By Colleen Rothe

One by one, with every incandescent bulb that gives up the ghost in my humble mountain residence, my household has been dutifully doing its part to save energy, the environment and of course our own dollars by putting in the new compact fluorescent lights (CFL).

My spouse normally tends to this task, but he was recently out of town. So when an old incandescent bulb blew during his absence, I grabbed one of the new CFLs and put the incandescent into the proper disposal place, which got me wondering about the disposal of the CFLs. The ones I’ve put in over the course of the last two years have stayed operational, so the thought really hadn’t occurred to me before that moment. When you read the package you get the corporate cover-our-asses message of ‘dispose of properly’ but it doesn’t say how.

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By Jeanne Roberts

Coors Brewing Company of Golden, Colorado is a subsidiary of Molson Coors Brewing Company. The company's U.S. brands include Coors Light, Molson Canadian, Coors, Aspen Edge, Killian's Irish Red, Keystone, Blue Moon, Coors NA and Zima XXX. In 2005, Coors merged with Molson, a Canadian brewer, then with SABMiller, an international beer giant.

Coors, the third largest brewer in the U.S., used to boast its beer was brewed with pure Rocky Mountain spring water. In the 90’s, when Coors set up shop in Virginia, Anheuser Busch and the ATF made them change the slogan. Coors labels and ads still refer to the Rockies and its water, but they don’t mention “pure” or “spring”. Given the evidence that follows, this comes as no surprise. Any springs left in the Denver/Golden region are contaminated beyond recovery and Coors knows it, having put many of the contaminants there itself.

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By Linsey Knerl

As you drop off your tax info to your local preparation service, it is safe to assume that they will be the ones doing the processing. Right? Not exactly. It turns out that, just like debt collection and telecom customer service, tax preparation is turning into a lucrative business for offshore outsourcers. Simply put, some guy in India may be doing your taxes this year.

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By Gene Ayres

Water, water everywhere, and not a drop to drink, is an old sailor’s proverb, for those stuck at sea in failing winds and no drinking water. Unfortunately, for much of the world now, this truth has come ashore. Thanks to global climate change potable water is becoming increasingly scarce in much of the world, including the Southwestern U.S. (just ask those folks in Atlanta, or along Lake Superior, for that matter. Or take a boat ride on Lake Powell—if you can even launch it, that is). Americans use more water per person than any other country. We use clean drinking water to flush our toilets and fill fountains in Las Vegas. Or at least what we commonly accept as clean. Most of our drinking water actually contains such chemicals as chlorine and fluoride that will kill you if you took a small undiluted amount of it (some times parts per million are enough to do us harm). This, of course, is a tradeoff for other health risks from water, these days. Many health experts advise using filters, either charcoal or reverse osmosis filters, for truly clean water. Not to mention boiling it afterwards. Distilled water might fill the bill, depending on whether or not there are any additives.

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By Colleen Rothe

France has champagne. Germany has beer. Greece has ouzo. Scotland has scotch. Russia, of course, has vodka. As Americans, we have Bourbon. It’s my drink of choice; has been for as long as I can remember.

You could say that Bourbon is America’s native spirit. Bourbon’s history begins with our country’s earliest settlers. George Washington was once known as a notable Bourbon producer. He was also a prominent brewer of beer. But today, he might just stick to the Bourbon, because brewing beer is costing beer masters more and more to make. There’s a hops and barley crisis. Beer drinkers, especially those who love craft brewery fare, are going to feel the pinch.

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By Jeanne Roberts

In December of 2006, several workers at Quality Pork Processors (QPP) in Austin, Minnesota, came down with a mysterious illness. A little over a year later, 12 workers were ill. All had the same symptoms, which The Minnesota Department of Health (MDH), in conjunction with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and the Mayo clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, identifies as chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, or CIDP. CIDP normally occurs in one out of 125,000 people.

Quality Pork shares the facility with Hormel Foods, the owner. On the Quality Pork side, 1,300 employees slaughter the pigs at a rate of about 18,000 per day. On the Hormel side, 1,400 workers process the meat into bacon and other meat products. None of the Hormel workers are reported ill. According to the union representative, the plant is very clean, though Hormel has refused to allow reporters inside.

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By Linsey Knerl

Details of a new class action settlement have just been released, and this time, Treo users will be getting some cash back. Limited to purchasers residing in the U.S., the settlement rewards those Treo 600 and 650 owners who had more than a just a little trouble with their Smartphones. How do they define “trouble”? Let’s take a closer look.

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By Gene Ayres

Well, it’s happened again. Just when I was starting to feel smug about getting through the winter unscathed, my daughter troops home with one of the dozen or so versions of the common cold floating around her school, and zaps me like a sitting duck in a bayou. Or at least a Disney cartoon. OK, fine, it’s not called the “common cold” for nothing, and most of us get zapped every year or so, some of us more often than that.

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