30 de marzo de 2007
Idiot trying to put Usana down
Barry Minkow compares USANA vitamins to the competition
http://cosmos.bcst.yahoo.com/up/finance?ch=633473&cl=2163587&lang=en
28 de marzo de 2007
27 de marzo de 2007
Our World: Condi's embrace of jihadist 'peace'
n an open act of war, Iran Friday kidnapped 15 British soldiers in the Persian Gulf. Iran's act of aggression occurred just as the British voted in favor of a UN Security Council resolution imposing increased sanctions against Teheran for its illicit nuclear weapons program.
Several theories have been raised to explain Iran's behavior. Some say that the Iranians acted against the British in the hope that Britain would respond by abandoning its alliance with the US and swiftly pulling its forces out of Iraq.
Another theory is that in kidnapping the sailors the Iranians are seeking to reenact their ploy from last summer. Then, Iran ordered its Lebanese proxy Hizbullah to kidnap IDF soldiers in order to divert the international community's attention away from Iran's nuclear program. As is the case with the British servicemen, so last summer's attack on the IDF took place as the Security Council was expected to convene and discuss sanctions against Iran for its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Yet another theory has it that Iran kidnapped the sailors to use as a bargaining chip to force the US military to release Iranian operatives who the US has arrested in Iraq in recent months. Whatever the case may be, it is absolutely clear that the Iranians intentionally fomented this international crisis with the expectation that their aggression would in some way be rewarded.
AGAINST THIS backdrop, and given the stakes involved, it could have been expected that the US and its allies would be concentrating their attention on how to weaken Iran and its terror proxies and curtail Iran's ability to acquire a nuclear arsenal. But, alas, the US is doing just the opposite.
The Iranians acted as US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was en route to the region. Since Friday, Rice has shuttled between Egypt, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan, and is on her way to Saudi Arabia. She is not working to coordinate moves to check Iran's increasing bellicosity. Rather, Rice is laboring to empower Teheran's terrorist allies in Hamas, the Islamic Jihad and Fatah. This she does by promoting the so-called Arab peace plan, which demands that Israel agree to dangerous and strategically catastrophic concessions to the Palestinian terrorist government.
In behaving thus, Rice is walking in the well-worn footsteps of her predecessors. Indeed, it seems almost axiomatic that when the going gets tough for US administrations, administration officials get tough on Israel.
AFTER THE Republicans won control of the Congress in 1994, then president Bill Clinton was hard-pressed to advance his domestic agenda. And so Clinton - who had almost no interest in foreign policy in his opening years of office - turned his attention to Israel and the so-called peace process, in which Israel was expected to give land, arms and legitimacy to the PLO in exchange for terrorism.
Clinton's penchant for forcing Israeli concessions to the PLO in the name of peace became more pronounced as things became more difficult for him during his impeachment hearings in 1998. As the House of Representatives poised to vote on articles of impeachment, Clinton twisted then prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu's arm until he signed the Wye Plantation memorandum, in which Israel pledged to transfer wide swathes of Judea and Samaria to Yasser Arafat's terrorist government.
Clinton forced Netanyahu's hand in spite of the fact that, by 1998, it was clear that Arafat was actively enabling Hamas and Islamic Jihad to carry out terror attacks against Israel and indoctrinating Palestinian society to wage jihad for Israel's destruction.
But negotiating with Netanyahu was inconvenient. Netanyahu refused to implement the Wye agreement in light of Arafat's support for terrorism and forced Clinton to acknowledge that Arafat was doing nothing to combat terror. Unhappy with this state of affairs, Clinton set out to overthrow Netanyahu's government.
IN AN ACT of unmitigated contempt for Israeli democracy and electoral laws, Clinton sent his own election advisers James Carville, Stanley Greenberg and Robert Schrum to Israel to run Labor party leader Ehud Barak's campaign in the 1999 elections.
