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food for oil
Let’s see. The price of oil and fuel went up sharply and Congress subsidized ethanol production. In the higher priced fuel market, a marginally profitable alternative energy source became more economical with a subsidy. Food became more expensive due to increased fuel costs plus increased scarcity. Now, the UN and others blame the U.S. for causing food shortages.
Like hell. Oil producers effectively encouraged the U.S. to become more energy self-sufficient and the U.S. responded by diverting food carbon into energy production. We have a classic example of unintended consequences beginning with the manipulation of energy prices.
Subsidy of alternative energy production is probably a mistake because subsidies hide real economics and distort profitability, however, the despots-R-us UN is delusional in blaming the U.S. for causing hunger.
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Feb sunsets
geekipedia
Meatspace
“This bit of net-jockey jargon denotes the real world of physical space, where your pasty, withered frame languishes in a drab cubicle — as opposed to cyberspace, where your Second Life avatar rests its buff, rippling bod on a beach while sipping a mojito in virtual Cabo San Lucas.”
i.e. This blog will go static while we travel to Far East meatspace for a few weeks at the end of the year.
And this from a friend, “Sometimes the gleam in their eyes comes from the light bouncing off the back of their skull.”
Thanksgiving weekend
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in racing, just as in life
(click to enlarge) 
morning today
How to counter Islamic extremism
By Abdurrahman Wahid ( Gus Dur )
The Age, Wednesday, April 10 2002
There are two great challenges for reform of education that have to be addressed if Muslim society is to respond meaningfully to the threat of terrorism. Most Muslims are strongly opposed to acts of violence, in any form, undertaken in the name of religion. Consequently, it hurts us to constantly see the name of Islam, “the religion of peace”, linked with international terrorism. Nevertheless, as Muslims we must face the reality that if we fail to address the challenges before us we will find ourselves constantly confronted with accusations of harboring terrorists – regardless of how fair those generalised accusations might be. If, however, we are prepared seriously to address these two challenges, people such as Osama Bin Laden will find increasingly little solace or support in Muslim society. Sadly, at the moment within the Muslim world we do have groups that justify violence on the grounds that they are defending Islam against the tyranny of the uncivilised West. We need to undercut the kind of thinking that justifies such simplistic assertions, in order that those who advocate terrorism will find no refuge in our communities. [Read more…]
morning 10/30/07
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October mornings
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search for aircraft
nlds
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melodrama
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(click to enlarge)
Friday morning
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Colorado
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atheism unknown there
“The almost general mediocrity of fortune that prevails in America obliging its people to follow some business for subsistence, those vices, that arise usually from idleness, are in a great measure prevented. Industry and constant employment are great preservatives of the morals and virtue of a nation. Hence bad examples to youth are more rare in America, which must be a comfortable consideration to parents. To this may be truly added, that serious religion, under its various denominations, is not only tolerated, but respected and practised. Atheism is unknown there; infidelity rare and secret; so that persons may live to a great age in that country, without having their piety shocked by meeting with either an atheist or an infidel. And the Divine Being seems to have manifested his approbation of the mutual forbearance and kindness with which the different sects treat each other, by the remarkable property with which He has been pleased to favor the whole country.”
From: Information To Those Who Would Remove To America, Benjamin Franklin, 1794
Note the date –1794, well after the 1st Am “Establishment Clause” was argued and ratified by the States along with the Constitution. Jefferson’s notion of a “Wall of Separation” between church and state came about almost a decade later, yet it is that expression to which revisionists refer to make the erroneous point that the Constitution contemplated the protection of beliefs repugnant to Christianity. The “different sects” Franklin refers to were all Christian, and that’s the context in which the Establishment Clause was ratified. The modern context of tolerance toward atheism and “infidel” non-Christian religions would have offended the Founding Fathers. Under an originalist constitutional interpretation, the Establishment Clause would not protect, for example, the practice of Islam. Protections the Court has found over the years in the cascade of constitutional interpretation, can, with the stroke of a pen, be taken away. In effect, what some claim as a fundamental right, is little more than a revocable license.
rainbow steer
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sunrise – upper limb
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sunsets
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morning 9/1/07
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