Love Laugh Life

Here is a love story, at least thats my take

First day, the Blogger

Today marks another attempt at the resumption of using blogger after a 5 year absence. It is a real pain in the butt to start over, but since my 360 page is weirding out, and the other sites I started I am still iffy about, what the hell, why not try blogger again..

Entry for April 12, 2008- Ethanol Farce

http://www.globeinvestor.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080410.wfood0411/GIStory/

I believe we can make a difference in our enviroment, but the use of ethanol as a fuel has had consequences seemingly no one wants to discuss. Exactly how does converting food to fuel help? It makes a miniscule dent in climate change, and a huge impact in feeding people. Well these aren't just my thoughts, here is some excerpts from the hyperlinked story.

We are right now creating a food shortage that will first impact less developed poor countries, but also is impacting what you and i pay for food at the market. The ultimate impact maybe actual shortages of food not only in the less developed world but here also. A shocking quote to consider "Economist Dr. Hazell has said that filling an SUV tank once with ethanol consumes more maize than the typical African eats in a year."

Fill your tank and starve someone? How could so many smart people push such a policy that it now is law in many countries, especially in the EU, where their demand for biofuel will worsen this situation? (Right about now my inner voice is screaming What The F!!!!)

The other "unforseen" impact of this rush to biofuels has been an accelration of land clearing in the Amazon basin, to create farm land from rain forest, which is good news if you like Brazilian hardwood furniture, but generally bad news if you like to breath. "The tremendous number of trees and plants that characterize the Amazon region are responsible for providing the world with as much as 20% of its oxygen." http://www.mrnussbaum.com/amazonia.htm

The rain forest is also part of the global climate weather pattern, since this green island is roughly the size of Australia. Once deforested, the thermal image changs, contributing to ...global warming. So oddly enough, as we urge the use of biofuels to reduce global warming, we hasten it. Typical human intervention; I wonder if Al Gore has thought about these consequences?

How could so many smart people push such a policy that it now is law in many countries, especially in the EU, where their demand for biofuel will worsen this situation?

Fatal food riots in Haiti. Violent food-price protests in Egypt and Ivory Coast. Rice so valuable it is transported in armoured convoys. Soldiers guarding fields and warehouses. Export bans to keep local populations from starving.

For the first time in decades, the spectre of widespread hunger for millions looms as food prices explode. Two words not in common currency in recent years — famine and starvation — are now being raised as distinct possibilities in the poorest, food-importing countries.

How did it come to this? Surging food prices, now at 30-year highs, are actually a relatively new phenomenon. In the mid-1970s, prices began to fall as the green revolution around the world made farms dramatically more productive, thanks to improvements in irrigation and the widespread use of fertilizers, mechanized farm equipment and genetically engineered crops. If there was a crisis, it was food surpluses — too much food chasing too few stomachs — and dropping produce prices had often disastrous effects on farm incomes.

They include turning food into fuel, climate change, high oil and natural gas prices (which boost trucking and fertilizer costs), greater consumption of meat and dairy products as incomes rise (which raises the demand for animal feedstuffs), and investment funds, whose billions of dollars of firepower can magnify price increases.

Driven by fears of global warming, biofuel has become big business in the U.S., Canada and the European Union. The incentive to produce the fuels is overwhelming because they are subsidized by taxpayers and, depending on the country or the region, come with content mandates.

Starting next week, Britain will require gasoline and diesel sold at the pumps be mixed with 2.5-per-cent biofuel, rising to 5.75 per cent by 2010 and 10 per cent by 2020, in line with European Union directives. Ontario's ethanol-content mandate is 5 per cent. As the content requirements rise, more and more land is devoted to growing crops for fuel, such as corn-based ethanol. In the EU alone, 15 per cent of the arable land is expected to be devoured by biofuel production by 2020.

That's raising alarm bells, especially given lingering doubts about the effectiveness of ethanol in combatting climate change. British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said this week he's worried that ethanol production is pushing up food prices everywhere, and he called for an urgent review of the issue. Economist Dr. Hazell has said that filling an SUV tank once with ethanol consumes more maize than the typical African eats in a year.

Rising ethanol demand is one of the main reasons why Wall Street securities firm Goldman Sachs predicts high food prices for a long time. "We believe the recent rise in agriculture prices is not a transient spike, but rather represents the beginning of a structural increase in prices, much as has occurred in the energy and metals markets," Jeffrey Currie, Goldman's chief commodities analyst, said in a research note last month.

Entry for April 11, 2008

A few days ago I predicted (apparently overly optimisticaly) that gas would be $4.13 a gallon by June.

Well, was i wrong...the photo is of a gas station in Los Angeles where Regular is $4.19

Today, not June

This morning as I started out to work, I reminded myself i need gas, so i drove to the station across the way from our house that we usually go to. As I approached, I could feel that knot in the stomach and faintness of breath that happens when you are shocked...mind you last Saturday i bought gas there for $3.69 a gallon, which was too high. Today was another story. 3.949 per gallon= 0ver $70 for my car. Luckily i have no car payment. But what about the people that do? Huge car payment, huge gas bill, etc. I easily imagine this getting into house payment range...

As the character bulldog from frazier says "This stinks, this is total BS!"

Entry for April 08, 2008

Anyone who has read a lot of my blogs will know this, but I have been a Giants fan since I was about 11...so when i was working on my computer, I switched on my TV, and by chance it was on the local Ginats station ..about half way thru the first inning with the Padres.

As I was looking up now and then from my work, I noticed the pitch speed was being displayed on the top of the screen...an 88 mph changeup? A 98 mph curve? a 101 fast ball? who is this guy? Closeup of the mound shows the guy Giants old timers call their kid brother, 23 year old Tim Lincecum. Tim pitched (so far in this contest) 6 innings, and never slowed down. It shows in the score , Giants up by 1 in a total of 3 run game. I dont know why, but watching this kid extend off the mound and send that lump of leather hurling towards the plate in excess of 90 mph, and hearing the announcer intone " Lincecum lets loose a slider , count 3-2, 2 outs, 1 on 3rd...Ohhh, and he's out and the Giants move on to inning...."

Although so far this season, the Giants are 1-6, but its a long way to October...

Predictions April 07, 2008

"Predictions"

Here's some tough ones -

1. Regular gas will be $4.13 a gallon by June 1, 2008
2. Microsoft will buy Yahoo, and Yahoo will fade into oblivion as its absorbed into the giant from Redmond
3. 360 content will be moved to Windows Spaces, drastically improving both
4. Yahoo's witch hunt for adult content will continue to drag innocent content into the delete file, while truly horrific images will remain, which will end when #2 happens, and all adult content is banned
5. These perdictions will be proven wrong or correct in time///

Squirrel valley News for April 07, 2008

Squirrel Valley News- April 7, 2008

Chip Munk, standing in for Bufford T Squirrel, editor

In an effort to curb the recent disastrous effects of the badger invasion from Colorado, the Commission on Squirrel Valley Security Tranquility and Quiet has voted to appropriate a new fee of 15 acorns per new residential dwelling; additionally, families that occupy more than one tree, den or portions thereof are expected to pay a prorate (what ever that means) share to the CSVTQ. Acorns and nuts collected will be sold and the proceed used to hire new patrol canines, such as those in our still photo of the day.

These young recruits are under the tutoring of Oopie Doopie, pride of the Terrier Patrol. She is one tough trainer, known to snap and nip young recruits into shape before their stealth postings to various community locations. The new patrol will work together to locate and defend Squirrel Valley from intruders, especially those interloper badgers