The culmination of Clinton's campaign was the failed Camp David summit in July 2000. There, and in subsequent desperate discussions with Arafat at Taba, Barak agreed to hand over the Temple Mount to Arafat in addition to Gaza, Judea, Samaria and a pile of money.
Israel paid dearly for Barak and Clinton's behavior. In the Palestinian jihad that followed Arafat's rejection of Barak and Clinton's plaintive offers, more than 1,000 Israelis were murdered - more than 70 percent of whom were civilians. Israel's international standing fell to all-time lows as global anti-Semitism rose to levels unseen since the Holocaust.
America too, paid dearly for Clinton's behavior. Rather than pay attention to the burgeoning terror nexus which had placed the US directly in its crosshairs - in 1993 at the World Trade Center; in 1996 at the Khobar Towers; in 1998 at the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; and in 2000 at the USS Cole - Clinton remained scope-locked on the so-called peace process.
Rather than acknowledge the existence and threat of the global jihad to US national security, Clinton pressured the global jihad's primary victim - Israel - into transferring its heartland and capital to the godfather of modern terrorism.
But while Israel and America bled, Clinton himself paid no price for his behavior. Rather than be blamed for the war he contributed so richly to enabling, Clinton is upheld as a hero at best, or at worst a tragic figure who devoted his presidency to the cause of peace.
Today, Rice's newfound mania for peacemaking comes when local conditions
negate any possibility of peace. Just last month the Saudis promised the Palestinians a billion dollars and so paved the way for
the Mecca accord, where the Iranian-sponsored Fatah terror group surrendered to the Iranian-sponsored Hamas terror group. In so acting, the Saudis brought about the formation of a Palestinian government openly committed to the use of terrorism as a tool to ensure Israel's destruction.
International conditions also ensure that Rice's peacemaking will fail to make peace. Regionally, Iran ups the ante daily against the US-led coalition in Iraq. Domestically, the Democratic-controlled Congress works daily to prevent the US from fighting its enemies. Globally, states as far-flung as Russia, China and Venezuela make deals with terror governments to check US power.
The program that Rice has come to the region to advance does not even have the benefit of a peaceful facade. The Palestinians make clear every single day that they do not and will not accept Israel's right to exist in any borders, and that they will not work to combat terrorism against Israel. The Arab League, and its member states, for their part, have repeatedly announced that they will brook no change in their "peace" plan which, if implemented will bring about Israel's rapid destruction.
In behaving as she does, Rice, like Clinton before her, is aided by a politically weak and strategically incompetent Israeli government that is willing to sacrifice Israel's long-term security for the benefit of prime-time photo opportunities with bigwig American leaders and Arab potentates.
Sunday, the Olmert-Livni-Peretz government has announced that it is open to negotiating on the basis of the Arab plan. As one government official told The Jerusalem Post, Israel will "not dismiss" the plan. THIS IS Israel's position in spite of the fact that the Arab plan calls for Israel to surrender east, north and south Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria and the Golan Heights to Hamas and Syria and for Israel to permit four to five million hostile, foreign-born Arabs posing as Palestinian "refugees" to immigrate to its truncated territory. As the "peace" plan makes clear, all these suicidal Israeli moves must come before the Arab states will be willing to have "regular" (whatever that means) relations with the indefensible, overrun Jewish state. Commenting on the government's position, the official explained, "We would not reject this out of hand." It is not surprising that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni are behaving in this manner. After all, these are the same leaders who brought about Israel's defeat in Lebanon in last summer's war at the hands of Iran's Hizbullah proxy army. Last summer, Olmert followed Livni's lead in rejecting military victory as an option. Heeding Livni's unwise, defeatist counsel, Olmert postponed the essential ground offensive in south Lebanon until it was too late to make a difference and instead opted for a negotiated cease-fire. As is the case with the Arab "peace" plan, the cease-fire Israel enthusiastically acceded to last summer was strategically disastrous for the country. UN Security Council Resolution 1701 placed Israel on the same plane as the illegal Hizbullah terrorist organization; prevents Israel from taking steps to defend itself; does not require the safe return of IDF hostages Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser; enables Hizbullah to rearm and reassert its control over south Lebanon; and lets Hizbullah's state sponsors Syria and Iran completely off the hook for their central role in Hizbullah's illegal war against the Jewish state. Recent history shows that the US and Israel will both pay heavily for the opportunism of our weak political leaders. It can only be hoped that the Israeli and American people have learned enough from our experiences to demand that our leaders stop their reckless behavior before the price of their cowardice and perfidy become unbearable.
