Ethanol: The Greatest Thing Since Sliced Corn Bread?
Ethanol (ethyl alcohol) biofuel, aka booze when it’s purified, bottled and sold in liquor stores, has been the greatest boon to some farmers and some states since the inventions of tractors and porta-potties. To everyone else, it’s been a bust.
The blending of up to 10% ethanol with gasoline, now mandated in a number of states and localities, was a government brainchild ostensibly begun in the interests of reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil imports. It has developed into a typical, wasteful boondoggle which is enriching farm states and farmers who raise corn, potatoes, and sugar cane and gaining big political points with politicians at the same time it’s helping to impoverish those needing gasoline to survive.
Alcohol as a motor vehicle fuel is hardly a new idea. Henry Ford built his Ford Model-T’s to run on it, or on gas, or on a mixture. Alcohol as a widespread biofuel, however, is very much a modern concept and very much the product of the less than supple minds of environmentalists, conservationists, and the good people at the Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA. As is so often the case when government gets involved in anything, bureaucrats are unable to factor in either obvious or unintended consequences. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=4124)
Showing posts with label old farmers almanac. Show all posts
Showing posts with label old farmers almanac. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 12, 2011
Tuesday, September 14, 2010
Your Gubmints in Action
Your Gubmints in Action
. . . Now, research is of critical importance to the advancement of knowledge and national progress, although in these strained economic times one would hope sparse cash would be awarded prudently and sparingly.
That $823,200. was granted to that UCLA research team for the purpose of teaching “uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex. The genitalia-washing program is part of a larger $12-million UCLA study . . . [but] only the penis-washing study received money from the 2009 economic stimulus law:” http://tiny.cc/q1d2j
It’s very heartening to know that our taxes are being well spent prudently and sparingly and that African men may have cleaner penises as a result, a goal way up there on the wish list of most Americans.
Meanwhile, a devil must have gone down to Georgia and taken up residence in the DeKalb County code enforcement office. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1897)
. . . Now, research is of critical importance to the advancement of knowledge and national progress, although in these strained economic times one would hope sparse cash would be awarded prudently and sparingly.
That $823,200. was granted to that UCLA research team for the purpose of teaching “uncircumcised African men how to wash their genitals after having sex. The genitalia-washing program is part of a larger $12-million UCLA study . . . [but] only the penis-washing study received money from the 2009 economic stimulus law:” http://tiny.cc/q1d2j
It’s very heartening to know that our taxes are being well spent prudently and sparingly and that African men may have cleaner penises as a result, a goal way up there on the wish list of most Americans.
Meanwhile, a devil must have gone down to Georgia and taken up residence in the DeKalb County code enforcement office. . .
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1897)
Saturday, September 11, 2010
Observations: China and Face, Climate and Truth
Observations: China and Face, Climate and Truth
China Loses Face: We’ve all heard the old saw that booze is a truth serum meaning that if you really want to know what someone is thinking, get him drunk and he’ll tell you probably more than you want to know.
Top Chinese United Nations diplomat Sha Zukang got pie-eyed, tanked, snookered, drunk as a skunk while retreating with other U.N. big shots at their retreat at Alpbach, an Austrian ski resort, this week and spilled his guts.
Whether it was during some après-ski or pre-ski or non-ski festivities, Zukang let his hair down and brought to mind another old saw or maxim, to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Even as the Chinese continue to ramp up their military, (purely for self-defense, mind you, with nary a thought of war), and fill Walmart shelves with their cheap, semi-slave-labor-produced consumer goodies that Americans lap up, they smile at us in their enigmatic way that makes you wonder what they’re really smiling at.
Sha Zukang, U.N. Under-secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, however, probably wasn’t smiling when he let loose a 15-minute tirade against his boss, Ban Ki-moon, and the United States. And this was during a toast, not a roast!
Sha wasn’t being very social or diplomatic when he said to the Secretary-General, “You’ve been trying to get rid of me. You can fire me anytime, you can fire me today,” turning later to an American present and adding, “I really don’t like him: he’s an American and I really don’t like Americans.”
Hmmm, vedy interesting.
It wasn’t the first time the loose-lipped Sha had spilled on Americans: “In a BBC interview in 2006 he was goaded into a furious, shrieking attack on American criticisms of China’s rapidly growing defence budget.”
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1892)
China Loses Face: We’ve all heard the old saw that booze is a truth serum meaning that if you really want to know what someone is thinking, get him drunk and he’ll tell you probably more than you want to know.
Top Chinese United Nations diplomat Sha Zukang got pie-eyed, tanked, snookered, drunk as a skunk while retreating with other U.N. big shots at their retreat at Alpbach, an Austrian ski resort, this week and spilled his guts.
Whether it was during some après-ski or pre-ski or non-ski festivities, Zukang let his hair down and brought to mind another old saw or maxim, to keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Even as the Chinese continue to ramp up their military, (purely for self-defense, mind you, with nary a thought of war), and fill Walmart shelves with their cheap, semi-slave-labor-produced consumer goodies that Americans lap up, they smile at us in their enigmatic way that makes you wonder what they’re really smiling at.
Sha Zukang, U.N. Under-secretary General for Economic and Social Affairs, however, probably wasn’t smiling when he let loose a 15-minute tirade against his boss, Ban Ki-moon, and the United States. And this was during a toast, not a roast!
Sha wasn’t being very social or diplomatic when he said to the Secretary-General, “You’ve been trying to get rid of me. You can fire me anytime, you can fire me today,” turning later to an American present and adding, “I really don’t like him: he’s an American and I really don’t like Americans.”
Hmmm, vedy interesting.
It wasn’t the first time the loose-lipped Sha had spilled on Americans: “In a BBC interview in 2006 he was goaded into a furious, shrieking attack on American criticisms of China’s rapidly growing defence budget.”
(Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=1892)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)