Gasoline And Alcohol Do Not Mix

Here is an anti-ethanol Sacramento Bee article from the enviro-weenie perspective. 

It's not too bad.  I am against the idea of the CRP program and payments from the government for fallow ground.  We had very little tillable crop land on rough ground with thin soil.  We grew hay and grazed beef and dairy, and raised a few hogs.  It was commonsense.  A government program was not necessary.

I am opposed to ethanol in fuel, in general.  Despite the claims of many, ethanol is potentially damaging to engines, especially smaller engines.  For my bikes, gasoline mowers, trimmer, and tiller, I buy premium with no ethanol which is available only at one station in the immediate vicinity.  There are others at varying distances of fifteen to thirty miles.  I am fortunate in the we have a drag strip nearby, and this station caters to the specialized fuel needs of the gearheads. 

I am no expert, but I have talked to the mechanics who actually work on these engines.  Every one of them hates ethanol in fuel. 

Ethanol from corn is merely the stupidest of all stupid renewable "fuels".  There is little if any net energy gain from corn ethanol because corn is so petroleum-intensive to produce.  I suppose the leftover mash can still be used as a protein supplement in livestock feed.  Producing ethanol is also a water-intensive process, and the waste water is considered a pollutant.  At least that is what I heard when an ethanol plant was being talked about locally a few years back.  There was a good chance that some of the shallower farm wells in the vicinity would have been ruined by the deep wells needed by the plant.  Not all of the ground on this part of the old plateau has good hardpan so you could easily get ground water contamination down to the shale layer.   Some older wells may not be cased through the shale, and just one such could allow the aquifer to be contaminated. 

In other words, for once, for whatever reason, I agree with the enviro-weenies.  It's time to end the ethanol mandate. 

Water Rights

I voted for Richard Nixon.  Nixon started the EPA.  Of all the stupid things he did, including floating the dollar, his establishment of the EPA and his declaration of the War on Drugs have been two of the most devastating in terms of their impact on personal freedom and private property rights.

According to PJ Media's Bridget Johnson, the enviro-nazis may be planning to use water to seize control of private land.  

The proposed rule, obtained by the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee in advance of EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy’s testimony at a Thursday oversight hearing, widely broadens the definition of waterways over which the federal government has jurisdiction to as little as a water ditch in a backyard.

The Clean Water Act redefinition of “waters of the United States” would include all ponds, lakes, wetlands and natural or manmade streams that have any effect on downstream navigable waters — whether on public lands or private property.

There was a rumor a while back that our state Department of Natural Resources was considering putting meters on private wells. 

Forget oil.  One of these days there is liable to be a war over water, unless some reasonable means of desalinization is developed.

Seriously, I don't think the big-government types understand.  When I get really thirsty, I get a little crazy.  

I Do Not Have A Wall Street Address

Every time someone wants to defend the Obama regime in the face of a low and possibly still declining rate of employment, a massive rise in food stamp participation, significant inflation -- especially in terms of food, and, of course, the expansion of government, they like to point to things like "35 record highs for the Dow" this year.

Artificially low interest rates and massive expansion of the money supply are ignored.  Wall Street is prospering.  We should "feel" rich.

This is another bubble, blown, in this case, mostly by the Fed's buying of government debt instruments with money that does not exist.  Eighty-five billion a month is going to keep the government churning and the economy at a standstill.  Despite their best efforts, bonds rose over the last week.  Here's the chart from Yahoo as mid-afternoon on 11/12/13:


Debt service is still manageable, but if you want to look at it this way, you could say that about half of the deficit is a result of the interest payments.  That means the higher the rate goes, the higher the deficit goes, and the faster we accumulate new debt that has to be serviced.


Just for fun:

Predictions are never right.  I predicted skyrocketing inflation for March 2011.  It didn't happen as dramatically as I expected because, I suppose, the overall weakness of the economy and the high unemployment rate.  But we have had significant food inflation both in terms of the actual prices and in quantity reduction -- smaller packages costing as much or more than the larger sizes available previously.

So I'll make another ridiculous and undoubtedly wrong prediction:  there will be a correction in the markets in January 2014.  Initially I think the Dow drops back under 14,000 and the S&P goes under 1600 early in the year, rebounds a little going into summer and crashes more significantly to start the fall.  This is not investment advice and should be ignored by anyone seeking to actually make money.  Keep listening to the experts and ignore cranks like me.  I know nothing.  I'm just writing this down now, so I can look back in a few months and mock my own naiveté.   

