A must read post on This Modern World: Only so many ways to be crazy

In this post This Modern World discusses a particularly disturbing post by neo-con blogger Reynolds [Instapundit].

HOLY CRIPES ALMIGHTY: Reynolds has updated the post with this:

Some people, judging from my email, are misjudging — or deliberately misconstruing — Ingemi’s point. Ingemi’s point, as I took it, is that crying wolf leads in the end to moral callousness, as people assume that there’s no point in behaving morally when they’re going to be called monsters anyway. This seems rather uncontroversially obvious to me.

It would take five years to untangle every strand of his Crazy Yarn, so let me just concentrate on this: what kind of person believes it’s “uncontroversially obvious” that human beings work like this? Read that again: “people assume that there’s no point in behaving morally when they’re going to be called monsters anyway.”

You know, Professor Reynolds is welcome to call me a babykiller every day until the sun explodes. Yet somehow I still won’t come to his house and shoot his children.

That’s just the way my species is, here on the planet we call “Earth.”

In 2004 I posted this up on TCS, it is about the same idea:

Conservatives and the need for law and societal stigma

I'm beginning to feel that liberals really don't understand conservatives. Yes some times conservatives are projecting, but sometimes, from their point of view, they are exactly right.

They condemn liberals because liberals try to reduce the stigma of divorce. Now, conservatives say "people will just get a divorce when they feel like it." Liberals just think that is insane but for conservatives it may be accurate. It is stigma and laws that keep a conservative in line. Nothing else.

Conservatives want many religious mores to become law. Why? Because if they are not law the conservatives will break them. Thus you have the religious moral conservative drunks gambling away their child's college money at a sleazy casino. "but... sniff... if only things like that were illegal. Then I wouldn't do it."

The whole "Personal Responsibility" line is the greatest projection in political history. Liberals are saying "make it legal, if you don't like it don't do it." Conservatives say "I don't like it, make it illegal." But what they don't say, but in their hearts they know it to be true, "I don't like it, make it illegal, make it stigmatized or I will do it."

Even when things are fine and decent, but their teachings have hang ups about it (say like homosexuality), the conservatives get angy and liberals get confused. When the right fights against gay marriage and says things like "it'll lead to people marrying animals." Liberals look at them like they are insane. But the religious right is very concerned, like most homophobes they are insecure of their sexuality, and want to keep homosexuality stigmitized (and better yet, wouldn't it be great if it was illegal) so they can keep themselves on the straight and narrow (as they see it). They are so self-unaware, so without personal control (relying on social, religious, and legal control) that as far as they know they themselves might marry dogs.

Hypocracy is the sin to teens, when they are filled with rightious power. Hypocracy to adult conservatives is a way of life; it is because they are fearful of themselves. They say we are above animals but in their dark hearts they think of themselves as horribly base, needing laws and peer pressure to keep them inline.

Its all so horribly sad.

- rob 5:08 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Bush to New York: Drop Dead

Bush has gone on and on and on with his fake down home summary of what his job is. "My job is to protect this nation, and I'm going to do my job." That quote is to excuse his disregard for the constituion and international law, it should not be misconstrued to mean that he is going to protect this nation.

Otherwise why would he deny funds to the number one terrorist target in America because it didn't electronicly submit its application. New York City faxed their application.

I say that again, one of the government's execuses as to why New York is being short changed is because it faxed the application.

Bush also requires a cover sheet for the TPS Report I bet.

City Has Itself to Blame for Terror Cuts, U.S. Says

In a report that outlines why it cut back New York City's share of antiterrorism funds by roughly 40 percent, the Department of Homeland Security was so critical of some highly viewed local measures — like Operation Atlas, in which hundreds of extra police officers carry out counterterrorism duties around the city each day — that the Police Department and other city agencies must now seek further federal approval before drawing on the money they were given to pay for those programs.

Federal officials said yesterday that the city had not only done a poor job of articulating its needs in its application, but had also mishandled the application itself, failing to file it electronically as required, instead faxing its request to Washington.

