Pollution:
Ethanol blended fuels burn 20% cleaner. Which is good. However the real coup is that it removes the need for the additive MTBE. MTBE pollutes ground water, kills fish, corrodes fuel lines, makes fuel production more expensive, and reduces fuel efficiency. It was mandated as a way to decrease air pollution (which it kinda does); but was clearly a mistake.
1 point for Ethanol

Cost:
Ethanol adds 20 cents to the production cost of blended gasoline. The government gives a 51 cent a gallon tax break so that means a theoretical price reduction at the pump of 31 cents. Sound good. Oh except in order to meet the growing demand, corn production will need to ramp up even further. Corn subsidies will grow, and we will be taxes accordingly. So Its probably a wash cost wise. Well, that is unless you live in the corn belt and then its a boon. But I'm sure that the congressmen from those states aren't going to be influenced by all that money and will make the best decision for all Americans.
It's a tie - Still one point for Ethanol.

Fuel Supply Independence:
In my opinion not pissing off fuel producing countries is an excellent way to stabilize fuel supplies; but that being said, fuel source independence is nice. Since Ethanol is corn, and US policy is rigged for corn then its not a bad idea. Well not a bad idea until a massive crop disease hits corn and our entire fuel demand hits the open market again. Mitigating that; in the future ethanol might be replaced with cellulosic ethanol with can be made from a variety of things (read: non-volatile fuel market) such as sweet potatoes, switch grass and pineapple tops). Brazil is pretty much converted over to domestically produced ethanol. That probably helps out their trade balance immensely. Brazil deserves a whole post by itself.
So I'll call it 1/2 a point for a total of 1.5

Fuel Efficiency:
Uh oh! Ethanol will reduce fuel efficiency. An auto getting 20mpg will get 14.2mpg with an blended fuel. And that makes it more expensive per mile and increases the total pollution.
Minus two points for a total of -.5

So I guess ethanol isn't totally despicable. But why bother when biodesil our pure used vegetable oil is so cheap and easy? Here is a list new cars that can run on biodiesel. A dollar says that they are competitive with a similar class of hybrid on fuel efficiency and cheaper to buy. Not ot mention manlier.

Fun Ethanol Fact: the Model T could run on any mixture of gasoline or ethanol.

Factual information for this post is largely plagiarized from the Wall Street Journal. Which I recommend instead of watching the news.

Labels: economics, opinion, politics, science

As you can tell I've totaly sold out and put Google Ads on blog. I've tucked them down past the important stuff on the side so I hope you'll forgive me. Or better yet, Click away and help me defray my costs. Excuse me, I need to shower now.

Labels: mikeablexray.com

My brother reports that the hot springs at Mammoth Mountain were closed on his most recent hiking excursion because of irregular heating activity. Mammoth Mountain is a dormant volcano that is in the process of waking up. Considering the recent California Earthquake, the changed activity at Yellowstone, some local MT earthquakes, and the fact that my dogs couldn't be naturally this dumb, we might be entering a time of increased geologic activity. Which is a good news / bad news situation. Bad because Natural disasters cause horrific human tragedies; Good because natural disasters make for excellent TV.

So if I had to place one chip on the Roulette Wheel of Earthquake and Volcano Eruption Prediction I'd go with: 6.5 or greater in the Portland/Seattle area within 18 months. You read it here first.

Labels: earth science

From a historic perspective the United States it's self a super-state. Under the Articles of Confederation the Federal (super-state) Government had very limited powers. It was found lacking and there in the Constitution was born that gave the Federal Government more power. Further amendments gave the Federal Government ever increasing authority over the States. The power to regulate trade, the power to tax income, and so on were not in the original draft of either document. In fact the Revolutionary War was fought so that the colonists(or at least the wealthy ones) could operate without that kind of government meddling. The Federal Government is now so powerful that's its almost impossible to view constituent states as autonomous. Its only out of precedent that we refer to them as states at all.

Super-states seem to be the trend of the future. Many states in Europe have joined the European Union. The EU is not a full fledged super-state. The laws aren't entirely universal, The EU doesn't tax it's member state populations (directly) and so on. It does have a standardized currency and the EU Defense Force is a growing possibility. The EU's biggest obstacle to becoming a super-state is the total lack of European identity. Most Europeans still identify themselves with their individual state. Osama Bin Laden wants an Islamic Super-State that would incorporate numerous sovereign states all around the Indian Ocean.

