Posts

Showing posts with the label energy policy

Gas Protest and Other Stupid Ideas

Updated I - Updated II - Updated III On May 15, some percentage of MySpace users will show their solidarity and not buy any gasoline for a single day. This is, of course, a ridiculous idea. The bulletin reads thus (there are a few different versions, I am picking on the most common): Dont buy gas may 15th PROTEST Body: DON'T PUMP GAS ON TUESDAY, MAY 15, 2007 In April 1997, there was a "gas out" conducted nationwide in protest of gas prices. Gasoline prices dropped 30 cents a gallon overnight.On May 15th 2007, all Internet users are to not go to a gas station in protest of high gas prices. Gas is now over $3.00 a gallon in most places.There are 73,000,000+ American members currently on the Internet network, and the average car takes about 30 to 50 dollars to fill up.If all users did not go to the pump on the 15th, it would take $2,292,000,000.00 (that's almost 3 BILLION) out of the oil companys pockets for just one day, so please do not go to the gas station on May 15t...

Children of the Corn

Michael Pollan's excellent Omnivore's Dilemma , ISBN-13 978-1594200823, features an anecdote about the Mayans early on in the first chapter. The Maya word that referred to themselves and their civilization was "corn walker," and often you hear Chicanos and other Mexican indigenous peoples using that term on themselves even today. But Pollan points out that in fact North Americans are truly corn, walking. The reason we know this is because corn is particularly greedy when it comes fixing carbon, especially carbon-13, from the atmosphere, which leaves a nice carbon trail throughout the food chain; to wit, our carbon-13 to carbon ratios in body mass often exceed persons with corn visibly more abundant in their diets (eg, the bulk of the average Mexican's diet consists of tortillas, tamales, things fried in corn batter, drinks made with corn, etc). But a more thorough look at the diet of a typical American reveals a food landscape overwhelmed with corn: high fructose ...