City and state officials insisted that they had made no mistakes. And a state official provided a written acknowledgment from the federal government saying that the city's application for grant money had been "successfully submitted" and said that the city could "log in" any time to view the application.
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Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg questioned yesterday whether old-fashioned pork barrel politics was at play in doling out the money in an election year.

There never was a war on terror, there was just a new campaign slogan.

Meanwhile there actually are bad people out there and maybe the government should look into, perhaps, maybe, doing its job and try to make America a little bit safer.

- rob 4:47 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Rolling Stone : Was the 2004 Election Stolen?
Republicans prevented more than 350,000 voters in Ohio from casting ballots or having their votes counted -- enough to have put John Kerry in the White House.

But despite the media blackout, indications continued to emerge that something deeply troubling had taken place in 2004. Nearly half of the 6 million American voters living abroad(3) never received their ballots -- or received them too late to vote(4) -- after the Pentagon unaccountably shut down a state-of-the-art Web site used to file overseas registrations.(5) A consulting firm called Sproul & Associates, which was hired by the Republican National Committee to register voters in six battleground states,(6) was discovered shredding Democratic registrations.(7) In New Mexico, which was decided by 5,988 votes,(8) malfunctioning machines mysteriously failed to properly register a presidential vote on more than 20,000 ballots.(9) Nationwide, according to the federal commission charged with implementing election reforms, as many as 1 million ballots were spoiled by faulty voting equipment -- roughly one for every 100 cast.(10)

The reports were especially disturbing in Ohio, the critical battleground state that clinched Bush's victory in the electoral college. Officials there purged tens of thousands of eligible voters from the rolls, neglected to process registration cards generated by Democratic voter drives, shortchanged Democratic precincts when they allocated voting machines and illegally derailed a recount that could have given Kerry the presidency. A precinct in an evangelical church in Miami County recorded an impossibly high turnout of ninety-eight percent, while a polling place in inner-city Cleveland recorded an equally impossible turnout of only seven percent. In Warren County, GOP election officials even invented a nonexistent terrorist threat to bar the media from monitoring the official vote count.(11)

And also:

How They Stole Ohio
The GOP 4-step Recipe to 'Blackwell' the USA in 2008
Abracadabra: Three Million Votes Vanish

But the shoplifting of those votes in Ohio was just the tip of the theft-berg. November 2, 2004 was a national ballot-box bonfire. In total, over three million votes (3,600,380 to be exact) were cast -- marked, punched, pulled -- YET NEVER COUNTED. I'm not talking about the Ukraine or Uganda. I'm talking about the United States of America "with liberty and justice for all."

Well, not "all." The nine-to-one Black-to-White ballot spoilage rate is a national statistic -- not just an Ohio trick. Last year, I flew to New Mexico to investigate the 33,981 cast but not counted ballots of that state in the 2004 race. George Bush "won" New Mexico by 5,988 votes. Or did he? I calculated that, of all the ballots rejected and "spoiled," 89% were cast by voters of color. Who won New Mexico? Kerry won -- or he would have, if they had counted the ballots.

But they didn't count them. And that was deliberate.

- rob 4:09 PM - [PermaLink] -

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A Follow up on yesterday's post about Letters of Marque.

I also posted that piece on Daily Kos, because, and no offense against our regular viewers, I wanted more then 12 people reading it (actually there are more of you then that, which is all the more satisfying when you realize how far you had to go to get here what with us being located in a far off dark corner of the internet).

One comment linked to this earlier Daily kos diary: Daily Kos: The Legality of Warrantless Surveillance

Apparently the Legality of Warrantless Surveillance as argued by the President and Attorney General Gonzales rests on the premise that the United States is at war. What war? Congress is the branch of government which declares War. No War has been Declared by Congress.

Congress authorized the use of force to go get Osama bin Ladin. Thats what used to be called a Letter of Marque, and the initial form of the Force Authorization was called a Letter of Marque by Ron Paul the Texas Libertarian who first proposed it.