Apparently the Executive branches of the United States, Mexico, and Canada are also fond of the idea. Without congressional approval to do so the states have been secretly planning the creation of a "North American Union". PAUSE: I'm not one of those OH MY GOD! BUSH IS IN LEAGUE WITH THE ALIEN ILUMINATI TO CREATE A NEW WORLD ORDER! kinda guys. But oddly enough this group of foil-headed morons might be on to something. UNPAUSE: The Administration now admits that through the NAFTA office they have created the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP). This organization will be a super-state to Canada, Mexico and the US and be a forerunner of The North American Union. The SPP will over see trade, customs, border security and do more of that "fight against terror" you've heard so much about. Orwell is spinning is his grave.

For those of you who would like to be a citizen of the North American Union, I'd like to point to the most super of would be super-states is the United Nations. The UN manages to be one of the largest collection of clowns, profiteers, despots and the otherwise despicable. Why? because nobody in some far flung state cares much about anybody else in their far flung state (ours included). I have difficulty imagining that someone from Quebec gives a rip about how sales tax affects your families budget. Further, I'm sure that a foolproof solution for Mexico City is perfectly applicable for Los Angeles (well ok, I might give you that one). And while I’m sure La Paz has lots of nice people who need help; I'm plenty busy trying to prevent the local government from tearing down a historic building right next door. Oh, and one more: are you comfortable with the law enforcement of all three of these states sharing your personal data? Listening to your phone calls? Arresting and charging you?

• Offical Government Information on the Security and Prosperity Partnership
• LibrityPost.org's opinion
• Largely unrelated opinion piece about the rift in EU and American perspective from the Balkans

I pledge allegiance /
to the flag /
of the North American Union /
And to the Federalist Super-State Regime /
for which it stands /
Three nations /
under The Creative Designer /
Irrevocable without a civil war/
for security from terror /
and central planning /
for all. /

Whew! That might be the craziest I've ever been.

Labels: economics, foreign affairs, global, politics

I have turned on the comment back links feature which is suposed to capture any back links to the blog (but I doubt there are any). Unfortunatly the Blogger code for that is broken. So, for the time being, Blogger poops ".comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}" onto the top of the page. Pretty cool, huh?

Labels: mikeablexray.com

An excellent show. The local paper, The Montana Standard, reports The Daily Show is doing a segment on Butte and the Berkeley Pit. They interviewed Sesso and the Stierles. I know both Andrea and John to be intelligent thoughtful individuals so it will be amusing to see how different the final impression is. If I was to bet a dollar, I'd have my money on the crude joke of the Berkeley Pit being a nappy, polluted, microbe infested hole. Funny but not good Butte PR.

Labels: berkely pit, Butte, entertainment, Montana

I am an excellent purveyor of good advice and all other things wise. But perhaps a change of speed is order. Today: the lessons that can be learned from Rocky.

• Take three quick spins to make sure its cool to sit.
• You only have to listen when your in arms reach.
• Chewing on expensive personal electronics is a great stress reliever.
• If you have the mind of pigeon no one is going to hold you accountable.
• If your left alone its ok to vindictively destroy the belongings of others.
• Food tastes best when you snag from someone who is in the can.
• Unidentified gooey stuff that isn't for eating is for to rolling in.
• If you do it enough, people just assume you cant control your slobber.
• The best place to be is on the other side of the door.
• It never hurts to piss on your own feet.
• People are for sitting on.
• Pitifully ugly gets you the chicks.
• Crutches are freaky.
• Despite their protests cats like to be chewed on.
• If your worried, poop on the floor.
• If you don't want to; just pretend you didn't hear.
• Sharing an individual's attention is unacceptable.
• Bathing is a punishment.
• Chicks are strangely wierded out about being drooled on.
• Falling is a close substitute for sitting.
• Whining gets people out of bed.
• Being mounted by a rottweiler is very disturbing.
• Being cute gets you food.
• People who freak out are just covering for their deep desire to pet you.
• Regardless of what they want, its alright to make people ask you repeatedly.
• It's a waste of time to beg from vegetarians.
• Your the king when no one is watching.
• Every dandelion requires extensive examination.
• Asses are like dandelions.
• Children are not to be trusted.
• Facing the other way means no one can see you poop.

Labels: opinion, pets

On top of an active plate boundary is probably not the most ideal location for a major metropolitan area, Much less four (I'm counting Seattle, Portland, San Francisco Bay Area, and the Greater Los Angeles Area, your counting might differ). It's probably hypocritical of me to bash the Gulf States and not mention the doom and gloom that's eventually in store for some lucky location on the western seaboard. Though, at least the west coast can comfort its self in the notion that earthquakes aren't a yearly calamity.

