Modern DSG transmissions, or "automatic manual" transmissions yes. But the modern hydraulic automatic transmission is significantly heavier and suffers from significant drive train power loss. DSG trannies get around these issues by using a manual transmission with 2 sets of clutches and 2 input shafts. They gain the efficiency and light weight of a manual transmission with the computer controlled ease of a traditional auto.
I pulled out an out dated PC, stuck an ATI all-in-wonder card in it and plugged it into the TV. I've been running Boxee on it for a while now. I like that it has such a variety of "apps" that aggregate videos from Hulu, Netflix, the major networks, as well as plays my DVDs and ripped movies*.
Honestly though, Boxee is still a little rough. The interface is excellent, but it feels a bit laggy at times (although this is an older PC), and their double buffering interface leaves a bit to be desired. I'm sure they'll continue to improve it, but some times I just drop out of Boxee and go to the source site directly.
-Rick
*Legally ripped movies that is. Teething toddlers will chew on anything, even your limited run collectors edition of the LoTR trilogy.
Wow, take time to spell check the comment, and completely forgot the header, excuse me while I seek atonement from my old English teachers... This is going to hurt.
The stock holders. As much as we can commend the Google leadership for their moral stances, they are a corporation and they are beholden to the stock holders.
How about we apply that opinion to everything else?
You can't afford to build a road to your house? Do with out. You can't afford police protection? Do with out. You can't afford fire/emergency services? Do with out. You can't afford to test/inspect all food and drugs that you consume? Do with out.
I'm sure there are some people out there who would be all for such a change, two whom I would suggest, do so with out the Internet, for it is the creation of socialism, government subsidies, and those bastions of liberal thought: the universities.
I feel bold enough to say that in the US a full single payer health system is far more likely than what you suggest. The idea that every doctor, nurse, and hospital would willingly disregard the Hippocratic oath is so far flung that it can't even be humored as a possible route forward.
The medical professionals in our country will continue to attempt to treat as many of the people that come to them seeking help as they are able to. And regardless of how you or I feel about that, we will both be funding their sacrifices.
Except that in the case of health insurance, there is no "repair" insurance. If you do not have insurance and you have any medical procedure provided, the cost of that procedure is offset by those who do have insurance. Even more so if you declare bankruptcy or use other debt settling means to get out of paying for the bill.
So if you don't have insurance you are effectively taxing everyone else for your care. Sure, maybe they should add a solvency test, but what would the dollar amount be? $10,000 won't cover a torn ACL. $50,000 won't cover open heart surgery. $100,000 won't cover a muti-year battle with cancer. So what, maybe a quarter of a million dollars? How many people can front a quarter of a million dollars for a bond? Anyone with the brain power to have those kinds of resources laying around is going to have the intelligence to get the insurance they want or will just pay the annual penalty.
The first reaction, especially given the headline is, Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
But, as pointed out in the article: "Obama's directive, memorialized in written instructions from the Justice Department, appears to have been widely ignored."
Then we look into the details. The fiscal year that this article is covering started in October 2008 and ended in October 2009. So for the first quarter of the time period covered by this article, we weren't even in the Obama Administration.
Also, if we assume that the decision to exempt information from FOIA requests is made by senior officers in the respective agencies, and we know that Bush had 8 years to appoint people who shared his views, and that the Senate Republicans have been doing an impressive job of blocking and delaying Obama's appointments, let alone the "cleaning" that occurs once the new bosses are in place.
Should it come as a surprise to anyone that this last year was no better, and perhaps even worse than the previous year? Absolutely not. I would expect that this coming year should show improvement, provided the white house is willing to back up Obama's directive now that they have had time to get more of their appointments into positions of authority.
That said, I sure hope this article makes it to the President's desk and that he thinks long and hard about it.