The commenter who pointed me to that article noted that it is odd that the administration basically asked for Letters of Marque to go after Osama, but now have mercenaries running around willy nilly in Iraq without Letters of Marque.

Another comment to the DKos version of yesterday's post noted:

The 1856 treaty you reference was the Treaty of Paris which the U.S. didn't sign or ratify because it was not a party to the Crimean War. The main parties were the U.K., France, Russia and the Ottoman Empire. During the Civil War and the Spanish-American War, the U.S. issued statements that it would abide by the principles of that treaty for the duration of hostilities. The abolition of Letters of Marque and Reprisal was in an annex to the treaty and not the main subject of the treaty. Its an interesting question whether or not Letters of Marque would be considered illegal as a matter of customary international law.

This Supreme Court with its "strict construction" might decide to be extremely literal and construe Letters of Marque as being purely maritime (I don't know of any instance when Letters of Marque were issued for non-nautical purposes) and thus would consider these mercenaries to be outside the purview of the Constitution.

Just to let you know, of all the crimes the Bush folks have committed, ignoring (or just interpreting it differently then I, which is fine because I ain't no lawyer) this little provision of the Constitution isn't going to even be a hundredth of the way up that very long list.

My issue really is that Congress is willfully putting themselves out of a job.

Congress will always be filled with men and women who act as stooges to big money, it will always have folks putting money in fridges, it will always have out of touch legislators. And it always has been filled with folks like that.

But they also wanted their role in government to continue. Even if they were mainly interested in their personal enrichment they also did believe that there was a responsibility to the nation that the Congress must always meet. And that responsibility was to act as a check to the Executive office.

The founders knew the nation must have a leader with power to be able to exist. They also knew the nation must have many others to limit and keep track of that power (Congress and the Supreme Court).

But Congress under Republican rule has no interest in that now. Not even being concerned if Iraq required a Letters of Marque (much less a declaration of war), proves that they think their role is only to write the budget. And in the end Bush even ignores that role having his defense department move defense funds around despite what the Congress designated them for (specifically using some of the funds for the Afghanistan invasion to ramp up for the Iraqi invasion).

So that being said lets listen, yet again, to one of the founders, because they say it best, and with less typos:



Power may be justly compared to a great river; while kept within its bounds it is bother beautiful and useful, but when it overflows its banks, it is then too impetuous to be stemmed; it bears down all before it, and brings destruction and desolation wherever it goes.
- Alexander Hamilton

- rob 3:43 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Okay Class - anyone remember this?:



Bush swore on the bible to uphold this document.

Let's read some of it shall we, from the part about what Congress does versus what the President does:

U.S. CONSTITUTION

Clause 11: To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

We've all heard in the papers about only Congress declares war, and we've all heard about the excuse that Congress's approval of the option to use force in Iraq somehow waived away the responsibility of Congress to declare war, or of the President requiring such declaration before he acts out his role as Commander in Chief.

But you generally don't read the whole sentence, specifically that line about Letters of Marque. Specifically it means only Congress can hire mercenaries... oh, I'm sorry, private security firms, or whatever the euphemism.

These guys aren't defense contractors, they are mercenaries. They are armed, they shoot, they kill, and are killed.

Private Security Workers Living On Edge in Iraq

With more hired guns in Iraq than in any other U.S. conflict since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Rich and other armed contractors also admit their role is cloudy and controversial. They do shoot to kill, but they aren't legally considered combatants. U.S. Military officials have expressed concern about violence in which the private contractors open fire. The contractors' mission is to protect the lives of individuals and cargo but not necessarily to support the broader interests of the U.S. counterinsurgency.

For more than a year now, Rich has traveled across Iraq, guarding the former U.S. occupation authority chief, L. Paul Bremer, and other high-ranking diplomats. He plans to make a career at Blackwater despite the fact that 18 of his close co-workers have now perished on the job, including two whose bodies were hung in Fallujah last March from what is now called Blackwater Bridge and six who were killed when a helicopter they were riding in was shot down outside Baghdad on Thursday.