Recently the active faults have given California a warning shot in the form of a mild 4.3-ish quake. Now is the time to check your earthquake kit; friends. If you have an earthquake policy make the payment on time this month.

Speaking of which, Yellowstone Park is up to some of its own unusual antics. Some normally clear water is getting discolored and normally dormant geysers are coming to life. Its going to be a mess when that volcano decides to be born. I hear FEMA loans are 3%. Yes! Construction money!

Here is a nifty USGS offering: Interactive map of California Earthquakes.

Well. That might have been the most pointless post ever.

Labels: California, earth science, opinion

I've decided I'm against corn. To much food comes from corn; corn syrup, corn oil, corn starch and all modified, partially-hydrogenated, high fructose variants. Also remember that your chicken was probably feed a corn mixture, as well as your feed-lotted cattle. So if i had to guess 70% of what's in the supermarket has corn in it.

Cob Corn... MMM Tasty. especially on the BBQ next a tri-tip; and then all messy with butter. I digress.

The other corn isn't probably all that good for you. Humans need something like 40 nutrients. Only a few can be found in corn. We need a wide variety of food sources. With so much food being from corn I don't think we are getting it. Further, dependence on a single food source really sucks when a crop disease springs up.

All this extra corn is processed corn. I think manufacturers choose it because its cheap filler. I think it's cheep because its heavily subsidized. So in a sense our tax dollars are being used to promote corn over other food stuffs. Are you as excited as I am about that possibility?

And then there is ethanol. Which is a whole post by it's self.

Amuse yourself with this experiment. Don't eat anything with corn, corn syrup, corn starch, corn oil, corn feed meat, dairy from corn feed livestock, or any other corn product for a week. I bet you'll eat something corn by accident.

Labels: economics, fitness, opinion, politics, science

The $5.00 fire alarms we get from WalMart have changed. They are now bilingual. I think its great. The English fire alarm "EEEEEEEEEEEE!" is annoying. I think I will prefer to be alerted in a romance language like spanish. Some possible options:

• Alarmo! Alarmo!
• El Beep!
• Casa El Feugo!
• Biblioteca!
• Recomiendo la evacuacion inmediata de la estructura del ardor.
• Para espanol aprieta dos

Do Canadian fire alarms have to alert you in English and French?

Labels: consumer goods, global

Sounds like Brian's trip down the Missouri River is proceeding quickly and without incident. Here is a short film of him getting launched: Brian Goes Down the River (.wmv 4.3 MB)

Labels: friends, kayak, videos

Hurricane country is piss poor place for a house. By the way the Federal Government already has a map of the possible destruction that will be caused if Lake Okeechobee overflows but wont release it because it "might help terrorists". I just bet that FEMA will happily put your needs above national security concerns despite now being controlled by the Department Homeland Security. For those of you without sufficient sense to leave I want to wish you the best of luck for the 2006 Hurricane Season.

Labels: earth science, opinion, politics

I'm sure some of you are laboring under the notion that baseball is this great sport. I'll admit is has its points but it could use some help; and who better than me (someone entirely unfamiliar with baseball) to do the helping.

1st - put the name on the uniform. If you want encourage new viewers make it easy on them. I know that lots of teams have away jerseys with names, but come on! All names all the time.

Baseball needs to be converted from a 54 out game into a 54 minute game. Each side gets three minutes every inning. The pitcher has a 20 second pitch clock from the end of the last "action". The game clock would stop at the end of the action/play/pitch Batters would be simply s-o-l if they weren't ready when the pitch was thrown. The game clock would start when the pitch was thrown and stop when the pitcher got the ball again. Stealing, and checking base runners would also take time off, but you could only check a runner twice (after that it would be a license to steal) There would be three 90 second time outs in a game. A single pitch out would walk a batter instead of 4.

Base runners should be able to do more than run bases, If the runner wants to he should be able run from 1st to home to take out a catcher so that the guy coming from third scores. A batter (if he gets wood on the ball) should be able to also sprint over to third to help the runner from second. I suppose there would be no reason not to just charge the mound, but hey a few fast balls inside fixes that problem. In fact if a fast hitter can confound the outfielders there no reason why he cant just stay out there and cause trouble if they choose to let him be and continue the game (but I don't see why they would).

Rainouts are for wimps.

Baseball has developed some cool visuals over the years to help understand things like the nuances of pitching at batting but still... no reason to dally longer than 20 seconds between pitches. There is just only so much that can be said about ball two high and away. Some will say that it will burn out pitchers. Who cares? Athletes are an expensive but ultimately discardable commodity. Since the sacrifice play wouldn't be a huge sacrifice it would better to pitch to all the batters, regardless of how many steroids they take. And what makes baseball players so special. They should be allowed some real contact now and then. And I'm talking more that the freak event a catcher happens to be in the base line.

