effective, at least.  And you know- it's a sure bet that some times, a lady who managed to get turned around- will go on to become a coach.  Paid.  And really effective.

If the two ladies don't get along?  Pick someone else.  There are plenty to choose from.

This could be done.  And it could actually make a difference.  And cut down on isolation.  And build community.

Sharon and Crunchy - here's your next project.

:-)

Anybody know any legislators working on this kind of stuff?  Send them this post.

The Guinea Saga 3.1

SEX!

That, incidentally, is what you ask your subjects to say when you are photographing people; not "cheese".

Works every time.  And some of the resulting photos are good for blackmail.

So far as I have been able to tell, all the guinea experts out there keep saying that distinguishing male from female guinea fowl is just plain hard.

What they come down to is; the males "tend" to be a little bigger than the females.  The males' wattle "tends" to be bigger than the females.  And only the female makes the distinctive "two-note" call, variously described as "buck-wheat!"  "good luck!"  or "come back!"  I'm afraid it sounds to me like "ba- gawwk!"

All of those things seem to be true- but rarely will they let you look at a bird for 10 seconds, at 20 feet, and say "that's a male."  Or female- since they definitely are not ba-gawwking all the time.

There are multiple reasons why you would like to know the sex of your birds; if you're keeping them primarily for eggs, it's simple- the males don't lay any.

:-)

Or if you're keeping them for meat- you want to know which are the young males, so you can regulate the sex ratio in the permanent flock.  Etc.

They don't grow a noticeable difference in size of wattle or size of bird, until after you may be wanting to choose some for meat.  And the ba-gawwk is very temporary.  "That one is female!"  you know.  Until you turn your back, and she mixes into the flock, and stops calling.  Plus, the fact that this one is female, does not mean that one is male.

It would just be really nice to be able to tell.

I once did a summer-long formal ethological study of black terns- a circumboreal freshwater marsh nesting species.  I'm also the only person I know who has ever raised common terns to adulthood from the egg; or who has fledged, raised, and released a clutch of chimney swifts.  Point being- I've spent a lot of hours looking intensely at birds.

The more I watch the guineas, and read up on them; the more convinced I am that - nobody has ever spent much time looking at the behavior of these birds.

Lots of people call them "dumb"- and I see no evidence of that whatsoever.  They aren't people- or chickens.  They're guineas, and pretty darn good at it.  Probably better at being guineas than chickens are at being chickens.  If you can follow that.

So- I was saying this to Spice, and discussing what we know and don't, and got her looking for new clues to the guineas too.

And probably because she is NOT a trained bird person- she saw one.  She described it in a silly, unprofessional, girly way- "I think the females have this hump on their back!" - which made no sense at all, to me.

After some weeks of trained, professional observation, I can state- the females have this kinda hump, on their back.  :-)

Here is a bunch of guineas - and as you can see, there's not much to differentiate.

Below is a male.

And here, below, (Fanfare noises)  is a female; showing the "hump".

There is, of course, no "hump" (silly girl, birds don't have humps!)  What you are seeing is that the male folds his wings high; on top of the rump feathers (that's their technical name), so the the rump feathers are concealed;  and the female tucks her wings under the edge of the rump feathers; so the rump feathers fluff up and are - if you're looking- emphasized.

Above is a lavender male, and his purple female mate;

And above here is a pearl male, and his lavender female.  Obvious as all hell, ain't it!  Except, as far as I can tell, nobody has ever noticed it before.  Until Spice did.  I was busy looking at their heads- because that's commonly where gender differences appear.  Spice didn't know any better so the damn fool just looked at the whole bird.

Hm.

:-)  Smart girl, my Spice.

Next question- yeah?  And how consistent is this?

The answer seems to be- pretty darn consistent.  Depending.  In the morning, when the birds are first let out of the coop- it's 100%.  Really.  At noon, it's around 90%- a few males are holding their wings lower.  And in later afternoon, it starts to look like all the birds may be female.  But if you watch; you'll see some birds shifting their wing position from female to male- and some birds that keep their wings in the female position.