I don't think that's quite it. The deal here (as best as I can tell) is that Google is sharing their pipes with other providers, making a peering agreement. Google doesn't own pipes all the way to your house, so they have to pay other providers to take the huge amount of traffic coming from their pipes and continue the journey. If Google had no pipes what so ever, they would have to pay for every single bit they send out.
But Google does have pipes, they bought up huge swaths of that dark fiber that was getting rolled out in the.Com bubble only to lie dormant. So when they work out their peering agreements, instead of paying cash for every bit, they can offer bandwidth instead.
So Google says "We're going to send out 1 terabyte of data per hour, and we have the bandwidth to accept 10 terabytes back." And some other peer comes along and says "We can take.5 terabytes from you if you can take.5 terabytes from us" and so on. Until Google has enough peers that they can move all of the data they want to.
This example is simplified to a point of silliness, but hopefully you get the idea. The "near zero costs" aren't implying that Google doesn't have to pay for maintaining it's own network, but that they don't have to pay cash to other providers to take the traffic from YouTube.
Yes, really
on
I Want My GTV
·
· Score: 4, Interesting
I have a 48" big screen TV.
I do not have Cable I do not have Satellite/Dish/DirectTV I do not have a DVD player I do not have decent OTA reception
I do have DSL I do have Netflix I do have Boxee
Pretty much the only thing that happens on my TV is the Internet. Now if the folks behind Boxee could improve the playback performance I would use nothing else. But as is I still jump out to a web browser for most Hulu content.
While I applaud the decision, it does kinda bum me out. This album was released over 30 years ago. Under the original 1790 copy right laws, this album would have just entered public domain. Thanks to Sony Bono the album wont hit public domain until the earliest of 2084.
Really, history majors will love this stuff. Giving them maps and a concept of Google maps overlays for real time comparisons to modern maps will likely be a capstone project for some undergrad.
A few years ago while working for the State of Wisconsin's Board of Commissioners of Public Lands we worked with the University of Wisconsin: Madison to get all of the original land plat maps of the state digitized, indexed and search-able. Same type of deal, huge maps on really old paper that had to be vault kept with humidity and temperature controls.
The 2 big issues I've heard about that report are the citing of a non-peer reviewed source for the Himilaya glacier and an incorrectly phrased line about flooding in the Netherlands (propertly cited, just incorrectly stated)
Now those two mistakes should not be in a paper from such a highly regarded organization, but...
THE PAPER WAS OVER 3000 PAGES LONG.
If I were to write a 3000+ page paper and only had 2 significant mistakes in it, I would be freaking estatic! I mean really, we are humans, there are going to be mistakes in everything we do. That the IPCC has been so responsive in retracting the parts of the paper that have not stood up to review and that out of such a huge document so few mistakes have been reported, shouldn't we instead see this as a great work?
Balancing the two worlds had become almost impossible, and I longed to escape from the "shock jock" persona that had been created for me...
I merely tried to shield what was important to me from the fallout of the world that had been created for me.
Sounds to me like this guy still is incapable of accepting responsibility for his own actions. If he can't accept responsibility for what HE created and what HE did, how is he ever going to have any measure of integrity?
The difference between a placebo and homeopathy is the doctor prescribing a placebo KNOWS there is no medicinal value in what they are giving to a patient, whereas the person using homeopathy CLAIMS there will be a medicinal benefit.
In the case of placebo, in order for it to "work", the patient must believe that they are being treated, thus the doctor must CLAIM there will be a medicinal benefit. If the doctor tells the patient they are getting a placebo, it would likely have a dramatic effect on the potency of the placebo.
In the former, the doctor is merely giving sugar pills (or something similar) in a controlled environment to test whether the person's condition is real or imagined, or is part of a study to see if a new medicine actually works.
That is a common usage at this time. But research is showing that the placebo effect may have a leveragable value. Using a patient's belief in the treatment as part of the treatment. There was an excellent article that came out a few weeks ago that was starting to touch on some of these topics.