26 de marzo de 2007
sink
昨日下午，北京东华门附近一家餐厅的洗手间外，一位男士在洗手。该餐厅有3个造型奇特的洗手池，“支撑洗手盆的是女人浑圆的臀部和修长的大腿，而且涂上鲜红的颜色。尽管在艺术界这样的创意或许被奉为时尚，但在许多顾客眼中，它们却让男女顾客颇觉尴尬。本报记者王贵彬摄
25 de marzo de 2007
21 de marzo de 2007
19 de marzo de 2007
Dan Akroyd Unplugged on UFO's Part 5
http://www.spikedhumor.com/articles/90215/Dan_Akroyd_Unplugged_on_UFO_s_Part_5_of_6.html
17 de marzo de 2007
One Reason I Got my Back All Bowed up....
....over the NAZI chic thing in the update to this post is that there are still people out there who are upset Hitler didn't finish the job... and not just loons in the closet either.
Witness this bizarre talk by an Iranian scholar regards the subtle Jewish propoganda that is Tom and Jerry...
Laugh at the fact that Tom and Jerry was not made by Walt Disney. Chuckle over the weird notion that the predatory cat is the true victim of the cruel mouse...(yes Tom can be sympathetic I suppose but COME ON).
And just scratch your head over the fact that this asshat is using Schindler's List as a reference for this holocaust denying, Tom and Jerry maligning, lecture.
But while you smirk at this idiot, remember, this guy is quite representative of people who run several countries and in this particular country those people want to get and are close to getting nukes to wipe Israel off the face of the Earth. And remember that periodically their Hezbollah proxies are trying to(and all too often often succeeding to) kill Jews via rocket, bomb or gun.
Anyway, I stand by the devil-worship comment, no matter how ironically cute the fanart may be.
14 de marzo de 2007
12 de marzo de 2007
11 de marzo de 2007
WHAT PEOPLE ARE SAYING ABOUT THE FILM
http://obsessionthemovie.com/quotes.htm
Below is our response to the New York Times Article about “Obsession” submitted by director Wayne Kopping.
Dear Editor,
I am the Director of the film "Obsession" and I am writing in response to the February 26, 2007 article entitled "Film's View of Islam Stirs Anger on Campuses".
First of all, the headline of the piece is terribly misleading - "Obsession" is not a film about Islam as a whole, but rather it discusses the hijacking of Islam by Radical Muslims who seek to foster terrorism against the West.
Second, it is erroneous to claim that "Obsession" will incite Islamophobia or create an anti-Islamic backlash. In "Obsession", we make a clear distinction between 'radical' and 'moderate' Muslims, and we repeatedly declare that the majority of Muslims are not radicals. To date, the film has already been seen by millions of people around the world, and there has not been even one reported incident of violent backlash as a result of 'Obsession'. On the contrary, the film has received acclaim and commendation from leaders, critics and military experts alike, who have found the film to be fair and accurate in its presentation [see http://obsessionthemovie.com/quotes.htm for quotes]. The film only seems to 'stir anger' from those fringe quarters who share the agenda of defending groups with radical tendencies.
To that end, it is with regret that our film finds itself the victim of slanderous attacks from the Muslim Student's Association (MSA), et al, who have succeeded in shutting down at least two screenings of the film on college campuses. Additionally, there have been other reports of intimidation by the MSA, in their quest to stop further screenings of the film.