 

Specialization Is For Insects

It's a great a line from Heinlein. I don't know if he got it from someone else, but I got "Anyone Can Learn To Be A Polymath" from Vanderleun's sidebar.

There are several points to be gleaned from Robert Twigger's article, but this falls near the heart of the matter for me: 

Invention fights specialisation at every turn. Human nature and human progress are polymathic at root. And life itself is various — you need many skills to be able to live it. In traditional cultures, everyone can do a little of everything. Though one man might be the best hunter or archer or trapper, he doesn’t do only that.

By all means, read the whole thing.

A family friend and neighbor flew submariner hunters in the Cold War/Vietnam era.  He's a pretty smart man and had a high rank with SHAPE in Belgium when he was done flying.  My father completed the 8th grade.  One day, our friend, observing Dad at some task there on the farm, remarked with admiration, that Dad was "a man of many talents."  Of course, we thought that was funny.  It is just what you have to do.  Our friend has been retired for a number of years and running a livestock operation of his own.  I'm sure he is now a man of many talents himself. 

One of the nice things about the internet is that you can get information and instruction about how to do almost anything.  So, now and then, it's maybe a good idea to take a break from the funny cat videos, and learn how to forge a big knife from a lawnmower blade.  How about how to program in Python?  Brush up on geometry?  Somebody has to pick the slack for the Breaking Bad guy.

As Twigger's piece points out, the more varied our experience and knowledge, the more likely we are to come up with innovative solutions to problems.  Fiddling around with tractors and other equipment has probably made me a better software developer, and my experience with software has undoubtedly helped me solve some mechanical problems.  Don't be afraid to learn something new and totally useless.  You never know when it will come in handy. 

The Art of the Lie

Do you wonder sometimes how leftists can get away with serial lying? 

Let’s look at Benghazi.  Whatever the Obama Regime was trying to do and cover up, they were clearly involved in something they shouldn’t have been – likely trying to recover arms they had smuggled to Al-Qaeda linked rebels to transfer to more Al-Qaeda linked Syrian rebels.  To cover both that fiasco and maintain the fiction of an “Arab Spring”, they blamed a video.  When that lie was exposed, it became “old news” and after all, we just had to do a better job of defending the embassies.  Hillary was resigning.  Forget it.

With Obamacare, we see a similar pattern.  The lie was told over and over and over.  People were convinced that they would somehow get free government health insurance – which was never part of the plan.  The vast majority of Americans – eighty percent – were assured their health insurance would not be touched.  Now that that lie has been exposed, they go into the mode of trying to focus outrage on the deployment rather than the nature of the actual problem.  Policies are being cancelled, but let’s all talk about the problems with the site. 

Now the lie becomes how much better things will be for people.  Those who were cancelled had substandard policies.  That’s what Obama meant.  You don’t want those “bad” policies.  We know what you want.  Very soon this lie will be exposed, and the focus will go to the Republicans who won’t fund all the things needed in order to make it work.  The original lie is now “old news”. 

And so it goes. 

It’s a lot like that old saying about sin:  Sin will take you farther that you meant to go; keep you longer than you meant to stay; cost you more than you meant to pay.

Eventually what happens is that the electorate forgets what caused the problem to begin with.  We were doing all right until Obamacare.  That messed everything up.  Now we have to have more government intervention to fix what was caused by government intervention. 

The lie is always about getting the focus off the cause and onto an effect or some peripheral issue. 

Prosecutors Who Should Be Prosecuted

I remember this very well.  On Halloween night, 2001, the sport editor for the Columbia Daily Tribune (Columbia, Missouri) was murdered in the Tribune's parking lot.  Two men were convicted of the crime under Boone County Prosecutor Kevin Crane -- a good law and order Republican. 

One of the men, Charles Erickson, confessed to the crime, and, likely in exchange for a lighter sentence, implicated a friend, Ryan Ferguson.  Ferguson, who maintained his innocence, was sentenced in 2005 to 40 years in prison.  Erickson got 25 years. 

Part of the case against Ferguson was based on testimony from alleged eyewitness, Jerry Trump.  Trump was in prison at the time he identified Ferguson:

At the evidentiary hearing, Trump said Kevin Crane, then chief prosecutor and now a 13th Circuit Judge, called him while in prison and said it would be "helpful" for him to identify Ferguson and Erickson.

Crane's investigator Bill Haws talked to Trump while he was still in prison and also interviewed Barbara Trump. The prosecution is legally obligated to disclose all interviews to the defense attorneys. Haws did not file a report on these interviews and therefore Crane didn't necessarily know they took place, according to the opinion.