In the latter, the person using homeopathy claims that by repeated dilutions of a mixture to the point there is no discernible ingredient other than water, that somehow, through some unknown conveyance, the water "remembers" what it was instilled with and thus, miraculously, can become effective at treating an ill.
Have you ever tried to explain the physics, chemistry, and biology that goes into how or why a certain drug works? Your average (American) patient would have just as good of understanding of that as the would "water remembering what is was instilled with". In either case, to most consumers, it is a black box, a magic pill, a piece of hope.
So no, homeopathy is not better than nothing. If anything, it is more harmful because a) people with serious medical conditions do not seek out real medicine to alleviate what afflicts them, b) it sucks money from people without offering any evidence that what it claims to do actually takes place, c) it runs counter to every scientific principle of how things really work
I'm not in favor of unregulated homeopathy. I would hope that most people would look to traditional services first. But if the homeopathy is performing as well as placebo in double blind studies, then I don't see why it isn't to be considered a viable option to trained medical professionals. Unless you are saying that no treatment is better than placebo?
Placebos is pretending that nothing will make you better.
That would be more akin to the Nocebo effect. Placebo is when the patient's belief that the treatment will make them better, makes them better. Nocebo is when the patient's belief that the treatment will not make them better (or will make them worse in specific ways) causes them to not get better or to develop the conditions they fear.
it's also why you don't tend to see drugs companies showing how much better their product works than a placebo.
In the United States, in order to market a drug is has to get FDA approval. Part of the FDA approval process is a series of double blind studies where the treatment's outcomes are compared to placebo outcomes. Every drug company has to beat the placebo to get to market, and while placebo comparisons might not be all that common (I've heard a few in direct to consumer advertisements) they are clearly advertised in pharma funded continuing medical education conferences and brochures targeted to medical professionals.
Placebo and Nocebo effects have a huge impact on medical advances. It is a subject we are just starting to really research. Their effects are greatly effected by region and social atmosphere. And the placebo effect changes with us. Most of the major depression drugs that have become common names in the US are showing performance on par with placebo these days. The same drugs that 20 years ago beat the placebo effect with no problem, today would not have made it passed initial testing.
I can't imagine a world in which a placebo would cure cancer. But pain suppression, anxiety, depression, pretty much anything related to cognitive function can potentially be "cured" through the use of placebo.
If the homeopathy is performing as well as placebo, but doctors offering placebo treatments do so at a risk of litigation, wouldn't the Homeopathy still be better than nothing?
I don't think anyone should "agree to limit exports". If demand is outstripping supply, than we should increase supply. Part of the reason that the US is the number 1 exporter of Corn is because not only do we have a huge landmass suited for such growth, but we also have the most efficient and technologically advanced systems for producing corn.
Given two roughly identical plots of land, one in the US and one in an under-developed country, the plot in the US will have a much higher yield. If you were to get the same technological advances and agronomy knowledge in the lesser producing country, you could get yields much more similar to the US levels. Yes, the US will likely always be the #1 exporter of corn, but that doesn't mean we can't look at these other struggling countries for ways to double and triple their production rates.
Even so, the whole argument is moot. The US's corn exports art up 10% from 2002. In 2007-2008 we hit export levels that we haven't seen in 18 years. The assumption that US corn based ethanol production is some how reducing world wide corn availability is patently false.
US Corn exports, even in this time that ethanol is supposedly starving people to death, has INCREASED!
In 2007-2008 the US's Corn exports rose 6% to the highest export volume that we've seen in 18 years! If you compare the export rates over the last 8 years, we are up across the board. At no point in the ethanol push have we returned to our corn export levels of 2002.
All of this crap about ethanol causing food shortages is complete BS. Prices are increasing, but the majority of those costs are due to TRANSPORTATION cost increases. Fuel costs have almost doubled in the last 8 years in the US. And seeing as how the US is the top corn exporter in the world, those costs are going to be passed along to all purchasers.