Indeed, with an estimated 240 deaths among some 20,000 armed private security contractors in Iraq, Rich's work is as risky or riskier than that of the U.S. military, as firms such as Blackwater take on an unprecedented role in the Iraq war.

Actually the Letter of Marque isn't actually really just hiring mercenaries, it is giving them legal protection. It is the difference between a pirate and a privateer.

On May 22, 2003 Bush issued Executive Order 13303.

...which appears to give immunity from any judicial process to every entity with direct or indirect interests in Iraqi petroleum and related products. "The threat of attachment or judicial process against the Development Fund for Iraq, Iraqi petroleum and petroleum products, and interests therein ... constitutes an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States," reads the executive order. It continues, "Â? any Â? judicial process is prohibited, and shall be deemed null and void."

Sounds like that Executive Order is a fancy 21st Century Letter of Marque. Bush can't issue those. Only Congress can.

Remember the Constitution? Bueller? Bueller?

In 1856 there was a treaty to abolish Letters of Marque. The United States never ratified the treaty.

- rob 6:11 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Flashback to a post from Michael on April 24, 2003 (don't bother clicking the link because I'm reposting Michael's entire post):

The next time New York City takes it on the chin, we shouldn't let the pesky Constitution get in the way of withholding crucial federal support.

"Article IV, Section 4 of the Constitution says, `The United States . . . shall protect each of [the states] against Invasion.' Unlike other provisions that merely authorize governmental action, this article imposes on Washington an obligation to defend states -- and their cities -- from foreign attacks. If New York City needs Operation Atlas, the federal government must pay for the program."

"Significantly, Article IV requires the government to protect "each" of the states from invasion. This means Washington must do so in a way that meets each state's individual needs, and that a particular state must not be left vulnerable just because taxpayers in other states prefer not to contribute additional money needed for its protection. In the war on terrorism, it takes more to defend New York than to defend Nebraska. New York City is a unique terrorist target: a coastal metropolitan center, a national entry point, the financial and cultural capital, the home to the United Nations and a worldwide American symbol. The federal government must take into account the city's special security requirements."

Sure it does; when pigs fly. After all, this is America, not some constitutional democracy.

Over three years later and they're still trying to take away funds meant to defend NY. So much for Article IV.

Meanwhile New York reacts (in typical NY style):



and of course the NYPost:



D.C.'S STUPID SCROOGES SLASH NYC TERROR AID AND SPLURGE ON THE STICKS

June 1, 2006 -- WASHINGTON - Less than five years after the murder of 2,749 people in the Twin Towers on 9/11, the feds yesterday shockingly slashed anti-terror funds needed to protect New York City against future attacks.

The Homeland Security Department announced it was hacking funds distributed to the city by 40 percent compared with last year, while pouring hundreds of millions into unlikely terror targets like Kentucky and Wyoming.

Alas, Bush and company have so terrorized the nation with constant drum beats of "terror, terror, terror" people in Kentuck and Wyoming really are scared of terrorists sitting in a cave in Pakistan and circling a map of Alta, WY and laughing.

Why New York should only get as much money as Alta, WY. New Yorkers are just acting like the whiney city slickers they are. Help us.

- rob 4:39 PM - [PermaLink] -

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NOT YOUR SOLDIER!!
(via CrooksandLiars.com) A must-see, hard-hitting Flash movie that urges an end military enlistment. Best thing I've seen this week.

- Edoc 2:44 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Because the truth is - this "homeland security" department isn't really about keeping America secure - its about keeping Bush politically secure (and they're failing at that too).

Anti-Terror Funding Cut In D.C. and New York

The Department of Homeland Security yesterday slashed anti-terrorism money for Washington and New York, part of an immediately controversial decision to reduce grant funds for major urban areas in the Northeast while providing more to mid-size cities from Jacksonville to Sacramento.