Once you're used to seeing it- it's really obvious; and extremely useful.  Take a look at photo number one up there now- 3 females; 3 males; really obvious; interesting formation.  You can learn to automatically factor in the time of day, state of the birds.  Since seeing this; I'm now of the opinion that when the birds are first released, they do not form pairs immediately, but rather spread out kind of chaotically, with a huge amount of male-male chasing going on.  A few hours later, I see all the birds in male-female pairs.  Female in front when calm; male in front when agitated.  A couple hours later- I see a lot of single sex small groups - 3 females foraging together; 4 males and one female off in a different direction; no chasing or fussing.

I'm kind of longing for a day when I could just take my binoculars, and notebook, and watch them all day; seriously.

Looking at some older movies of the guineas, it seems that before the helmet and wattles appear, they're not showing this sexual variation in wing position; so how useful it is for sexing young birds remains to be seen.

It varies with the time of day.  And age.  I'll bet it varies with the season, too.  We'll see.

------------------------------

Update on the eggs; we're still getting 3-4 new eggs a day; and it seems they are spending more and more time sitting on the nest; today, the eggs have been quite warm when checked, all day.  Yesterday- not so much.  As soon as they are sitting seriously, we're going to swap in a set of fresh eggs; all guineas; and all laid in the coop after the sitting started.  Doing a little selection for laying where it's convenient.  I'm pretty sure some of them are laying in another nest- not in the coop.

It's possible it's our fault they started going "broody".  Somehow I didn't get it that one of the reasons for collecting eggs multiple times a day can be to help interrupt broodiness.  We did, when they first started to lay, collect 3 and 4 times a day.  It was such fun!  Then- of course it got to be a chore.  And we wound up collecting once a day, a couple days in a row.  Why not?

Because- visual cues are known to cause hormonal shifts in birds.  When we collected 3 times a day; mostly the birds were looking at 3 to 6 eggs.  When we collected once a day- for most of the day they were looking at 8-12 eggs.  And that might quite easily be enough to trigger broodiness.  "Full clutch; time to sit!"

It's a Grimm world, after all...

Ha.  Now that I've set that pernicious little tune running incessantly through your head...

Sorry to be gone so long.  It's kind of "all of the above", when I look in my box of excuses.

At the top of the list though is: ok, so what is there to say about all this?  The world seems almost jabbered out, to me.  It's been said, screamed, whimpered.  We're all just waiting for the rest of the shoes to fall on our heads.  So it's kinda hard to get up the energy (in between emptying trash cans full of used tissues) to try to write something that anyone in their right mind would want to read.

Hey, I'll cheer up next week, probably.  

Meanwhile; this bit in the Washington Post just hit me, and triggered this story; which might, in fact, be interesting and useful to you.

Basically one of the Post's financial pundits is touting a book- by a writer from the Wall Street Journal!!  entitled: "The Wall Street Journal Guide to the End of Wall Street as We Know It: What You Need to Know About the Greatest Financial Crisis of Our Time -- And How to Survive It".

And she starts out "He had me at the title..."

OMG.  Yeah, he had me, too, but in the other direction.  Here is why- and this is something we desperately need to get our lawmakers to hear- and act on.

True story.  A couple weeks ago, I was at a big statewide "green" meeting.  It was pretty good.  About 400 earnest people; all ages, many of them actually knowing what they were talking about.

At the end of it, there was an unusually good "wrap-up" session, with 2 State Senators, one normal, and one I was actually very impressed with, 2 national congressional staffers, and the moderator, who is a state National Public Radio personality.

Reasonably intelligent conversation- particularly from the little round Santa Claus Senator, who was smart smart smart.  But talked slow.  

And he said stuff that challenged a lot of common "wisdom".

Towards the end, the NPR moderator posed her own question; "Senators, last week I had three economists on my morning show, and I asked them for their views on how long this recession will last, and... "  blah blah.  My brain switched off right there, and I composed this little parable.  Which I actually put to the NPR person, personally, after it was all over.  Cornered her, so she couldn't get away.

The Parable Of The Poor Plumber.

Your sink is leaking, down underneath.  You've tackled it briefly with your own pump pliers, but they don't do any good.  Time for some expert help.

You go to the Yellow Pages, look up "Plumbers", and pick one who is nearby, and available.