What is up with your links? Did you read them? The CBS story is about increased protein demands, it talks about increases in prices across the board. The only citation they have attributing the raise in cost being due (in part) to Ethanol is from attributed to "Grocers". I don't know about you, but asking random people that work at grocery stores about supply and demand issues completely out side of the scope of grocery stock seems exceptionally suspect.
The G&M site lists a slew of other likely causes and contains only one reference to ethanol prices being a major factor, and that is attributed to an investor analyst at Goldman Sachs. And we know just how much credibility those folks have.;)
The best way for 3rd world/developing countries to make the transition to a developed nation is through agriculture.
The US, with an extremely keen interest on controlling food prices and availability has heavily subsidized farmers across the US. So much so, that it has distorted the global market and significantly limited the introduction of new agricultural markets. By reducing the amount of corn that the US exports, we would actually create a financial advantage for investment in agriculture in 3rd world countries. Thus resulting in no net change in world wide food availability.
Most of the articles I've seen that claim corn based ethanol would lead to food shortages take an absurd view of fuels. Sure, if every single car that is currently running on gasoline today were replaced with a comparable car that ran on ethanol, yes, there would be a huge impact. But lets be realistic, no serious studies have ever pointed to a 100% replacement of gasoline with ethanol, and the idea that every car would be converted on a single day is ludicrous.
No single fuel will be the answer to our transportation problems. Petrol, bio-diesel, algae, ethanol, butane/propane/natural gas, electric, hybrids, etc... A blend of all will make up the future fuel markets. And as any one becomes more expensive, the others will become more popular.
Assuming ethanol takes off to the point that it impacts food availability, a number of things will likely happen: 1) The Feds will reduce subsidies for growing fuel-corn 2) The Feds will increase subsidies for growing consumable corn 3) The price of imported corn would be lower than local corn and investment in international agriculture would rise.
By all means, tear down the Ethanol arguments using valid arguments, like water contamination, transportation issues, and the horrible efficiencies of "flex-fuel" vehicles. Not to mention the agricultural impacts of requiring nitrogen based fertilizers and the relatively low yield per acre. But leave the food argument buried, it's just silly.
(Think Saturn. They weren't unionized, but profitable.)
Uhh, Saturn was unionized (UAW) and was only profitable for 1 year out of its entire existence (1993).
Not to say that the union was the problem, but not having a union does not give you the able to ignore trends, consumer demands, and quality controls and still have a successful company.
I would hesitate to call Reuters a "left-wing" organization. They are driven by profits, if there is a larger profit to be made catering to the left, so be it, but they will report with bias to any side of the political spectrum if there is money in it. If it bleeds, it leads, it doesn't matter if it's a liberal or a conservative.
This case in specific, being a pro-military grade weapon R&D summary would IMO be considered slightly more to the right as most lefties I know are in favor of reducing military spending. If Reuters were a left-wing organization, I would have expected this article to point out how bloated, behind schedule and over budget the MDA is on almost all of its projects. I would expect them to drop the names of the congressmen/senators who sponsored the bill/amendment to get this project funded, and I would expect them to make some point about how the money could be better spent.
On the other hand, if Reuters was a "right-wing" organization, I would have expected this article to include a list of congressmen/senators who opposed the project, an iteration of countries that have missiles that this device could disable, and a number of warnings about terrorist, NBC warheads, and something to do with Sarah Pallin.
What we have though, is an article that appears to be keeping to a limited scope of facts. Although it gets a number of these facts wrong, I'm not seeing a whole lot of bias, just incompetence.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm guessing the original "video" was probably shot on 18+ year old analog equipment.
-Rick
Modern DSG transmissions, or "automatic manual" transmissions yes. But the modern hydraulic automatic transmission is significantly heavier and suffers from significant drive train power loss. DSG trannies get around these issues by using a manual transmission with 2 sets of clutches and 2 input shafts. They gain the efficiency and light weight of a manual transmission with the computer controlled ease of a traditional auto.