The announcement that the two cities targeted on Sept. 11, 2001, would suffer 40 percent reductions in urban security funds prompted outrage from lawmakers and local officials in both areas, who questioned the wisdom of cutting funds so deeply for cities widely recognized as prime terrorist targets. The decision came less than five months after Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff unveiled changes in the grants plan intended to focus funding on areas facing the gravest risk of attack.
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New Orleans's grants for security and disaster preparedness were cut in half even as it struggles to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina.

Yes 9/11 has basically been the excuse for every abuse of office Bush has done in the past 5 years.

Yes the GOP held its 2004 Convention in New York, again using 9/11 as a political prop.

But Bush always gets the New York tourism song just a bit wrong, when he sings. "I hate new york."

No Icons, No Monuments Worth Protecting

New York has no national monuments or icons, according to the Department of Homeland Security form obtained by ABC News. (Click here for the actual document.) That was a key factor used to determine that New York City should have its anti-terror funds slashed by 40 percent--from $207.5 million in 2005 to $124.4 million in 2006.

The formula did not consider as landmarks or icons: The Empire State Building, The United Nations, The Statue of Liberty and others found on several terror target hit lists. It also left off notable landmarks, such as the New York Public Library, Times Square, City Hall and at least three of the nation's most renowned museums: The Guggenheim, The Metropolitan and The Museum of Natural History.

The form ignored that New York City is the capital of the world financial markets and merely stated the city had four significant bank assets.

- rob 1:55 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Proof that crime doesn't pay.

If you illegally funnel money into a re-election campaign you will get the worst President in history.

Fundraiser Admits Funneling Money to Bush Campaign

TOLEDO, Ohio (Reuters) - A top Republican fund-raiser who is the leading figure in an Ohio political scandal pleaded guilty on Wednesday to illegally funneling money to President George W. Bush's 2004 reelection campaign.
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He wrote checks to two dozen Republican supporters so they could attend a $2,000-a-plate Bush fund-raising dinner held in the state capital of Columbus on October 30, 2003.

Noe's scheme netted $45,400 for the Bush campaign and he became a top fund-raiser for the party in Ohio, raising more than $100,000 for Bush and other Republicans. Bush beat Democrat John Kerry in Ohio by 118,000 votes, a victory that was pivotal to his reelection.

``I came here today in order to accept responsibility,'' Noe, 51, told the judge.

Wow, that's big of Noe, his accepting responsiblity for all of Bush's incompetence since January, 2005.

Well at least someone will accept responsibility for Bush's mistakes, no one in the Bush administration ever will.

- rob 11:59 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Hey - some quick shop talk.

This site has been coming up a bit slow to come up lately, and sometimes without comments. So I switched to a new comment provider. Hopefully this will mean the site comes up an itty bit quicker and that comments always appear.

The downside, the comment window isn't customized yet so it doesn't feature the hard to read greys and blacks that you TCS readers have grown to love.

Actually the real downside is that all those comments on the right side and bottom are starting again at zero (like you read them). They'll still be there on the old pages, but from this point forward they are starting again.

The biggest (but temporary) downside is that comment window has a little bit of advertising in it now. But if I pony up the insane amount of 12 dollars I can get rid of them - so I'll eventually fix that.

So, why do all that when no one actually ever leaves us a comment? Good question.

Why don't you use the comments to discuss this paradox.

- rob 10:53 AM - [PermaLink] -

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bah - blogger just bloggered a post - so I'll just keep this short:

The looting of our treasury continues in Washington. Because the GOP believes a permanent aristocracy is part of their party platform. Entitlement is only for the rich you know.

Estate Tax Lunacy

The Senate, meanwhile, is scheduled next week to take up legislation by Arizona Republican Jon Kyl that would permanently repeal the estate tax on the wealthiest Americans. If enacted, Kyl's bill would plunge the government another trillion dollars into the red during the first decade (2011-2021) that it would be in effect.