I would guarantee Crane knew all about it.  As prosecutor, Crane was quite ambitious and wanted convictions at any cost.  I had a little personal experience with Crane's office, so maybe I'm not too objective.  I come near to hating those bastards.  Because of the misconduct by Crane and his team and because there was no real evidence to link Ferguson to the killing, his conviction has, at long last, been overturned.  This sounds fairly typical:

Chuck Erickson and Jerry Trump are the two witnesses who recanted their testimonies.

Erickson had been partying with Ryan Ferguson the night of the murder and in 2004 started having dreams that the two committed the killing. They were underage but had been drinking at a local club. Erickson also admitted to using cocaine, Adderall and marijuana that night.

Erickson received a 25-year sentence after pleading guilty to second-degree murder, first-degree robbery and armed criminal action.

In 2009, Erickson taped a sworn statement that he committed the robbery and murder alone. Erickson testified at the 2012 evidentiary hearing that he had no memory of the killing whatsoever.

Trump, a janitor at the Columbia Daily Tribune at the time, saw two men the night of the killing and testified at the original trial that one of them was Ryan Ferguson. He recanted his testimony at the evidentiary hearing, stating he only identified Ryan Ferguson because he thought it was what the prosecutor, Kevin Crane, wanted. (Links are from the original.  Emphasis added by me.) 

I suspect that is what Kevin Crane wanted, maybe because he is a despicable SOB.  

An innocent man -- a kid, really -- has lost nearly a decade of his life to a prosecutor who just wanted one more scalp on his belt.  I am confident that Kevin Crane and the other attorneys in his office at the time will never suffer much in this world for what they have done.  I am also confident that some bright day all these creeps who think nothing of ruining a few innocent lives in their quest for position and power will have to face a righteous Judge who has all the evidence in hand.  

A Letter from Claire

Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill is concerned about her constituents and wants to meet with us to find out what we think. 

Dear Mr. and Mrs. [Mushroom],

My name is David Rauch and I am a staff member for U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill. On Tuesday, November 12, 2013, on behalf of the Senator, I will be hosting a "Kitchen Table Talk" in Buffalo at the O'Bannon Center (315 East Ramsey) from 10:30 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. The purpose of this meeting is to reach out to you, to listen to your thoughts and ideas about federal policies and legislation and to take them back to the Senator.

These "Kitchen Table Talks" also serve, in part, to inform you of the services that are available through Senator McCaskill's regional offices. The Senator's staff throughout the state are able to assist you on a range of federal government issues. If you are currently having an issue with a federal agency, I will be happy to discuss that with you and put you in touch with the member of the Senator's staff best suited to help with your issue.

Should you have any questions, please contact me at David_Rauch@mccaskill.senate.gov or by calling (417) 868-8745. I hope you will be able to join me in Buffalo on November 12th.

Sincerely,

David Rauch
Field Representative
U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill

An anonymous citizen's reasonable response:

Thank you, Mr. Rauch and Senator McCaskill, for the kind invitation.  Unfortunately, the Senator would be highly unlikely to appreciate any input my wife and I would be able to provide, especially as regards the Senator’s vote in favor of the so-called “Affordable Care Act” which is already proving disastrous economically to thousands of Missourians.  I have family members who are losing their insurance coverage because of this bill and the lies (“If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.  Period.”) told by the President and by Senator McCaskill.  If the Senator had listened to her constituents rather than using her “mom voice” on them, she would have voted against this mess and been hailed as a hero in Missouri and throughout the nation.  However, as partisan loyalty trumps both the best interests of the citizens subjects and – apparently – reality, she could not do that. 

Meanwhile the private sector of the economy (you know, the part that actually produces for the parasites getting government checks to consume and waste) continues to languish because of the deficit and another irresponsible increase in the debt ceiling.  Inflation grows as the Federal Reserve, via its ZIRP and QE policy, continues to enable the federal government’s ability to spend money in excess of its $2 trillion in annual revenues, buying votes in the urban centers and enriching its union and corporatist allies. 

Consequently, I, who might have been able to retire a few years early, will be working desperately to keep my job on November 12th at 10:30 am.  I will be trying to keep my insurance, to help out my children and grandchildren, to save a little more to make up for the devastating effects of interest rates below 1% and exponential losses caused by inflation and taxes.   

But by all means, Mr. Rauch, I urge you and the staff and the security detail and the Senator to enjoy traveling around and livin’ la vida loca of the political and governmental elites.  After all, you really are better and know better than us.  You deserve it.