They send a guy; he works at the sink for a half hour; making lots of show; lots of tools.  And he presents you with a bill "Hey, lady, it's a minimum $250 to bring the truck out, ya know; I don't set the prices."

The sink seems to work.  Except - the next day, the leak is back.  Worse than before.

You are not happy.  You call the plumbing company; and actually have the gall to complain, and basically demand that for $250 bucks, you do deserve a sink that does not leak.  They grumble, but send a guy out.  Same guy.

He's not really fazed by all this- "Lady, sometimes they just take more fixing.  I'll get it."  And he puts in 45 minutes this time; many tools.  A little cussing.  Well after supper "There, lady- she's fixed."  And he vanishes.

The sink, however- still leaks.  And actually - the cold water faucet no longer delivers water- and it did, before he got down in there to fix it.

If you've been through an exchange like this (and who hasn't) by now, you can see the steam starting to come out of "Lady's" ears.

Once more, you chew out the plumber's dispatcher.  Once more they send a guy (a different one this time!).

And...

Yeah, it's still not fixed.  Leaks as badly as ever; and no cold water.

We're past the steam coming out of the ears now.

And...

Now your toilet is refusing to flush...

Here's the question; and the point:

Do you call the same plumber to come and fix your problems?

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Boy, I guarantee I don't.

And at this point, the NPR personality (whom I'd forced to listen, tête-à-tête, to this shaggy dog story) said forcefully and abruptly, "Yes.  So?"

And I replied: "Why.  On God's Green Earth.  Would you ask an economist anything- about the current economic crisis?"

I let that sink in for about 2 seconds (a long time in her world) and continued: "They PUT us here.  They say they couldn't see it coming.  They don't agree on why or how it happened, and they have no ideas for how to get out of it, or where to go.  WHY would you be asking them for advice - as if they had advice to give?"

Oh, she didn't buy it.  Nope, in her world, economists are who you ask about the economy.  Never mind that, just like in the fairy tale (ok, it's Andersen, not Grimm) - they've just proven to the entire world that they are intellectually bare stark naked.

A big part of this problem, of course, is that economists have steadily worked to make the world believe they know what they're doing.  They invented their own Nobel award (Nobel did NOT give a prize in economics); and added "mathematical modeling" to their discipline.

And it all clearly does not reflect any realities- but they've left the world with the impression that there is no other source of information on this important subject; you must ask an economics professor, if you wish to discuss it.  No other options exist.  That, without thinking, is where the NPR person was.

-------------------------------------------------

Except.  There IS another discipline- which did see "all this" coming; long ago; and said so, loudly.   Maybe- it would be a good idea to look to the people who predicted all this; for some understanding, and maybe some answers?

Who?  Ecologists.  I got news for ya- ecology is far more a science than economics- and- you notice they have the same Greek root?  oikos - for house.  Ecologists actually study the same thing economists do- the flow of resources; over time.  Except; ecologists go out into the real world, and look to see how it actually works.  Economists- live on college campuses, and make up anything they want.  Reality need not intrude.  Ecologists do experiments, and measure results.  Economists - can't.  So they just project.  Leaving them open to little booboos like "see, the sun comes up in the east; and goes down in the west- OBVIOUSLY - the sun revolves around the earth."

So, Dear World.  Your toilet is backed up; not working.  Who you gonna call?

-----------------------------------------------------------

Update, Tuesday: gosh, couldn't ask for better confirmation of the parable here.  Todays "Economix" blog in the NYT is by a Harvard Economics Professor!! - (my little heart is going pitty-pat!)  and entitled "The Lorax Was Wrong" -  He says living in cities is greener than living in forests.  Gosh.  If you're interested, the responses in his blog comments hit pretty much every refutation you can think of.  I'm tempted to write an OpEd for the NYT myself; maybe entitled "The Professor Is Full Of It."  lol.  And would they print it?  No.

CIT claims to outsmart flies..

No, I'm not going to turn this into an animal behavior blog, though it's tempting.  But this one is irresistible to me.

Big headline in the BBC Science section: 

Fly's brain 'senses swat threat'

Researchers in the US say they have solved the mystery of why flies are so hard to swat.

Be still, my heart!  lol!!