- rob 4:53 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Telling it like it is.

Gore: Bush is 'renegade rightwing extremist'

Denying that his politics have shifted to the left since he lost the court battle for the 2000 election, Mr Gore says: "If you have a renegade band of rightwing extremists who get hold of power, the whole thing goes to the right."

- rob 4:40 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Training American Christian Jihadists

The Purpose Driven Life Takers

Imagine: you are a foot soldier in a paramilitary group whose purpose is to remake America as a Christian theocracy, and establish its worldly vision of the dominion of Christ over all aspects of life. You are issued high-tech military weaponry, and instructed to engage the infidel on the streets of New York City. You are on a mission - both a religious mission and a military mission -- to convert or kill Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, gays, and anyone who advocates the separation of church and state - especially moderate, mainstream Christians. Your mission is "to conduct physical and spiritual warfare"; all who resist must be taken out with extreme prejudice. You have never felt so powerful, so driven by a purpose: you are 13 years old. You are playing a real-time strategy video game whose creators are linked to the empire of mega-church pastor Rick Warren, best selling author of The Purpose Driven Life.

It is a real game.


Killing for Christ

Thanks to BoingBoing for the link.

- rob 12:56 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Great Diebold update via Brad Blog and NPR.

THE BRAD BLOG: "NPR's Weekend Edition Covers the Latest Diebold Security Issues"

- rob 4:51 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Yale alums snatched Geronimo's skull, letter says

What's really interesting about this article...

HARTFORD, Connecticut (AP) -- A Yale University historian has uncovered a 1918 letter that seems to lend validity to the lore that Yale University's ultra-secret Skull and Bones society swiped the skull of American Indian leader Geronimo.
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According to Skull and Bones legend, members -- including President Bush's grandfather, Prescott Bush -- dug up Geronimo's grave when a group of Army volunteers from Yale were stationed at the fort during World War I. Geronimo died in 1909.

Is what it leaves out...

Only 15 Yale seniors are asked to join Skull and Bones each year. Alumni include Sen. John Kerry, President William Howard Taft, numerous members of Congress, media leaders, Wall Street financiers, the scions of wealthy families and agents in the CIA.

No mention of the fact that our current President, as well as his father were members of Skull and Bones.

Wouldn't you think it would be of interest that not only Taft but two other Presidents had been members of Skull and Bones - including the sitting President?

No CNN doesn't find that interesting at all, instead moving the Bush connection back 2 generations.

- rob 4:49 PM - [PermaLink] -

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I have a feeling that as a young child when George made a mess the maid cleaned it up. He could bounce to unfinished project to unfinished project loosing interest when the initial fun ended. Actions had no real repercussions.

As an adult his inability to see his actions through in Afghanistan is leading that country to failure.

George got bored with Afghanistan and took his troops and the nation's attention away from the task at hand and instead went into Iraq, leaving Afghanistan little chance to stabilize and leaving bin Laden free to plan and plot.

8 killed in Afghan rioting

Hundreds of Afghan army troops and NATO peacekeepers in tanks deployed around the city, as protesters chanting "Death to America" marched on the presidential palace and rioters smashed police guard boxes and set fire to police cars.

Rioters ransacked several buildings, including a compound belonging to the aid group CARE International. Computers were set on fire and smoke billowed from the buildings.

- rob 4:22 PM - [PermaLink] -

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That bronx cheer you hear?
Its the Bush Boom

Home Foreclosures Up as Mortgage Rates Climb

RealtyTrac, a California organization that tracks foreclosed properties nationwide, found that the foreclosure rate in March of this year was up 63 percent compared with last year.

