The Vampire Disclaimer

It's time for a short sentence I like to call The Vampire Disclaimer. The views expressed in this blog are those of the author, and do not reflect those of my employer (whoever that may be), and in fact do not reflect anything.

To be unconventional and irritating, I've saved the greeting to my new blog fans,--and the explanation for the blog itself--for the second post. That goes to my mission of driving left and right wing extremists crazy.

Welcome to Ghost in The Back of My Head. Lisa Loeb fans will know that it comes from her song "Do You Sleep?" and references the following section:

" I saw you as you walked across my room.
You looked out the window, you looked at the moon.
And you sat on the corner of my bed, and
you smoked with the ghost in the back of my head."

Thank you, Lisa. I think the phrase I've borrowed is a great way to illustrate that I am a political Independent, listening to no one but the ghost in the back of my head, and inviting you to commune with him if you dare. I reject the notion that we must swallow an entire party platform, as I find the platforms of both the Democratic and Republican parties internally inconsistent. That is not to say that I will confine my comments here to politics. But it will explain, for example, why I'm on the side of the environment, and at the same time on the side of the USA. It will explain to anyone who is paying attention why I'm a social liberal and still for law and order. In the next few years, a similar combination may come to be known as a Guiliani Republican whether he is in office or not. Nonetheless, if you imagine we are the same, or that I am endorsing any candidate at this point, or being conventional in any way, please reread The Vampire Disclaimer above.

As the magnificent Maggie Estep used to say, "I've got a f---ing song in my heart, so let's go."

Your Private Energy News

You may want to cross your legs. At this very moment, people are looking into your urinary tract with intense interest.

You heard it here first, boys and girls. You know how in some towns we have to segregate newspapers, plastic bottles, aluminum cans, and some such into their own bins? Well, one day soon, mark my words, it will be your civic responsibility to pee into one of those bins. Some time after that, instead of searching for a rest stop along the highway, you will relieve yourself directly into your car, a model which may be called the new Ford Sprinkle. Good for your bladder and good for the environment.

It's all about oil, and corn, and global warming. The global warming plan calls for preventing the U.S. from unlocking the trillion tons of oil in our shale (which releases carbon dioxide in the process) so that we can single-handedly lower the Earth's temperature by seven tenths of one percent in seventy years. No oil refineries are allowed to be built for the oil that is readily available, and we are allowing China to claim the oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

In service of those policies (like 'em or not), edible corn is being converted into alternative ethanol gasoline blends at an unprecedented rate. Now the price of corn, the price of feed, the price of meat, the price of all the other crops too relatively unprofitable to grow, will go through the roof (and you've seen those prices climbing) unless scientists find another way to produce fuel. They are racing to do so. (Hmm, shouldn't they have been working on that sooner?) There are 114 corn ethanol refineries and 80 more under construction.

Dupont wants to make ethanol from corn waste; six other companies want to make it from straw (sounds like a fairy tale); and genetic engineers from Berkeley are looking into palm tree sap, termite guts, and--as I said--the human urinary tract.

You thought Germans and Americans loved their beer before? Starting tomorrow, guzzling is going to be downright patriotic.