-Rick
I pulled out an out dated PC, stuck an ATI all-in-wonder card in it and plugged it into the TV. I've been running Boxee on it for a while now. I like that it has such a variety of "apps" that aggregate videos from Hulu, Netflix, the major networks, as well as plays my DVDs and ripped movies*.
Honestly though, Boxee is still a little rough. The interface is excellent, but it feels a bit laggy at times (although this is an older PC), and their double buffering interface leaves a bit to be desired. I'm sure they'll continue to improve it, but some times I just drop out of Boxee and go to the source site directly.
-Rick
*Legally ripped movies that is. Teething toddlers will chew on anything, even your limited run collectors edition of the LoTR trilogy.
Wow, take time to spell check the comment, and completely forgot the header, excuse me while I seek atonement from my old English teachers... This is going to hurt.
-Rick
Inflammatory headline supersedes mundane content? Say it ain't so!
-Rick
Then, Who Cares?
The stock holders. As much as we can commend the Google leadership for their moral stances, they are a corporation and they are beholden to the stock holders.
-Rick
How about we apply that opinion to everything else?
You can't afford to build a road to your house? Do with out.
You can't afford police protection? Do with out.
You can't afford fire/emergency services? Do with out.
You can't afford to test/inspect all food and drugs that you consume? Do with out.
I'm sure there are some people out there who would be all for such a change, two whom I would suggest, do so with out the Internet, for it is the creation of socialism, government subsidies, and those bastions of liberal thought: the universities.
I feel bold enough to say that in the US a full single payer health system is far more likely than what you suggest. The idea that every doctor, nurse, and hospital would willingly disregard the Hippocratic oath is so far flung that it can't even be humored as a possible route forward.
The medical professionals in our country will continue to attempt to treat as many of the people that come to them seeking help as they are able to. And regardless of how you or I feel about that, we will both be funding their sacrifices.
-Rick
Except that in the case of health insurance, there is no "repair" insurance. If you do not have insurance and you have any medical procedure provided, the cost of that procedure is offset by those who do have insurance. Even more so if you declare bankruptcy or use other debt settling means to get out of paying for the bill.
So if you don't have insurance you are effectively taxing everyone else for your care. Sure, maybe they should add a solvency test, but what would the dollar amount be? $10,000 won't cover a torn ACL. $50,000 won't cover open heart surgery. $100,000 won't cover a muti-year battle with cancer. So what, maybe a quarter of a million dollars? How many people can front a quarter of a million dollars for a bond? Anyone with the brain power to have those kinds of resources laying around is going to have the intelligence to get the insurance they want or will just pay the annual penalty.
-Rick
The first reaction, especially given the headline is, Meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
But, as pointed out in the article: "Obama's directive, memorialized in written instructions from the Justice Department, appears to have been widely ignored."
Then we look into the details. The fiscal year that this article is covering started in October 2008 and ended in October 2009. So for the first quarter of the time period covered by this article, we weren't even in the Obama Administration.
Also, if we assume that the decision to exempt information from FOIA requests is made by senior officers in the respective agencies, and we know that Bush had 8 years to appoint people who shared his views, and that the Senate Republicans have been doing an impressive job of blocking and delaying Obama's appointments, let alone the "cleaning" that occurs once the new bosses are in place.
Should it come as a surprise to anyone that this last year was no better, and perhaps even worse than the previous year? Absolutely not. I would expect that this coming year should show improvement, provided the white house is willing to back up Obama's directive now that they have had time to get more of their appointments into positions of authority.
That said, I sure hope this article makes it to the President's desk and that he thinks long and hard about it.
