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When Alcohol And Airplanes Make A Good Mix
gilgsn writes "Both for the economy and the environment, as suggested in this Iwon Money article. The Brazilians use sugar cane alcohol to fuel their modification of a single engine crop duster called the "Ipanema." The company projects a 25 percent increase in revenue from the new alcohol planes and increased income to convert existing gasoline-fueled Ipanemas to alcohol. With the threat of war for the U.S. and a subsequent raise in oil prices, this might be of some interest for our general aviation."
I think he is right to see Afghanistan, Iraq, and the suppression of Al-Qaeda as phases of longer, wider war ? a clash of civilizations driven by the failure of Islamic/Arab culture (though I would stress the problem of the Islamic commandment to jihad more than he does). I think he is also right to say that our long-term objective must be to break, crush and eventually destroy this culture, because we can't live on the same planet with people who both carry those memes and have access to weapons of mass destruction. They will hate us and seek to destroy us not for what we've done but for what we are.
Morocco is worse. Diesel is subsidised by the government and costs half what regular gasoline costs. Everyone buys diesel cars, same story. Casablancan walls are black.
A lot of people would run cleaner fuels, but it's not in oil company interests to let us. Pure and simple. And let us not forget that George Bush has oil interests. Do not think that the coming war in Iraq has everything to do with this. Because Americans need cheap gas because the government has kept prices down for them, not given them alternatives, and therefore let them all buy huge engines over 3 litres just to run around town. At least in Europe we realise that for a second car you only need between 1.3 and 1.6 litre engines. With efficient injectors and good chassis they are even OK to do long haul drives.
Oil and energy issues ... the scourge of 21st century America
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
Face the facts people. Saddam is a freakin' 21st century Hitler-wannabe. We already kicked his ass once (and it's a shame that George senior "went wobbly on us" and didn't finish the job properly the first time) and it looks like we have to do it again to eliminate this menace.
Back in the early 20th century we had to kick Germany's ass twice too, and now they are one of the planet's finest upstanding nations. When Hitler rose to power and started building up his massive beligerant war machine, all the nations sat around belly-aching and bitching and moaning about what he was doing, but were all too damn pansy-assed afraid to do anything about it until it was much too late.
It's getting too late again. Do we want to wait until Saddam lobs a nuke at Israel and Israel retailiates by lobbing nukes at a dozen or more arab cities? Or that Saddam is successful in getting a nuke delivered by ship to a US seaport city? Hell no! The sooner we can rid the planet of his regime and get democracy into Iraq, the sooner Iraq's oil wealth can begin to be used for things like building schools, hospitals, jobs and a better way of life for Iraq's citizens.... or is that what they are afraid of? 700+ years of always being ruled by tyrants and the entire arab world collectively has "battered-spouse syndrome" and knows no other way of life and wants no other way of life either?