We denounce the actions of the MSA in the strongest terms. Rather than furthering vital conversation around the issue of Radical Islamic terrorism and helping to bridge the gap between communities, the MSA is stifling valuable dialogue.
Our aim is, and has always been, to work together with those moderate Muslims who recognize the threat of Radical Islam -- which is why we were so surprised by the hostility of the MSA, (who purport to be a moderate Muslim group). Moderate Muslims around the world are often the first victims of the Radical Islamist ideology. It is for this reason that we had hoped that the MSA would stand as partners with "Obsession" and declare themselves against the Radicals and the terrorists.
And finally, we take exception to the fact that Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller is quoted in the article as saying that the film was propaganda and "a way to transfer the Middle East conflict to the campus, to promote hostility." The article fails to note that Rabbi Seidler-Felder has the reputation of being an outspoken 'leftist' who, earlier this year, admitted to assaulting a pro-Isreali journalist at a rally in 2003 (see http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2007/feb/15/hillel_director_apologizes_attack ). The failure of mentioning Rabbi Seidler-Felder's background provides a false impression since it implies that the Rabbi speaks for the Jewish community at large, which he certainly does not.
It is our hope that people will continue to view the film, so that we can nurture an open dialogue and continue on the path of education and understanding.
Wayne Kopping
Director, Editor, "Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against The West"
The New York Times
February 26, 2007
Film’s View of Islam Stirs Anger on Campuses
By KAREN W. ARENSON
When “Obsession: Radical Islam’s War Against the West,” a documentary that shows Muslims urging attacks on the United States and Europe, was screened recently at the University of California, Los Angeles, it drew an audience of more than 300 — and also dozens of protesters.
At Pace University in New York, administrators pressured the Jewish student organization Hillel to cancel a showing in November, arguing it could spur hate crimes against Muslim students. A Jewish group at the State University of New York at Stony Brook also canceled the film last semester.
The documentary has become the latest flashpoint in the bitter campus debate over the Middle East, not just because of its clips from Arab television rarely shown in the West, including scenes of suicide bombers being recruited and inducted, but also because of its pro-Israel distribution network.
When a Middle East discussion group organized a showing at New York University recently, it found that the distributors of “Obsession” were requiring those in attendance to register at IsraelActivism.com, and that digital pictures of the events be sent to Hasbara Fellowships, a group set up to counter anti-Israel sentiment on college campuses.
“If people have to give their names over to Hasbara Fellowships at the door, that doesn’t have the effect of stimulating open dialogue,” said Jordan J. Dunn, president of the Middle East Dialogue Group of New York University, which mixes Jews and Muslims. “Rather, it intimidates people and stifles dissent.”
The documentary’s proponents say it provides an unvarnished look at Islamic militancy. “It’s an urgent issue that is widely avoided by academia,” argued Michael Abdurakhmanov, the Hillel president at Pace.
Its critics call it incendiary. Norah Sarsour, a Palestinian-American student at U.C.L.A., said it was disheartening to see “a film like this that takes the people who have hijacked the religion and focuses on them.”
Certainly it is a new element in the bitter campus battles over the Middle East that have encompassed everything from the content and teaching of Middle East studies to disputes over art exhibitions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to debates over free speech.
“The situation in the Middle East has been a major issue on campus for decades, but the heat has noticeably turned up lately,” said Greg Lukianoff, the president of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education.
At San Francisco State University, for example, College Republicans stomped on copies of the Hamas and Hezbollah flags last October at an “antiterrorism” rally. At the University of California, Irvine, the Muslim Student Union drew criticism last year for a “Holocaust in the Holy Land” program about Israel.
Brandeis University officials pulled an exhibition of Palestinian children’s drawings, including some of bloodied Palestinian children, designed to bring the Palestinian viewpoint to the campus, half of whose students are Jewish.
