Posted by
OldRelayer on Monday, February 16, 2009 10:14:05 AM
More true today than when Will Rodgers first used it in his stand up act. The country is safest when Congress is not in session, I don't remember the exact quote but you get the idea. Congress is a collection of idiots, simply put.
Whenever they put their fingerprint on something it is a disaster. Case in point. The stupid mandate to use Ethanol, a bio fuel that for one thing competes with food production for resourse that in itself is cause for alarm but it also is a disaster. Mandated by the Congress in 2007 and I guess signed off by Bush, but Bush was held captive to his main goal which was keeping the country safe and sometimes lost sight of the ball, although I think generally Bush is a good job.
Now we are stuck with 10% ethanol. I lost 12% of my fuel economy with Ethanol from a 10% mixture. From what I can determine that is pretty typical and even worse for small engines that wear very quickly as well. Follow me on this one. Implemented to decrease greenhouse gases. It is a net loss of almost 2%. If you burn 12% more from a 10% mixture that is a net loss, I wonder what set of genius scientist they had in on this one. You could have mixed in 10% water and got better results. The only thing it has accomplished is to raise the emissions and cost us 10 to 12%. Global climate changes have been happening with or without us for 5 million years. If it were not for these climate changes the earth would not be habitual. Not to mention the fact that over the last 30 years we have gone a long way to decrease such gases and even if every US car was parked and every US business shut down it would not do one thing even if the Global warming thing isn't a scam. Reason being, India and China are the worst offenders and we have no leverage over China that we owe Trillions of Dollars to, not so sure about India but what is the point. I love O'Riley's reason for global warming, he can't ice skate on the pond as he did when he was a kid, I doubt .6 of a degree would do that, Bill your pond is polluted, plain and simple. I am not against a thoughtful cleaning up of our environment. I lived in Lowell Mass. in the early 70's. The Merrimac river runs through Lowell and for years was the source of energy for industry and also its cesspool. Right along the River was a great park that I would love to take my daughter to(my favorite time), as you walked along the wall of the river rats would scurry to wherever rats go, the river was disquisting. As part of some grant it was decided to clean up the river and stop homes and businesses from dumping, they dredged the river bed and took out billions of tons of solid waste. Today that river is prestine, you can swim in it and you probably could drink it. It was a great thing for the cities and towns along the Merrimac. They did a similar thing to the lake in the town I grew up in with the same results. I am not against such things but lets not get stupid and keep focus on what is real and what is important.
Back to Ethanol. Now we are using a lot less gas and these companies that spent a lot of money tooling to produce Ethanol. Guess what industry is looking for a bail out now. Yes they were conned by the government, what is new. But you put down your money and you take your chances, that is what America is all about. Case in point. I did a stupid thing in hind sight last fall, I pre bought 500 gallons of #2 heating oil at $4.49 a gallon. Today you can buy #2 for less than $3 cash and carry. I am not going to cry about, I put my money down and took my chances, I lost, I am a big boy I can take it.
In the same tone,
Doug Patton has a great article today "Why Our
Enemies Are Laughing at Us", It isn't posted on his blog yet but I am sure it will be by the end of the day".
This is a quote from his article, thanks Frank for sending it to me.
"Another source of amusement for the entire
world must be our refusal to tap into our own natural resources to supply
much-needed energy. Instead, we have allowed environmental crazies to hold us
hostage their “green” agenda. Now those crazies are running our government, and
while they fiddle with “alternate” sources of energy — most of which don’t work
or are not practical — they would rather continue to give billions of dollars to
oil-producing nations around the world who hate us than to utilize our own
resources."
Well said.
.