Labels: opinion, sports

A number of moons ago Robert and I were volunteered to head up the fireworks for the Chinese New Year Parade. Butte lays claim to the shortest, loudest and coldest Chinese New Year parade in the country. The parade goes from the courthouse to the Mai Wah Chinese History Museum. It consists of Montana's only Parade dragon followed by a motley of fools banging pots. Our contribution was to recruit people to light firecrackers off cigars and chuck them somewhere children weren't. We mostly succeeded. Its a complete public safety nightmare, which is just the way I like it. The culmination is a 10,000 fire cracker salute (and we threw in some Saturn missiles left over from last 3rd of July). I bet your Chinese New Year was lame. Year of the Dog!

Robert's failed audition for "Band of Brothers"

Labels: Butte, Chinese New Year, friends, image, Mai Wah

A short film by Max Detjens: Robert Goes Sleding (.wmv 7.8 MB)

Labels: friends, sleding, videos

I recently went East to visit Laura and see the sights. Good times. For those who haven't had a chance to visit her I'm happy to report that she has herself setup nicely. Her home is pretty big and remarkably private. (It's tastefully appointed as well.) Her little town of Phoenixville is very Butte-like. According to Laura it's a steel town gone bust (sound familiar?). It's got a cute downtown, and has that local character that is so rare in these days of national big box retail chains. Its located near Valley Forge National Park (which is quite spectacular by the way). I do hear that it's Strawberry Festival sucks, so you might want to skip that.

We had a good time checking out Philadelphia proper, Seeing the Liberty Bell, Exhibits on Ben Franklin and Independence Hall. If your a liberty nut like me its quite interesting. Excellent I highly recommend it. New to Philly is an old-time ice-cream parlor / soda-jerk. It was pretty cool. Its run by some collage kids, they make their own ice-cream, and have waxed facial hair. Delightful.

The "spider" that holds the Liberty Bell together.
Washington Monument from the WWII memorial.

Laura was sweet enough to take me to Washington DC. I had never been so it was a real treat. It was during the "Rolling Thunder" bike rally so the streets and parks were filled with bikers, vets, and Joan Jett impersonators. It was about 95 degrees and we ended up walking a pretty big circuit. We did the American History and Natural History Smithsonian, Washington Monument, Signers of the Declaration of Independence Memorial, The Vietnam Memorial, The Lincoln Memorial, The FDR Memorial, The Korean War Memorial, The WWII Memorial, and The Jefferson Memorial. Oh and we saw George's House.

My Favorite: The Korean War Memorial.

George, your lawn is getting a little brown. You should see to that. It kinda brings down the neighborhood.

DC, one more place Laura is gorgeous.

My last day of touring we hit Valley Forge. Which is quite cool. Washington seems like quite the dynamic cat. We took a trolley tour which the only run on special holidays, with a ranger that was quite knowledgeable. I recommend it as a stop.

Nutty recreationist or ghost of the Continental Army? Discuss!

Visiting Laura was a pleasure. Plus I fixed her porch light. She also has learned that I am a culinary genius and am not to be questioned. :)

Day 4: Laura Clearly has had an assfull of my shenanigans.

Labels: friends, image, vacation

This is the 100th Post. For your amusment I submit the following statistics on the first 99 posts.

Date of First Posting	3/3/2005
Days Posting	1 year 3 months 5 days or 460 days
Average Posts per Minute	0.000149457
Average Posts per Day	0.215217391
Average Posts per Month	6.456521739
Number of Comments	10
Number of Comments By Me	1
Average Comments per Minute	1.50966E-05
Average Comments per Day	0.02173913
Average Comments per Month	0.652173913
Average Comments per Post	0.101010101
Most Comments From:	Laura
Comments Monderated	1
Total words	15442
Characters (no spaces)	72511
Characters (with spaces)	88709
Words per Post	155.979798
Characters per Post	732.4343434
Characters per Post (with spaces)	896.0505051
Total sentences	1499
Average words per Sentence	10.3
Words with 1 Syllable	11185
Words with 2 Syllables	2847
Words with 3 Syllables	1037
Words with 4 or more Syllables	373
Percentage of word with three or more syllables	9.13%
Average Syllables per Word	1.39
Gunning Fog Index	7.77
Flesch Reading Ease	78.69
Flesch-Kincaid Grade	4.84

PS. Happy 666 Day!

Labels: mikeablexray.com