-Rick
I don't think that's quite it. The deal here (as best as I can tell) is that Google is sharing their pipes with other providers, making a peering agreement. Google doesn't own pipes all the way to your house, so they have to pay other providers to take the huge amount of traffic coming from their pipes and continue the journey. If Google had no pipes what so ever, they would have to pay for every single bit they send out.
But Google does have pipes, they bought up huge swaths of that dark fiber that was getting rolled out in the .Com bubble only to lie dormant. So when they work out their peering agreements, instead of paying cash for every bit, they can offer bandwidth instead.
So Google says "We're going to send out 1 terabyte of data per hour, and we have the bandwidth to accept 10 terabytes back." And some other peer comes along and says "We can take .5 terabytes from you if you can take .5 terabytes from us" and so on. Until Google has enough peers that they can move all of the data they want to.
This example is simplified to a point of silliness, but hopefully you get the idea. The "near zero costs" aren't implying that Google doesn't have to pay for maintaining it's own network, but that they don't have to pay cash to other providers to take the traffic from YouTube.
I have a 48" big screen TV.
I do not have Cable
I do not have Satellite/Dish/DirectTV
I do not have a DVD player
I do not have decent OTA reception
I do have DSL
I do have Netflix
I do have Boxee
Pretty much the only thing that happens on my TV is the Internet. Now if the folks behind Boxee could improve the playback performance I would use nothing else. But as is I still jump out to a web browser for most Hulu content.
-Rick
While I applaud the decision, it does kinda bum me out. This album was released over 30 years ago. Under the original 1790 copy right laws, this album would have just entered public domain. Thanks to Sony Bono the album wont hit public domain until the earliest of 2084.
-Rick
Really, history majors will love this stuff. Giving them maps and a concept of Google maps overlays for real time comparisons to modern maps will likely be a capstone project for some undergrad.
A few years ago while working for the State of Wisconsin's Board of Commissioners of Public Lands we worked with the University of Wisconsin: Madison to get all of the original land plat maps of the state digitized, indexed and search-able. Same type of deal, huge maps on really old paper that had to be vault kept with humidity and temperature controls.
-Rick
Slow, Bad, Expensive, pick 1...
-Rick
The 2 big issues I've heard about that report are the citing of a non-peer reviewed source for the Himilaya glacier and an incorrectly phrased line about flooding in the Netherlands (propertly cited, just incorrectly stated)
Now those two mistakes should not be in a paper from such a highly regarded organization, but...
THE PAPER WAS OVER 3000 PAGES LONG.
If I were to write a 3000+ page paper and only had 2 significant mistakes in it, I would be freaking estatic! I mean really, we are humans, there are going to be mistakes in everything we do. That the IPCC has been so responsive in retracting the parts of the paper that have not stood up to review and that out of such a huge document so few mistakes have been reported, shouldn't we instead see this as a great work?
-Rick
Balancing the two worlds had become almost impossible, and I longed to escape from the "shock jock" persona that had been created for me...
I merely tried to shield what was important to me from the fallout of the world that had been created for me.
Sounds to me like this guy still is incapable of accepting responsibility for his own actions. If he can't accept responsibility for what HE created and what HE did, how is he ever going to have any measure of integrity?
-Rick
The difference between a placebo and homeopathy is the doctor prescribing a placebo KNOWS there is no medicinal value in what they are giving to a patient, whereas the person using homeopathy CLAIMS there will be a medicinal benefit.
In the case of placebo, in order for it to "work", the patient must believe that they are being treated, thus the doctor must CLAIM there will be a medicinal benefit. If the doctor tells the patient they are getting a placebo, it would likely have a dramatic effect on the potency of the placebo.
In the former, the doctor is merely giving sugar pills (or something similar) in a controlled environment to test whether the person's condition is real or imagined, or is part of a study to see if a new medicine actually works.
That is a common usage at this time. But research is showing that the placebo effect may have a leveragable value. Using a patient's belief in the treatment as part of the treatment. There was an excellent article that came out a few weeks ago that was starting to touch on some of these topics.
