Ethanol Production Turns Farmers into Kings

This morning's paper had a few interesting items in it. One of them was a political cartoon on the recent legislation continue the promotion of US Farms, specifically for Ethanol farming. In this cartoon, the picture shows two farmers, one wearing a non-traditional US farmer outfit on a tractor commenting to a traditional looking US farmer with the following caption:

"I started wearin' this when I realized how much money there is in ethanol."

Here is the actual cartoon:


The suggestion is that Ethanol production via Corn Farming has become as lucrative for these farms as oil has been for many in the Middle East.

Admittedly, I am one who still does not quite understand or agree with the "science" and subsidies behind ethanol farming. Even with all of the reading that I have done. It is hard not to feel that much of the spin on corn farming and Ethanol is politically motivated. It is sure to be a hot topic in the 2008 election year!

What are your thoughts on recent laws and initiatives supporting Ethanol production in the United States? What other impacts might it have?

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The Bubble Gum Cigarette Incident in Santa Monica

A couple of weekends ago Ashley and I were up in San Francisco near Fisherman’s Wharf at Pier 39. There we ran into the Candy Barn, or basically a store that we have all seen that has a ton of different candies in it. After wandering the store, we came across a set of candies the refreshed a memory of mine.



The Cigarette Gum or Bubble Gum Smokes are an important past piece of history and seeing them almost made me purchase a few packs and ship them around the country to Josh and Mike.

Why such great memories of a simple pack of bubble gum that looks like a pack of Cigarettes where the gum is lucky to hold it’s flavor for 5 minutes and gets rock hard after 10 minutes?

Well, this gum has a special feature. This story goes back to a sunny day on the 3rd Street Promenade several years back. Details are a little sketchy, but this is how I remember it………

Josh, Mike, and I were walking the street and wandering into the various stores on the block – minding our own business. There was a candy store there that had these Bubble Gum Cigarettes. We grabbed a couple of packs, with the Lucky Lights being my favorite.

Now Cigarette Bubble Gum has a special feature. Not only are they shaped and rolled like Cigarettes, but they give you the ability to ‘blow’ smoke. Each stick of gum has a hollow pinhole center filled with a sugary substance that if you blow on creates a puff of smoke.

Then out of nowhere some guy smoking a cigarette (or Cigar?) is walking towards us and we see him blow smoke in a several people’s faces – what looks to be intentionally. Then, as he approaches us, timing happens to be perfect as we have a new stick of gum ready for use. Just as he blows smoke towards us, out a big puff to the side and created a nice cloud of sugary smoke in front of the smoker. He walks right into the cloud and gets a nice sugary coating. We heard a little cough-cough, smiled, and went on our way.

While it was not the nicest thing in the world to do, we had a really good laugh about the sugar coating incident. Hopefully, it taught him a lesson about blowing cigarette smoke in the faces of others.

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If you like Mentos and Diet Coke, you have to see this!

If you have not seen this video by the folks at eepybird.com, you have to check it out. A good number of experiments by these guys have to do with Diet Coke and Mentos. Of course, the urban legend is that if you eat a bunch of mentos and drink diet coke -- you'll explode. Very similar to the Coca-Cola and Pop Rocks urban legend of the 80's.

However, what is true that if you put a pack of Mentos in a 2-liter bottle of Diet Coke, it will either a) Explode the bottle or b) produce a geyser of coke.

This video below shows their latest experiment which is in effect a huge set of dominos being knocked down. Check it out, it's worth the 3:30 of your time!

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