If you'll read the brief article, you'll be amazed to learn that scientists at the world renowned California Institute of Technology have discovered- finally- that - who could have ever imagined- flies are AWARE of fly swatters!  

Flies actually- hard as it is to believe!- SEE them, and plan how to jump out of their way!!

Crikey.  Another huge international headline I could have had for myself- but failed to- because it's just so totally freaking obvious.

Anybody who has actually spent time trying to swat a pesky problem fly learns this- unequivocally- in the first 2 minutes of human-fly warfare.

----------------------------------

There is a REAL problem here, and this is a perfect illustration of it.  There is a class of scientist out there who claim, and believe, that we know nothing - if it has not been brought into a laboratory, and been proven in careful controlled experiments.

Thereby discarding tens of thousands of years of totally accurate and intelligent observations.

And - setting us back, in fact making us dumber than we were.  This is a growing trend in academia - find something really obvious and prove it.  Then publish.  Instant acclaim!

The upshot of this article is: 

"We've found that when the fly makes planning movements prior to take-off, it takes into account its body position at the time it first sees the threat," he explained.

"Our experiments showed that the fly somehow 'knows' whether it needs to make large or small postural changes.

"This means the fly must integrate visual information from its eyes which tell it where the threat is approaching from, with mechano-sensory information from its legs, which tells it how to move to reach the proper pre-flight pose."

So can this data make us more efficient swatters? Possibly. It is best to creep up on a fly with stealth, as they are unable to register slow movements.

When it comes to striking the blow, Professor Dickinson said it was a good idea not to aim at the fly's starting position.

"It's best to aim a bit forward of its location and try and anticipate where the fly will jump when it first sees your swatter," he explained.

If you can stop laughing- (gosh!  a fly is a functioning integrated organism??  no!!) - Professor Dickinson's advice shows that he actually has NOT experimented with fly swatting techniques.

My own advice on swatting flies?  Simple.  And based on years of vast swatting experience and experimentation.  And no, they are NOT  "unable" to register small movement- they just see it as not imminently threatening.  Watch the flies- it's obvious.

A fly "on the alert" for a potential swat is basically - frozen.  It's not moving- it's watching.  You move the swatter a millimeter- and it moves its body a millimeter-  but it can't keep doing that forever, can it?  Hard to find food if you're always on alert.

A really scared fly may stay on alert for a very long time (from the human perspective) - up to 30 seconds, or even longer.  That's too long for most fly-hunting humans' attention span- but it's not too long for the fly- whose life and entire existence depend on making the right response here.

Move your swatter slowly into a good position, without spooking the fly into flying.  Hold it there, without moving it.  Wait.  

At some point-always- the frozen fly will start to walk- or clean its face.  Whack it instantly, with no backswing.  Because just at that point- it is NOT on guard; it has decided that hovering threat is not a threat, and cannot - cannot- jump quickly out of the way.  The instant of change from "on high alert" to "not" - is a vulnerable point.  As the professor notes- later, while the fly is walking, grooming, etc, it is again more difficult to catch.

---------------------------------

Earthshaking information!  Aren't you thrilled!  The apocalypse has been averted!  

The Guinea Saga; part 2

So, we were at the point where 1 of 11 birds had just escaped into the outer world.

This was a white bird- and I have little hope for them in the long run.  Seen any white squirrels recently?  There's a reason albinos are rare in the wild- basically, they have a big "EAT ME" sign taped on their back.  (Yes, I know there are populations of white squirrels in several cities- no hawks.)

Spice ordered the guineas, and she was focused on price.  The cheapest way to buy them is if you let the hatchery fill out your order with whatever they have on hand; the hatchery we bought from sells about 10 different breeds of guinea- almost all selected purely for ornamental differences in plumage- and of course it's very common for them to have some hatch out today- with no buyer waiting.  So they sell "we choose" batches, for a discount.  We wound up with about 1/3 white, 1/3 pearl, and 1/3 some kind of brown.  I think next time we order, we won't go the discount route- I really have no hope the white ones will survive in the long run as free range birds.  Not here.