In the latter, the person using homeopathy claims that by repeated dilutions of a mixture to the point there is no discernible ingredient other than water, that somehow, through some unknown conveyance, the water "remembers" what it was instilled with and thus, miraculously, can become effective at treating an ill.
Have you ever tried to explain the physics, chemistry, and biology that goes into how or why a certain drug works? Your average (American) patient would have just as good of understanding of that as the would "water remembering what is was instilled with". In either case, to most consumers, it is a black box, a magic pill, a piece of hope.
So no, homeopathy is not better than nothing. If anything, it is more harmful because a) people with serious medical conditions do not seek out real medicine to alleviate what afflicts them, b) it sucks money from people without offering any evidence that what it claims to do actually takes place, c) it runs counter to every scientific principle of how things really work
I'm not in favor of unregulated homeopathy. I would hope that most people would look to traditional services first. But if the homeopathy is performing as well as placebo in double blind studies, then I don't see why it isn't to be considered a viable option to trained medical professionals. Unless you are saying that no treatment is better than placebo?
-Rick
Placebos is pretending that nothing will make you better.
That would be more akin to the Nocebo effect. Placebo is when the patient's belief that the treatment will make them better, makes them better. Nocebo is when the patient's belief that the treatment will not make them better (or will make them worse in specific ways) causes them to not get better or to develop the conditions they fear.
it's also why you don't tend to see drugs companies showing how much better their product works than a placebo.
In the United States, in order to market a drug is has to get FDA approval. Part of the FDA approval process is a series of double blind studies where the treatment's outcomes are compared to placebo outcomes. Every drug company has to beat the placebo to get to market, and while placebo comparisons might not be all that common (I've heard a few in direct to consumer advertisements) they are clearly advertised in pharma funded continuing medical education conferences and brochures targeted to medical professionals.
Placebo and Nocebo effects have a huge impact on medical advances. It is a subject we are just starting to really research. Their effects are greatly effected by region and social atmosphere. And the placebo effect changes with us. Most of the major depression drugs that have become common names in the US are showing performance on par with placebo these days. The same drugs that 20 years ago beat the placebo effect with no problem, today would not have made it passed initial testing.
I can't imagine a world in which a placebo would cure cancer. But pain suppression, anxiety, depression, pretty much anything related to cognitive function can potentially be "cured" through the use of placebo.
-Rick
If the homeopathy is performing as well as placebo, but doctors offering placebo treatments do so at a risk of litigation, wouldn't the Homeopathy still be better than nothing?
Or is No Treatment = Placebo?
-Rick
I don't think anyone should "agree to limit exports". If demand is outstripping supply, than we should increase supply. Part of the reason that the US is the number 1 exporter of Corn is because not only do we have a huge landmass suited for such growth, but we also have the most efficient and technologically advanced systems for producing corn.
Given two roughly identical plots of land, one in the US and one in an under-developed country, the plot in the US will have a much higher yield. If you were to get the same technological advances and agronomy knowledge in the lesser producing country, you could get yields much more similar to the US levels. Yes, the US will likely always be the #1 exporter of corn, but that doesn't mean we can't look at these other struggling countries for ways to double and triple their production rates.
Even so, the whole argument is moot. The US's corn exports art up 10% from 2002. In 2007-2008 we hit export levels that we haven't seen in 18 years. The assumption that US corn based ethanol production is some how reducing world wide corn availability is patently false.
-Rick
US Corn exports, even in this time that ethanol is supposedly starving people to death, has INCREASED!
In 2007-2008 the US's Corn exports rose 6% to the highest export volume that we've seen in 18 years! If you compare the export rates over the last 8 years, we are up across the board. At no point in the ethanol push have we returned to our corn export levels of 2002.