Three years ago a video produced by a pro-Israeli group featuring Jewish students’ complaints of intimidation by Middle East studies professors at Columbia set off a campus-wide debate over freedom of speech and academic freedom, prompting an investigation that found some fault by one professor but “no evidence of any statements made by the faculty that could reasonably be construed as anti-Semitic.”
Into this milieu stepped the producer of “Obsession,” Raphael Shore, a 45-year-old Canadian who lives in Israel, with the documentary. It features scenes like the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Muslim children being encouraged to become suicide bombers, interspersed with those of Nazi rallies.
The film was directed by Wayne Kopping of South Africa, who had worked with Mr. Shore previously on a documentary about the failure of the Oslo peace efforts in the Middle East. Mr. Shore said in a recent interview that they had not set out to make a film for college students but to spur action against Islamic terrorism. “We want to spread this message to all people that will stand up and make a difference in combating this threat,” he said.
When no traditional film distributors picked it up, he said, colleges were an obvious outlet — it was screened on 30 campuses last semester — along with DVD sales on the Internet (ObsessionTheMovie.com), and showings at synagogues and other locales, including conservative ones like the Heritage Foundation in Washington. There were also repeated broadcasts of abbreviated versions or excerpts on Fox News in November and again this month, and on other media outlets like CNN Headline News.
“College students have the power with their energy, resources, time and interest to make a difference, often more than other individuals,” Mr. Shore said.
He hired a campus coordinator, Karyn Leffel, who works out of the New York City office of the Hasbara Fellowships program, which aims to train students “to be effective pro-Israel activists on their campuses.” “ ‘Obsession’ is so important because it shows what’s happening in Israel is not happening in a vacuum,” said Elliot Mathias, director of the Hasbara Fellowships program, “and that it affects all American students on campuses, not just Jewish students.”
Mr. Shore said that despite the collaboration with Hasbara, the goal was to draw a wide audience.
“The evangelical Christians and the Jews tend to be the softest market, the most receptive to the message of the film, so we have done lots with those groups,” he said. “But we are trying very hard to expand beyond those groups, because we specifically don’t want it to be seen as a film that has that connection.”
Mr. Shore describes his film as nonpartisan and balanced, and many viewers agree with him. Traci Ciepiela, who teaches criminal justice at Western Wyoming Community College in Rock Springs and has a screening scheduled this week, says she learned from the film and did not think that it was unfair or inflammatory.
But others see it as biased. Arnold Leder, a political scientist at Texas State University, San Marcos, decided not to use it for his course “The Politics of Extremism” because of what he called “serious flaws,” including that it did not address Islam in general, the history of Islam and the schisms within the faith.
“If it were used in a class,” he said, “it would have to be treated as a polemic and placed in that context.”
Rabbi Chaim Seidler-Feller, director of U.C.L.A. Hillel, called the documentary propaganda and said it was “a way to transfer the Middle East conflict to the campus, to promote hostility.”
While the film carries cautions at the beginning and end that it is only about Islamist extremists — and that most Muslims are peaceful and do not support terror — Muslim students who have protested say they believe the documentary will still fuel prejudice.
“The movie was so well crafted and emotion manipulating that I felt myself thinking poorly of some aspects of Islam,” said Adam Osman, president of Stony Brook’s Muslim Students’ Association, who asked that it not be shown.
While screenings were canceled under pressure at Pace and Stony Brook, Ms. Leffel said that most campus screening, like a recent one at Providence College in Rhode Island, had taken place without incident. Students at New York University decided they wanted to present it, despite misgivings by some Muslim students.
At the screening there late last month, the viewers — many of them Muslims — ganged up on Robert Friedman, a discussion leader who had been sent by the “Obsession” filmmakers. (The event was sponsored by the Middle East Dialogue Group at N.Y.U., the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life, Arab Students United and the Pakistani Students Association.)
Mr. Friedman told the audience, “You have to understand a problem before you can solve it.”
