This one actually makes me really hope that the world is ending. If you make it to the end of this, you might want to schedule an appointment with a therapist.
Thursday, March 29, 2007
Monday, March 26, 2007
Amazing Finish
This doesn't really belong here but i post on my sports blog like once every 3 months and it's pretty much what i'd call "defunct" so i'll just put it here so people can see it.
This is the ending to the NCAA Division II finals and it's pretty unbelievable. This kid scores 10 points in the last 45 seconds including two Reggie Miller-like steals for the win. I can't believe this isn't a bigger story, actually. If you like sports even an iota, you'll enjoy this:
This is the ending to the NCAA Division II finals and it's pretty unbelievable. This kid scores 10 points in the last 45 seconds including two Reggie Miller-like steals for the win. I can't believe this isn't a bigger story, actually. If you like sports even an iota, you'll enjoy this:
Thursday, March 22, 2007
The WTF Award of the Week
Alright, the computer is stumbling along well enough to post a small entry. I'm still trying to get this week's Shuffle posted on Championship Vinyl but i think i may just push it to next week. This week's kind of a lost caust anyway.
So this is just batshit crazy. Enjoy.
So this is just batshit crazy. Enjoy.
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Today's Sign that the Apocalypse is Upon Us
Harry Potter Fan Stalks Actress, Apparently Her Magical Powers Could Not Prevent It
Listen, i think she's cute too, but she's a fucking character in a children's fantasy book for fuck's sake!!!!!!!!!
Listen, i think she's cute too, but she's a fucking character in a children's fantasy book for fuck's sake!!!!!!!!!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
The Case Against Ethanol
My Dad buys me a subscription to Fly Rod and Reel every year. I like the magazine and i flip through the pictures of big fish, but even though i am a huge fan of fly fishing, i just can't bring myself to read through most of it. I get about 5 other magazines, I am constantly reading one book or another, and usually at the end of the day i like to do something passive like watch one of my DVRed shows instead of reading about fishing a small stream in northern Pennsylvania that i'll never, ever see.
But i was flipping through it this morning over breakfast and this story caught my eye. It's a story, as you'll hopefully read, that talks about how the increase in Ethanol usage will actually be worse for local enviroments than continuing to use fossil fuels, and due to the powerful agricultural lobby, is just as dirty and underhanded in its politics as any of the big oil lobbies. Long term, Ethanol might seem better for our air, and for global warming, but is ruining our topsoils and streams (and in turn ruin our forests, streams, lakes, oceans, underground watertables and killing fish, crustaceans, all the animals that prey on them, and eventually us, etc.) really worth it?
Some good excerpts:
"It all started in 1990 with amendments to the Clean Air Act, revolutionary in that they regulated not just how we burn gasoline but how we make it. In areas out of compliance with air-pollution standards, gasoline had to include at least two percent oxygen-containing chemicals (oxygenates), the better to combust carbon monoxide, toxic hydrocarbons, and smog-producing volatile organic compounds. There were only two choices--ethanol and the petroleum-based methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE). This was precisely what the cornbelt had fantasized about and lobbied for. Suddenly the moribund ethanol industry had a future. City air would become breathable. We'd have plenty of fuel. It was going to be a win-win-win.
But instead of cleaning up America, ethanol has added to the mess we're making out of our water and air. Now the Bush Administration has decreed that ethanol replace the far more efficient MTBE as an oxygenate. But with current refining technologies and anti-pollution paraphernalia on motor vehicles there's no need for any oxygenate, a fact the powerful agribusiness lobby doesn't want you to know. Under its withering pressure, Congress and the executive branch have committed the nation to ethanol as both oxygenate and fuel."
and also this one:
"First, no crop grown in the United States consumes and pollutes more water than corn. No method of agriculture uses more insecticides, more herbicides, more nitrogen fertilizer. Needed for the production of one gallon of ethanol are 1,700 gallons of water, mostly in the form of irrigation taken from streams either directly or by snatching the water table out from underneath them. And each gallon of ethanol produces 12 gallons of sewage-like effluent.
Ethanol plants are gross polluters of air and water, and because of the exorbitant price of natural gas some of the new ones will be coal-fired, adding to the already dangerous mercury content of fish. The response of the Bush administration has been a proposal to relax pollution standards for ethanol production. Under the conservation programs of the 1985 Farm Bill and its successors, some farmers are bootstrapping their way toward sustainable agriculture, but corn production still erodes topsoil about 10 times faster than it can accrete.
The toxic, oxygen-swilling stew of nitrates, chemical poisons and dirt excreted from the corn monocultures of our Midwest pollutes the Mississippi River and its tributaries, limiting fish all the way to the Gulf where it creates a bacteria-infested, algae-clogged, anaerobic "Dead Zone" lethal to fish, crustaceans, mollusks and virtually all gill breathers. In some years, depending on seasonal heat and water conditions, the Dead Zone can cover 8,000 square miles. And it's expanding."