All of this crap about ethanol causing food shortages is complete BS. Prices are increasing, but the majority of those costs are due to TRANSPORTATION cost increases. Fuel costs have almost doubled in the last 8 years in the US. And seeing as how the US is the top corn exporter in the world, those costs are going to be passed along to all purchasers.
What is up with your links? Did you read them? The CBS story is about increased protein demands, it talks about increases in prices across the board. The only citation they have attributing the raise in cost being due (in part) to Ethanol is from attributed to "Grocers". I don't know about you, but asking random people that work at grocery stores about supply and demand issues completely out side of the scope of grocery stock seems exceptionally suspect.
The G&M site lists a slew of other likely causes and contains only one reference to ethanol prices being a major factor, and that is attributed to an investor analyst at Goldman Sachs. And we know just how much credibility those folks have. ;)
-Rick
I would argue just the opposite.
The best way for 3rd world/developing countries to make the transition to a developed nation is through agriculture.
The US, with an extremely keen interest on controlling food prices and availability has heavily subsidized farmers across the US. So much so, that it has distorted the global market and significantly limited the introduction of new agricultural markets. By reducing the amount of corn that the US exports, we would actually create a financial advantage for investment in agriculture in 3rd world countries. Thus resulting in no net change in world wide food availability.
Most of the articles I've seen that claim corn based ethanol would lead to food shortages take an absurd view of fuels. Sure, if every single car that is currently running on gasoline today were replaced with a comparable car that ran on ethanol, yes, there would be a huge impact. But lets be realistic, no serious studies have ever pointed to a 100% replacement of gasoline with ethanol, and the idea that every car would be converted on a single day is ludicrous.
No single fuel will be the answer to our transportation problems. Petrol, bio-diesel, algae, ethanol, butane/propane/natural gas, electric, hybrids, etc... A blend of all will make up the future fuel markets. And as any one becomes more expensive, the others will become more popular.
Assuming ethanol takes off to the point that it impacts food availability, a number of things will likely happen:
1) The Feds will reduce subsidies for growing fuel-corn
2) The Feds will increase subsidies for growing consumable corn
3) The price of imported corn would be lower than local corn and investment in international agriculture would rise.
By all means, tear down the Ethanol arguments using valid arguments, like water contamination, transportation issues, and the horrible efficiencies of "flex-fuel" vehicles. Not to mention the agricultural impacts of requiring nitrogen based fertilizers and the relatively low yield per acre. But leave the food argument buried, it's just silly.
-Rick
(Think Saturn. They weren't unionized, but profitable.)
Uhh, Saturn was unionized (UAW) and was only profitable for 1 year out of its entire existence (1993).
Not to say that the union was the problem, but not having a union does not give you the able to ignore trends, consumer demands, and quality controls and still have a successful company.
-Rick
Yup, another 20-30 more years of work and we'll have another system that can defend against 20-30 year old technologies. ;)
-Rick
I would hesitate to call Reuters a "left-wing" organization. They are driven by profits, if there is a larger profit to be made catering to the left, so be it, but they will report with bias to any side of the political spectrum if there is money in it. If it bleeds, it leads, it doesn't matter if it's a liberal or a conservative.
This case in specific, being a pro-military grade weapon R&D summary would IMO be considered slightly more to the right as most lefties I know are in favor of reducing military spending. If Reuters were a left-wing organization, I would have expected this article to point out how bloated, behind schedule and over budget the MDA is on almost all of its projects. I would expect them to drop the names of the congressmen/senators who sponsored the bill/amendment to get this project funded, and I would expect them to make some point about how the money could be better spent.
On the other hand, if Reuters was a "right-wing" organization, I would have expected this article to include a list of congressmen/senators who opposed the project, an iteration of countries that have missiles that this device could disable, and a number of warnings about terrorist, NBC warheads, and something to do with Sarah Pallin.
What we have though, is an article that appears to be keeping to a limited scope of facts. Although it gets a number of these facts wrong, I'm not seeing a whole lot of bias, just incompetence.
-Rick