But most of the viewers, including both a rabbi and a Muslim chaplain on a discussion panel put together by the students, said the film did not foster understanding.
“The question about radical Islam and how do we fight it is unproductive,” said Yehuda Sarna, the New York University rabbi on the panel. “The question is how to break down the stereotypes facing the two religions.”
Steven I. Weiss, editor and publisher of CampusJ.com, an Internet site that covers Jewish news on campuses, said he was surprised by the Jewish skepticism to the film at N.Y.U. “Were a Jewish leader from virtually any significant organization to walk in on that discussion,” he said, “they’d be very surprised and displeased. This is the opposite of the change they’ve been looking for in campus rhetoric.”
10 de marzo de 2007
Biofuels Boom Raises Tough Questions
Biofuels Boom Raises Tough Questions
Saturday March 10, 5:51 pm ET
By Matt Crenson, AP National Writer
Biofuels Boom Raises Tough Questions Over Environmental Benefits of Corn-Based Ethanol
NEW YORK (AP) -- America is drunk on ethanol. Farmers in the Midwest are sending billions of bushels of corn to refineries that turn it into billions of gallons of fuel. Automakers in Detroit have already built millions of cars, trucks and SUVs that can run on it, and are committed to making millions more. In Washington, politicians have approved generous subsidies for companies that make ethanol.
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And just this week, President Bush arranged with Brazil's President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva for their countries to share ethanol production technology.
Even alternative fuel aficionados are surprised at the nation's sudden enthusiasm for grain alcohol.
"It's coming on dramatically; more rapidly than anyone had expected," said Nathanael Greene, a senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
You'd think that would be good news, but it actually worries a lot of people.
The problem is, ethanol really isn't ready for prime time. The only economical way to make ethanol right now is with corn, which means the burgeoning industry is literally eating America's lunch, not to mention its breakfast and dinner. And though ethanol from corn may have some minor benefits with regard to energy independence, most analysts conclude its environmental benefits are questionable at best.
Proponents acknowledge the drawbacks of corn-based ethanol, but they believe it can help wean America off imported oil the way methadone helps a junkie kick heroin. It may not be ideal, but ethanol could help the country make the necessary and difficult transition to an environmentally and economically sustainable future.
There are many questions about ethanol's place in America's energy future. Some are easily answered; others, not so much.
WHAT IS ETHANOL?
Ethanol is moonshine. Hooch. Rotgut. White lightning. That explains why the last time Americans produced it in any appreciable amount was during Prohibition. Today, just like back then, virtually all the ethanol produced in the United States comes from corn that is fermented and then distilled to produce pure grain alcohol.
WILL MY CAR RUN ON IT?
Any car will burn gasoline mixed with a small amount of ethanol. But cars must be equipped with special equipment to burn fuel that is more than about 10 percent ethanol. All three of the major American automakers are already producing flex-fuel cars that can run on either gasoline or E85, a mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline. Thanks to incentives from the federal government, they have committed to having half the cars they produce run on either E85 or biodiesel by 2012.
HOW FAST IS ETHANOL PRODUCTION GROWING?
About as fast as farmers can grow the corn to make it. According to the Renewable Fuels Association, a trade group, ethanol production has doubled in the past three years, reaching nearly 5 billion gallons in 2006. With 113 ethanol plants currently operating and 78 more under construction, the country's ethanol output is expected to double again in less than two years.
IS ETHANOL BETTER THAN GASOLINE?
For all the environmental and economic troubles it causes, gasoline turns out to be a remarkably efficient automobile fuel. The energy required to pump crude out of the ground, refine it and transport it from oil well to gas tank is about 6 percent of the energy in the gasoline itself.
Ethanol is much less efficient, especially when it is made from corn. Just growing corn requires expending energy -- plowing, planting, fertilizing and harvesting all require machinery that burns fossil fuel. Modern agriculture relies on large amounts of fertilizer and pesticides, both of which are produced by methods that consume fossil fuels. Then there's the cost of transporting the corn to an ethanol plant, where the fermentation and distillation processes consume yet more energy. Finally, there's the cost of transporting the fuel to filling stations. And because ethanol is more corrosive than gasoline, it can't be pumped through relatively efficient pipelines, but must be transported by rail or tanker truck.