It's an intersting read and i'm curious to see what you all think. I know we've all been fed this huge sunny picture about Ethanol, but it's important to realize just how many dollars are being thrown at our politicians and into marketing messages and propaganda campaigns to make us think that it's the magic bullet, when it's anything but.
But i was flipping through it this morning over breakfast and this story caught my eye. It's a story, as you'll hopefully read, that talks about how the increase in Ethanol usage will actually be worse for local enviroments than continuing to use fossil fuels, and due to the powerful agricultural lobby, is just as dirty and underhanded in its politics as any of the big oil lobbies. Long term, Ethanol might seem better for our air, and for global warming, but is ruining our topsoils and streams (and in turn ruin our forests, streams, lakes, oceans, underground watertables and killing fish, crustaceans, all the animals that prey on them, and eventually us, etc.) really worth it?
Some good excerpts:
"It all started in 1990 with amendments to the Clean Air Act, revolutionary in that they regulated not just how we burn gasoline but how we make it. In areas out of compliance with air-pollution standards, gasoline had to include at least two percent oxygen-containing chemicals (oxygenates), the better to combust carbon monoxide, toxic hydrocarbons, and smog-producing volatile organic compounds. There were only two choices--ethanol and the petroleum-based methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE). This was precisely what the cornbelt had fantasized about and lobbied for. Suddenly the moribund ethanol industry had a future. City air would become breathable. We'd have plenty of fuel. It was going to be a win-win-win.
But instead of cleaning up America, ethanol has added to the mess we're making out of our water and air. Now the Bush Administration has decreed that ethanol replace the far more efficient MTBE as an oxygenate. But with current refining technologies and anti-pollution paraphernalia on motor vehicles there's no need for any oxygenate, a fact the powerful agribusiness lobby doesn't want you to know. Under its withering pressure, Congress and the executive branch have committed the nation to ethanol as both oxygenate and fuel."
and also this one:
"First, no crop grown in the United States consumes and pollutes more water than corn. No method of agriculture uses more insecticides, more herbicides, more nitrogen fertilizer. Needed for the production of one gallon of ethanol are 1,700 gallons of water, mostly in the form of irrigation taken from streams either directly or by snatching the water table out from underneath them. And each gallon of ethanol produces 12 gallons of sewage-like effluent.
Ethanol plants are gross polluters of air and water, and because of the exorbitant price of natural gas some of the new ones will be coal-fired, adding to the already dangerous mercury content of fish. The response of the Bush administration has been a proposal to relax pollution standards for ethanol production. Under the conservation programs of the 1985 Farm Bill and its successors, some farmers are bootstrapping their way toward sustainable agriculture, but corn production still erodes topsoil about 10 times faster than it can accrete.
The toxic, oxygen-swilling stew of nitrates, chemical poisons and dirt excreted from the corn monocultures of our Midwest pollutes the Mississippi River and its tributaries, limiting fish all the way to the Gulf where it creates a bacteria-infested, algae-clogged, anaerobic "Dead Zone" lethal to fish, crustaceans, mollusks and virtually all gill breathers. In some years, depending on seasonal heat and water conditions, the Dead Zone can cover 8,000 square miles. And it's expanding."
It's an intersting read and i'm curious to see what you all think. I know we've all been fed this huge sunny picture about Ethanol, but it's important to realize just how many dollars are being thrown at our politicians and into marketing messages and propaganda campaigns to make us think that it's the magic bullet, when it's anything but.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Hypocrisy Know No Bounds
Newt Gingrich admits to cheating on both of his wives. One instance which occured while he was going after Bill Clinton about Monica Lewinsky.
Anyone surprised?
Anyone surprised?
Friday, March 02, 2007
Today's Sign that The Apocalypse has Been Coming for a While
This is probably the record for most posts in a week but i had to mention this.
So i'm walking through the parking lot towards my office today and i see a bumper sticker that reads, "I (heart) my Wife" buried in amongst the other obligatory bumper stickers about loving jesus and being Christian, etc.
And i know this isn't new but shouldn't i be more interested in a bumper sticker that says, "I Don't (heart) My Wife"? I mean, isn't that the point to getting married, loving your wife? I know it's probably more common to not love her and call me an old fashioned romantic but come on. Do you really need to put in on your bumper? Is that the appropriate place to declare love for one's wife? Are we in such rare and desperate times that a bumper sticker is necessary to set you apart from the divorced and unloving masses? It goes without saying that it's a sad, sad state of affairs.
So i'm walking through the parking lot towards my office today and i see a bumper sticker that reads, "I (heart) my Wife" buried in amongst the other obligatory bumper stickers about loving jesus and being Christian, etc.
And i know this isn't new but shouldn't i be more interested in a bumper sticker that says, "I Don't (heart) My Wife"? I mean, isn't that the point to getting married, loving your wife? I know it's probably more common to not love her and call me an old fashioned romantic but come on. Do you really need to put in on your bumper? Is that the appropriate place to declare love for one's wife? Are we in such rare and desperate times that a bumper sticker is necessary to set you apart from the divorced and unloving masses? It goes without saying that it's a sad, sad state of affairs.
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