Corn rows in New York

On our recent trip through New York, I was pleasantly surprised to see a whole bunch of corn growing everywhere. I was a little surprised because I don't remember seeing so many corn farms in the past, but I also haven't driven through New York much. This was our third time, and the first time during the Summer.

I thought, "Wow, New York must have a really great climate for growing corn."

My thoughts were all rosy as I continued to see corn patch after corn patch, that is, until I made a comment out loud about them, and Ken pointed out that they were probably being subsidized and would eventually be made into ethanol.

My thoughts turned acidic. Ethanol. One of the most foolish and least compassionate of all alternative fuels. It is bad enough that farmers are paid not to grow corn and wheat.

NOW, to add insult to injury, the government is not only encouraging farmers to grow corn with another subsidy, but it then gives tax incentives to farmers to turn it into a fuel to burn. Burning food has never been wise. Burning food that isn't even an efficient fuel, and produces more carbon monoxide than gasoline, is the insult.

Other countries (like Brazil) use sugarcane as their source for ethanol. I don't think that is as insulting as corn, because you can't really eat sugar - well it does not sustain life at least.

So why is there such a big push for corn ethanol in the United States? Could it be huge agriculture lobbyists? What else would promote such a silly fuel? Beats me.

And the final argument against corn ethanol. Food prices. Food prices rose at an unprecedented rate last year, thanks to the high demand of burning food as fuel. Poorer countries quickly found it difficult to pay the higher prices, and more people went hungry than would have if the government kept its nose out of foolish fuel production. The key word being foolish.

I am all for wise fuel production, as I have stated and restated several times before. But once again I have to resort to the same conclusion I have come to before; Until we find a way for the government to make a lot of money from the Sun, free energy - solar energy - will never be the erergy source being subsidized by the government.

Constitutional right to life

The United States Constitution states in the fifth ammendment that "no person shall... be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law."

The fourteenth amendment restates once again: "nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law."

No one is going to argue that we all deserve the right to life. Until, that is, you start talking about the unborn.

I have no idea how so many people skipped that concept in their minds when they decided that a woman's right to privacy somehow trumped the baby's right to life. Where is compassion? Where is the respect of law?

I am not an idiot, I know there are certain circumstances that justify an abortion.

That said, I still don't understand how it is constitutionally legal to take a child's life even before they have a chance to make a case for themselves.

In my view, this is the ultimate form of oppression - whole generations have been denied the simplest, most basic right - to LIFE. Their cries can't ever be heard, so they are ignored, relegated to nonexistence because of their silence.

PIAXP April 2009 Registered Teams B-Roll Footage

I have been following the competition to build mass production ready vehicles that meet or exceed 100mpg. Last month the competitors were announced and here is a great youtube video about the competition. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IpG5hbY4WI

Electric Ford Focus

Ford announced today that it will be transforming an existing plant in Michigan into an Electric Ford Focus plant. Here is the article I saw from the New York Times.

May 6, 2009, 3:41 pm

Ford Truck Plant to Build Electric Cars

By Nick Chambers

Amidst one of the auto industry’s largest wholesale shifts in modern history, the Ford Motor Company is investing $550 million to turn a factory that was dedicated to making large and fuel-hungry sport utility vehicles into a modern and scalable small-car plant that will eventually produce an all-electric version of the Focus.

The Michigan Assembly Plant, known as one of the world’s most profitable manufacturing sites during the S.U.V. boom of the 1990s, was once the hub for the Ford Expedition and Lincoln Navigator. The plant is expected to begin building the new Ford Focus next year, followed by production of the all-electric Focus in 2011.

The electric Focus will be Ford’s first all-electric passenger car for the mass market. In addition to the electric Focus, the company plans to sell an electric version of its Transit Connect commercial vehicle in 2010.

Ford has previously promised that they will deliver four new electric vehicles to the American market by 2012.

“The transformation of the Michigan Assembly Plant embodies the larger transformation under way at Ford,” said Ford’s president and chief executive, Alan Mulally, in a statement. “This is about investing in modern, efficient and flexible American manufacturing. It is about fuel economy and the electrification of vehicles.”

The electric Focus is part of a larger strategy announced by Ford in January to develop electric vehicles for North America quickly using its global reach and capability to keep the cars affordable.

In addition to the Michigan Assembly Plant, Ford is retooling two other factories to build new cars in the face of global market changes. The company’s Cuautitlán Assembly plant in Mexico is slated to begin building the new Fiesta subcompact early next year, and its Louisville Assembly plant in Kentucky is also expected to begin producing small vehicles based on the Focus platform beginning in 2011.

“We’re changing from a company focused mainly on trucks and SUVs to a company with a balanced product lineup that includes even more high-quality, fuel-efficient small cars, hybrids and all-electric vehicles,” said Mark Fields, Ford’s president of the Americas. “As customers move to more fuel-efficient vehicles, we’ll be there with more of the products they really want.”



Is this really happening? Are my dreams since I was 12 finally coming true? There are still two or three years before Ford is promising these cars to customers, and that seems to have been the case for the last decade. Two years are better than ten.

I love electric

I finally got to take a look at this custom electric car. It is a racer, and is so fast!

I am not really a racing fan, but watching this Datsun beat fancy BMWs and Corvettes was really entertaining.

Jump-Starting The Electric Car Dream

Jump-Starting The Electric Car Dream

I read this news article about the Company: Better Place.
I have written about this company before, it started in Isreal, the selling of "miles for a car, like minutes for a cell phone."

Apparently other governments in Denmark and Hawaii are jumping on the bandwagon and building charging stations for 20K ekectric plug-in cars. Where is America in the line? No where. A few cities like the idea, but not the country in general. Where are our brains?

I know electric cars aren't as cool as solar, and electricity has to be generated from something. But I think this idea is going in the right direction - oil independance.

fuel our future now

I found a fun website geared towards teaching our children about alternative energy for cars. Here is the link to the website.
http://www.fuelourfuturenow.com/

I hope it is helpful and fun!

I edited my post, "The Effects of Pornography on our Rights as Women

View my edited version here : The Effects of Pornography on our Rights as Women.

Battery electric vehicle from Toyota

New CONCEPT vehicle from Toyota

This is a BEV- a battery electric vehicle, able to drive up to 50 miles a charge, and up to 70 mph.

This kind of car is really great for commuters, and for people like me, I rarely drive more than 15 miles away in a day.

I was really excited as I read about it on Toyota's website - excited that is, until I read that it is a CONCEPT vehicle, and won't be available until 2012! What is wrong?

It is like a car already being sold in Europe and Japan, why not here? What is wrong with Toyota? Now is the time for such a vehicle to be sold in the US. NOW! I don't get it, how long do we have to wait for progress?

I wonder what is holding them back, is it Toyota themselves, or maybe the US government?

If you would like to explore the new Toyota CONCEPT vehicle (I am SICK of concept vehicles) click on this link.

The technology has been around long enough, actually, cars like this have been around for a long time, and are being offered for sale right now online. What is taking Toyota and other mainstream automakers so long?

It's time the US started charging for Sunlight

Well, since we are in another space race, this time with China, I think it is about time America claimed the sun, and started charging for sunlight before someone else does. That way we might actually get somewhere in the solar arena.

It seems plain to me that the main reason solar cars aren't available on the market is because no one will make much money fueling the cars once they have been purchased. Bummer. Maybe we could be energy independent as a nation then! And we could stop waging war for oil. That would be bad, I guess, since that isn't a priority on anyone's political agenda.

Does anyone know of a sun resistant material we could make a flag out of and send to the Sun?