In the end, even the most generous analysts estimate that it takes the energy equivalent of three gallons of ethanol to make four gallons of the stuff. Some even argue that it takes more energy to produce ethanol from corn than you get out of it, but most agricultural economists think that's a stretch.
BUT AREN'T THERE ENVIRONMENTAL BENEFITS TO ETHANOL?
If you make ethanol from corn, the environmental benefits are limited. When you consider the greenhouse gases that are released in the growing and refining process, corn-based ethanol is only slightly better with regard to global warming than gasoline. Growing corn also requires the use of pesticides and fertilizers that cause soil and water pollution.
The environmental benefit of corn-based ethanol is felt mostly around the tailpipe. When blended into gasoline in small amounts, ethanol causes the fuel to generate less smog-producing carbon monoxide. That has made it popular in smoggy cities like Los Angeles.
WHAT ABOUT ETHANOL'S ECONOMIC BENEFITS?
Making ethanol is so profitable, thanks to government subsidies and continued high oil prices, that plants are proliferating throughout the Corn Belt. Iowa, the nation's top corn-producing state, is projected to have so many ethanol plants by 2008 it could easily find itself importing corn in order to feed them.
But that depends on the Invisible Hand. Making ethanol is profitable when oil is costly and corn is cheap. And the 51 cent-a-gallon federal subsidy doesn't hurt. But oil prices are off from last year's peaks and corn has doubled in price over the past year, from about $2 to $4 a bushel, thanks mostly to demand from ethanol producers.
High corn prices are causing social unrest in Mexico, where the government has tried to mollify angry consumers by slapping price controls on tortillas. Lester R. Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, predicts food riots in other major corn-importing countries if something isn't done.
U.S. consumers will soon feel the effects of high corn prices as well, if they haven't already, because virtually everything Americans put in their mouths starts as corn. There's corn flakes, corn chips, corn nuts, and hundreds of other processed foods that don't even have the word corn in them. There's corn in the occasional pint of beer and shot of whisky. And don't forget high fructose corn syrup, a sweetener that is added to soft drinks, baked goods, candy and a lot of things that aren't even sweet.
Some freaks even eat it off the cob.
It's true that animals eat more than half of the corn produced in America; guess who eats them? On Friday the Agriculture Department announced that beef, pork and chicken will soon cost consumers more thanks to the demand of ethanol for corn.
It's also true that there's a difference between edible sweet corn and the feed corn that's used for ethanol production. But because farmers try to grow the most profitable crop they can, higher prices for feed corn tend to discourage the production of sweet corn. That decreases its supply, driving the price of sweet corn up, too.
In fact, many agricultural economists believe rising demand for feed corn has squeezed the supply -- and boosted the price -- of not just sweet corn but also wheat, soybeans and several other crops.
America's appetite for corn is enormous. But Americans consume so much gasoline that all the corn in the world couldn't make enough ethanol to slake the nation's lust for transportation fuels. Last year ethanol production used 12 percent of the U.S. corn harvest, but it replaced only 2.8 percent of the nation's gasoline consumption.
"If we were to adopt automobile fuel efficiency standards to increase efficiency by 20 percent, that would contribute as much as converting the entire U.S. grain harvest into ethanol," Brown said.
ISN'T THERE A BETTER RENEWABLE FUEL SUBSTITUTE FOR GASOLINE?
Most experts think it will take an array of renewable energy technologies to replace fossil fuels. Ethanol's main drawbacks come not from the nature of the fuel itself, but from the fact that it is made using a critical component of the world's food supply. Ethanol would be more beneficial both environmentally and economically if scientists could figure out how to make it from a nonfood plant that could be grown without the need for fertilizers, pesticides and other inputs. Researchers are currently working on methods to do just that, making ethanol from the cellulose in a wide variety of plants, including poplar trees, switchgrass and cornstalks.