Consumer confidence falls in May

NEW YORK - Consumer confidence soured in May, as Americans fretted about jobs and the overall economy, a private research group said Tuesday.
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Tuesday's report is disappointing for retailers, which have seen sales slow in May amid cooler temperatures. Economists closely monitor consumer confidence because consumer spending accounts for two thirds of all U.S.
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In a worrisome report issued last week by the Federal Reserve, core inflation, which excludes food and energy, rose 2.1 percent in April, the biggest gain in 13 months

That's making economists nervous that high increases in oil prices are now expanding into other areas of the economy. And the Fed, which has been on an interest-hike campaign over the past two years, is being confronted with the challenge of keeping inflation in check without slowing the economy further.

- rob 2:48 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Here is an example of where real capitalism would have benefited America. Instead though large corporations exerted influence over easily swayed (rhymes with paid) and the government got involved.

And while the politicians and corporations benefit, Americans get fatter and America’s environment more polluted.

Large corporations push to replace inefficiencies with greater inefficiencies, because they only thing these corporations have become efficient at is buying legislators and making money (though often they don’t even do that, but that is where bought and paid for legislation can also come in handy).

Our dependency on fossil fuels is damaging economically, environmentally, and weakens our national security. So given all the options for alternatives where does the government throw our tax dollars – to one of the most inefficient and environmentally damaging alternatives – ethanol from corn. Archer Daniels Midland’s most recent reward for its lobbying and campaign donation dollar.

The Great Yellow Hope

In principle, making fuel from plants makes good sense. Instead of spewing fossilized carbon into the atmosphere, you’re burning the same carbon that a plant removed from the air only a few months earlier — so, theoretically, you’ve added no additional carbon. Sounds pretty green — and would be, if the plant you proposed to make the ethanol from were grown in a green way. But corn is not.
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Estimates vary, but they range from two-thirds to nine-tenths of a gallon of oil to produce a single gallon of ethanol. (The more generous number does not count all the energy costs of growing the corn.) Some estimates are still more dismal, suggesting it may actually take more than a gallon of fossil fuel to produce a gallon of our putative alternative to fossil fuel.

Making ethanol from corn makes no more sense from an economic point of view. The federal government offers a tax break of 54 cents for every gallon of ethanol produced, and this incentive is what has generated the enthusiasm for ethanol refining: the spigot of public money is open and the pigs are rushing to the trough. (At the same time, the government protects domestic ethanol producers by imposing a tariff of 54 cents a gallon on imported ethanol.) According to the Wall Street Journal, it will cost U.S. taxpayers $120 for every barrel of oil saved by making ethanol. Some “savings.” This is very good news indeed for Archer Daniels Midland, the agricultural processing company that controls about 30 percent of the ethanol market.
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As corn prices rise (and the giddiness has already given them a bump), farmers will be tempted to produce yet more corn, which is not good news for the environment this whole deal is supposed to help. Why not? Because farmers will apply more nitrogen to boost yields (leading to more nitrogen pollution) and, since soy bean prices are down, they will be tempted to return to a “corn-on-corn” rotation. That is, rather than rotate their corn crops with soy beans (a legume that builds nitrogen in he soil), farmers will plant corn year after year, requiring still more synthetic nitrogen and doing long-term damage to the land.
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If you can make ethanol from a plant that doesn’t take so much energy to grow in the first place, the economics and energetics begin look a lot better. The Brazilians make ethanol from sugar cane, a perennial crop that doesn’t require nearly as much fossil fuel to grow. Switch grass, too, is a perennial crop that grows just about anywhere, requires little or no fertilizer and needs no plowing or annual replanting. And although the technology for making ethanol from grasses (cellulosic ethanol — distilled from plant cellulose rather than starch) is not quite there yet, it holds real potential.
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Ethanol is just the latest chapter in a long, sorry history of clever and profitable schemes to dispose of surplus corn: there was corn liquor in the 19th century; feedlot meat starting in the 1950’s and, since 1980, high fructose corn syrup.

Do read the entire article, will still be here if you decide to come back.

Like with the introduction of tobacco, corn was benevolently introduced to the white man in the early days of colonization.

And from there greed and marketing ran amuck turning these gifts into curses.