When we first moved here, one of the most common questions (besides the ones about phones, when we were going to get electricity and running water...) was "why don't you have chickens?"  Obviously, if you live in the woods in a cabin, you should have chickens.  :-)

My answer was always this:  "Let's see.  Red foxes.  Gray foxes.  Raccoons.  Mink.  Badgers.  Skunks- 2 species.  Feral cats.  Feral dogs. Weasels- 3 species. Great Horned Owls.  Barred Owls.  Cooper's Hawks.  Sharpshin Hawks.  And I'm sure I'm forgetting some."  The universal answer was.  "Ah."  We really really do live in the woods; it ain't suburbia.  If we wanted chickens, we were going to have to build a fortress of some kind, and we just didn't need or want them that much.

Today I'd add coyotes, and bald eagles- neither were here in 1976, but they're abundant now.  We now have increasing reports of bobcats, too.  You don't usually think of bald eagles as chasing chickens- but the eagles are fantastic opportunists, and they recognize a lazy chicken as easy food immediately.  The coyotes nearly eradicated both fox species when they moved in; but the foxes are adapting now, and coming back- Spice badly twisted her ankle in a well hidden Red Fox hole a couple years ago.

The idea with the guineas is; once established as a population; with adults; they will be able to avoid the ground based predators very effectively, by roosting in trees and being such strong flyers.   But a single white bird up in a tree- is just a target.

I tried to watch where the escapee went, anyway- it wasn't really afraid of me, and let me get quite close, though it never offered to let me catch it.  But the third time I went looking to see where it was now- I couldn't find it, anywhere.  I blocked all the possible escape spots on the pen with heavy sods from the adjacent construction site.

Later that evening, I took Bruce out for a little work with the birds.  He had, of course, been very playful/bouncy when he first met them in the new pen- scaring the heck out of them, and not stopping until I'd yelled at him several times- something that's almost never necessary, and left him pretty embarrassed.  So I took him out, on a leash (also very rare) and walked around the pen with him, requiring him to be calm about it, and not chase.  I swear he speaks English.  He got the idea very quickly.  As part of the work, I walked him over where I'd last seen the escapee- he'd likely sense and flush any hiding bird.  Nothing.  Either hiding very well, or already cat chow, I expected.

We added Bruce to the farm for a very specific reason- protection.  For Smidgen, the farm in general, and- future livestock.  Hence my selection of a dog with a substantial component from a herding breed- collie.  After working Bruce on the leash for only 15 minutes, he was so calm and well behaved I took him off the leash, right next to the guinea pen; and he did not disappoint me; he continued to behave perfectly.  The video shows the pen, half under an apple tree; the almost 4 week old birds, and Bruce, being blasé, looking for mice -

The pen is 12 feet x 8 feet x 4 feet high; the guineas are zooming to eat some fresh greens I just tossed in for them- something else the easily available information does not mention; they eat lots of grass at this point; clover, etc.

That first night, I went to bed with 10 birds in the pen, and Bruce outside, loose, all night; on guard (he's around 60 lbs now- very few coyotes would think of challenging him).

He was fine with being outside on his own; didn't fuss about wanting to come in, when I just explained to him that he was going to stay out.  Did I mention I think he speaks English?

In the morning - ah, here the drama comes in.

I went out immediately, Bruce calmly accompanying, to see how the 10 birds fared in their first night- and immediately found- only 2 birds still inside the pen.

They were huddled together, right against the wire- and huddled against them on the outside of the wire- were the other - 9 birds.  I counted 3 times- because I would really have expected unprotected chicks to turn into predator fodder, very quickly- 9.  +2=11.

Yeah- RC and Nancy M- you were right, the escapee came back and re-joined the flock.

So, that was nice; and encouraging- it looked like the guineas were indeed good at surviving, and staying in their flock; both things I really wanted.  It also looked like they were going to be escape artists- not quite so nice.  

Carefully moving around the pen, so as not to spook the guys on the outside and scare them off, I started looking for how the heck they got out- I have a lot of experience with pens for difficult animals- and was feeling pretty miffed-

Ah- here we are.  Something had, in the night, dug two lovely holes under the fence... leaving loads of room for the birds to duck under.  Bruce digs.  Quite  lot.  I was starting to mumble bad things to Bruce, who was right there- when it finally struck me that the odor of skunk was really really strong, right here...

