Home Depot will recycle your Compact Fluorescent bulb for free.

You definitely shouldn’t just throw them in the garbage when they burn out; they contain mercury. Until this week, options for convenient responsible disposal of CFLs were limited. Home Depot announced Tuesday that they will begin accepting compact fluorescent light bulbs for free recycling at all of their stores.

From the press release:

At each The Home Depot store, customers can simply bring in any expired, unbroken CFL bulbs, and give them to the store associate behind the returns desk. The bulbs will then be managed responsibly by an environmental management company who will coordinate CFL packaging, transportation and recycling to maximize safety and ensure environmental compliance.

[NY Times via EcoTech Daily]

I am not afraid. Are you?

I believe that the most obvious way to fight terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. The erosion of our civil liberties in the name of an eternal War on Terror is reprehensible, cowardly, and un-American.

If the U.S. is not actually a nation of cowards, it is certainly being misrepresented as such by our government.

I just sent this to my Congressional representatives. You can too.

I am not afraid of terrorism, and I want you to stop being afraid on my behalf. Please start scaling back the official government war on terror. Please replace it with a smaller, more focused anti-terrorist police effort in keeping with the rule of law. Please stop overreacting. I understand that it will not be possible to stop all terrorist acts. I am not afraid.

the wisdom of auto-suggest algorithms

What’s the perfect accessory for your new cordless hand blender? Why, a Jason Voorhees Mini Bust, according to Amazon.

It is “highly detailed” and features a “removable mask and sword,” both must-haves any time I feel like blending liquids.

leaf exchange: free compost, better than plugged storm drains

The city of Fort Collins, CO, has set up a Yahoo Group for their Leaf Exchange program:

Wondering what to do with all those fallen leaves, or do you need leaves for composting or mulching? The City of Fort Collins offers a web-based service through Yahoo! Groups making it easy to exchange your leaves by communicating directly with people who want leaves or have leaves to give away.

As a courtesy, leaves should be free of rocks, trash, tree limbs, grass clippings and garden debris, and if they’re bagged, be sure to empty the leaves and take your bags back home with you.

Not being a homeowner and thus not responsible for leaf disposal myself, I doubt I’ll muster the motivation to organize something like this in Madison, but I’ll be mentioning it to the homeowners I know.