Cheap corn feed has replaced the grasses our cattle used to graze on. Allowing factory farming to become commonplace. Thanks to the cheap feed a burger at a fast food restaurant is actually cheaper then their salads.

Even the quality of milk we drink has become diminished from this overuse of feed with some studies showing that grass fed cow’s milk contains more antioxidants then grain fed cow’s milk.

With high fructose corn syrup our drinks and eats have had their caloric quantity pushed up, and our health has been suffering for it.

Sweet but Not So Innocent?
High-Fructose Corn Syrup May Act More Like Fat Than Sugar in the Body

In 1966, refined sugar, also known as sucrose, held the No. 1 slot, accounting for 86 percent of sweeteners used, according to the USDA. Today, sweeteners made from corn are the leader, racking up $4.5 billion in annual sales and accounting for 55 percent of the sweetener market. That switch largely reflects the steady growth of high-fructose corn syrup, which climbed from zero consumption in 1966 to 62.6 pounds per person in 2001.
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Made from corn starch, high-fructose corn syrup is a thick liquid that contains two basic sugar building blocks, fructose and glucose, in roughly equal amounts. Sucrose, most familiar to consumers as table sugar, is a larger sugar molecule that breaks down into glucose and fructose in the intestine during metabolism.
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More recent research suggests, however, that there may be some unexpected nutritional consequences of using the syrup. "Fructose is absorbed differently" than other sugars, says Bray. "It doesn't register in the body metabolically the same way that glucose does."

For example, consumption of glucose kicks off a cascade of biochemical reactions. It increases production of insulin by the pancreas, which enables sugar in the blood to be transported into cells, where it can be used for energy. It increases production of leptin, a hormone that helps regulate appetite and fat storage, and it suppresses production of another hormone made by the stomach, ghrelin, that helps regulate food intake. It has been theorized that when ghrelin levels drop, as they do after eating carbohydrates composed of glucose, hunger declines.

Fructose is a different story. It "appears to behave more like fat with respect to the hormones involved in body weight regulation," explains Peter Havel, associate professor of nutrition at the University of California, Davis. "Fructose doesn't stimulate insulin secretion. It doesn't increase leptin production or suppress production of ghrelin. That suggests that consuming a lot of fructose, like consuming too much fat, could contribute to weight gain."

Okay this is a minor point, but as it effects the movie going experience this is personally important: You blame high fructose corn syrup as the reason “coke classic” doesn’t actually taste the way coke did before “new coke.” When “coke classic” came out it was trumpeted as the return to the classic formula. Except for one big difference. The sugar of the old recipe had been replaced with the cheaper high fructose corn syrup. For some reason old coke didn’t really taste the way it used to. This let to Coca-cola from Mexico becoming popular as it was still made with sugar, and did taste better, but with the increased demand of their product the Mexican Coke bottlers switched over to high fructose corn syrup as well.

- rob 1:41 PM - [PermaLink] -

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Oh the deficit is frightful
But to spend is so delightful
Let it Snow
Let it Snow
Let it Snow

Snow resigns, Paulson nominated as new Treasury Secretary

PRESIDENT BUSH: Good morning. Welcome to the White House.

I'm pleased to announce that I will nominate Henry Paulson to be the secretary of the treasury.

For the past for eight years, Hank has served as chairman and chief executive officer of the Goldman Sachs Group.

Sachs for the memory
Of things I can’t forget
Journeys on a jet
Our wond’rous week in martinique
And vegas and roulette

- rob 11:28 AM - [PermaLink] -

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Memorial Day



All we have of freedom, all we use or know -
This our fathers bought for us long and long ago.
~Rudyard Kipling


Our nation's young men and women risk and lose their lives so that we can live free. The least we can give them in return is the guarantee that they battle for a real and just cause. It is a crime that this time the US Government could not even give them that.

(yes I cheated I didn't actually post this on Memorial Day).

- rob 11:14 AM - [PermaLink] -

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