In fact, I'd been waked up in the middle of the night by the powerful smell of a fresh skunk discharge drifting in the open windows.  But that's not all that uncommon; happens a couple times a year-and it didn't really wake me fully.  No noise accompanying the smell.  Next morning, the whole world smells a bit skunky- it's normal.

Bit by bit- detective deductions at work- what happened became clear.

Sure as heck; my constant predictions for predators immediately moving to chow down on any poultry had come true- on the very first night, a skunk had found the pen, and instantly started digging its way in.

Then, my preparations and plans kicked in, too- and worked.  Guineas are renowned for making a racket when frightened.  Bruce, on patrol, heard the noise; went out, and instantly tackled the skunk- all on his own.  Judging from where the skunk hit back- the spray mostly hit Bruce on the belly and side, we found- Bruce had the skunk down and struggling to get away when the skunk fired.  Given any chance, a skunk will spray a dog in the eyes- not an accident, and they're good at it.  This skunk didn't have that chance.  Apparently the spray did surprise Bruce into letting the skunk go, and the skunk lit out- because we didn't find any skunk corpse.

The skunk was apparently permanently educated; because in the following week, there have been no more attempts to dig into the guinea pen.  Bruce is out, and on guard, all night.  Occasionally he'll wake us; with a burst of serious barking, nearby.  That took a little getting used to- but now, it feels very good.  He's on the job.  Most likely a coon, or coyote, that is now not poking into our world; and we have, in the past gone through all kinds of gyrations trying to keep stuff stored outside safe from raccoons.  That's a crazy hard job- and usually whatever you come up with, they'll eventually find a way around.  But there's probably no way around Bruce.

Incidentally, the remedy for skunk on your dog is not tomato juice- my god, what a mess.  A perfect example of what I'm starting to call Green iManure; cutesy-poo clueless, "back to the land!" malinformation.   

The application of a little basic chemistry will explain what you need.  What is "skunk" juice?  The core chemicals are mercaptans; the sulfur based equivalent of an alcohol; also found in tear gas, and "perms".  What do you need to break down a mercaptan?  Any mild acid; it's a highly reactive chemical bond, easily broken down.  It's precisely that high reactivity that makes it an effective weapon.  Tomato works- because it's acid.  Another household acid- vinegar- works about 1,000x better- and with 1,000th of the mess.  Chem 101.

Put either undiluted vinegar (any kind, stronger is better), or 1:4 diluted vinegar for working around the eyes, in any household spray bottle; and spray it on your skunky dog.  Outside, for heaven's sakes.  Then comb the vinegar through the fur.  Rinse off with a little water.  Repeat, until the skunk is gone, or you can at least stand to have the dog around, or the dog won't put up with it any more (in which case you can do more later.)  If you don't have a spare spray bottle, just get a sponge or rag soaked with the vinegar, and wipe it on, then comb it through.

Bruce put up with the vinegar treatment- cheerfully applied by Spice, who came home just in time for this whole show- with great patience.  It's hard to get it all.  Maybe impossible, even.  But at this point, he only smells a little skunky; just enough to remind us of the whole event; which in fact; feels very good.

Plans, preparations, protections- that worked!  Darned nice, once in a while.

Next step for the guineas will be turning them into free range birds.  According to our information, it's best to wait until they're 6 weeks old before turning them out.  Then do it gradually; a few birds only, on the first day, then a few more the next day.  Working to keep them anchored to this place, as home.

There are more tricks to that.  Coming up soon.  Meanwhile- the birds are growing fast; have been through several rainstorms in the new pen, with no problem, and no further attacks from predators.  And no lost birds.  It's actually encouraging!

-----------------------------------------------------------

Why is all this a "post-peak parable"?  That gets to be a long post in itself.

Let me just ask this question- what was the basis of "civilization" - meaning; cities, etc.?

The usual answer is "agriculture" - but the real answer is - domestic animals.  Oxen, donkeys, camels, and horses for power- the power we now get from oil.  We owe our culture to our animal symbiont/partners- they're fantastic solar energy concentrators and converters.  My guess is- they are about to play a larger role in the world, again.