But plant cellulose is more difficult to break down than the starch in corn kernels. That's why people eat corn instead of grass. Plus it tastes better.
There are also technical hurdles related to separating, digesting and fermenting the cellulose fiber. Though it can be done, making ethanol from cellulose-rich material costs at least twice as much as making it from corn.
HOW LONG WILL IT TAKE BEFORE CELLULOSIC ETHANOL IS COMPETITIVE WITH CORN ETHANOL AND GASOLINE?
Some experts estimate that it will take 10 to 15 years before cellulosic ethanol becomes competitive. But Mitch Mandich, CEO of Range Fuels, thinks it will be a lot sooner than that. The Colorado-based company has started building a cellulosic ethanol plant in Georgia that converts wood chips and other waste left behind by the forest products industry. Another company, Iogen Corp., has been producing cellulosic ethanol from wheat, oat and barley straw for several years at a demonstration plant in Ottawa, Canada.
HOW MUCH MORE EFFICIENT WOULD CELLULOSIC ETHANOL BE COMPARED TO CORN ETHANOL?
Studies suggest that cellulosic ethanol could yield at least four to six times the energy expended to produce it. It would also produce less greenhouse gas emissions than corn-based ethanol because much of the energy needed to refine it could come not from fossil fuels, but from burning other chemical components of the very same plants that contained the cellulose.
HOW MUCH GASOLINE COULD CELLULOSIC ETHANOL REPLACE?
The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the United States could produce more than a billion tons of cellulosic material annually for ethanol production, from switchgrass grown on marginal agricultural lands to wood chips and other waste produced by the timber industry. In theory, that material could produce enough ethanol to substitute for about 30 percent of the country's oil consumption.
A University of Tennessee study released in November reached similar conclusions. As much as 100 million acres of land would have to be dedicated to energy crops in order to reach the goal of substituting renewable biofuels for 25 percent of the nation's fuel consumption by 2025, the report estimated. That would be a significant fraction of the nation's 800 million acres of cultivable land, the study's authors said, but not enough to cause disruptions in agricultural markets.
"There really aren't any losers," said University of Tennessee agricultural economist Burton English.
REALLY? NO LOSERS AT ALL?
There might be losers. Simple economics dictates that if farmers find it more profitable to grow switchgrass rather than corn, soy or cotton, the price of those commodities is bound to rise in response to falling supply.
"You can produce a lot of ethanol from cellulose without competing with food," said Wallace Tyner, an agricultural economist at Purdue University. "But if you want to get half your fuel supply from it you will compete with food agriculture."
There may also be ecological impacts. The government currently pays farmers not to farm about 35 million acres of conservation land, mostly in the Midwest. Those fallow tracts provide valuable habitat for wildlife, especially birds. Though switchgrass is a good home for most birds, if it became profitable to grow it or another energy crop on conservation land some species could decline.
WILL ETHANOL SOLVE ALL OF OUR PROBLEMS?
Ethanol is certainly a valuable tool in our efforts to address the economic and environmental problems associated with fossil fuels. But even the most optimistic projections suggest it can only replace a fraction of the 140 billion gallons of gasoline that Americans consume every year. It will take a mix of technologies to achieve energy independence and reduce the country's production of greenhouse gases.
"I think we're in a very interesting era. We are recognizing a problem and we are finding lots of potential solutions," said David Tilman, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota.
But if we're serious about achieving energy independence and mitigating global warming, Tilman and other experts said, one of those solutions must be energy conservation.
That means doubling the fuel economy of our automobiles, expanding mass transit and decreasing the amount of energy it takes to light, heat and cool our buildings. Without such measures, ethanol and other innovations will make little more than a dent in the nation's fossil fuel consumption.
