Retail gasoline prices pulled back slightly from record levels Tuesday and gave some consumers a small break, but a new government forecast said gas could reach as high as $4 a gallon during the summer driving season.

This story in from Yahoo via Digg.

Well Duh! Is what I have to say about gas hitting four bucks a gallon. That was inevitable when we decided to invade Iraq and give bureaucrats control of a situation they know nothing about. Of course $4/gallon is nothing in comparison to what will happen after that. If it is $4 this summer you can guarantee it is $5 or higher next year. There will come a point people when we will finally break down and say enough is enough and start to produce our own biofuels in mass quantity. Don’t think for a minute that these oil companies have been buying up all this foreclosed on farm land in the midwest for the possibility of oil and gas production, they knew there would come a time when it was just too expensive to import oil and the public would demand a switch to biofuels.

I don’t think we will ever see the $6/gallon mark, but you can bet if we make the switch without reducing demand you will be paying $6/loaf for bread as wheat is replaced with switchgrass. When corn gives way to sorghum, you can damned well believe the price of everything from bubble gum to meat to ice cream is going to skyrocket too..

read more | digg story

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New superpowers are competing for diminishing resources as Britain becomes a bit-player. The outcome could be deadly

I have long been saying that it was water not oil that really matters in the world. If you have ever thought Tibet was about land you would be greatly mistaken, unless you were referring to the watershed from those mountains. There will come a time in the not so distant future when oil hits $200 a barrel, or maybe even $150/barrel that Americans decide they have had enough and make the hard switch to biofuels. I am not much of a conspiracy theorist, but I can put two and two together and many large corporations have been buying farm land for decades and losing money on it.  They wouldn’t do that if there wasnt a future profit motive to it. That tells me others have seen a biofuel future too.

When America refuses to pay the burden of oil, it won’t take long before we are producing most of our own fuel, as we did more than a century ago. Then let us ask what happens to the rest of the world. The hardest hit will be developing countries that often rely on food subsidies from the US. We will simply say, I am sorry there is no wheat or corn for you, because we moved our surplus production that you have relied on for decades into sorghum, switchgrass, and oilseed crops. Don’t think for a moment that Americans aren’t going to feel that pinch too. Given our habits most Americans would rather have cheap fuel, then they would a sandwich especially when the cheap bread goes to five dollars a loaf.

In some respects $5/loaf will be good for the people. years ago when government statistics were put together they gave a much higher weight to food prices when they decided what poor was. For years now food has not kept up with the price of housing, which has over taken the American budget. Of course this being the American government we are talking about, they are likely to decide that after decades of study and sitting around with their heads up their asses that the cost of housing really is what we should base poverty levels on. Coincidence? I very much doubt that, this is the US government we are talking about.

I know what some of you are thinking, so what if a bunch of people in Africa starve. Well you should care, not just because they are human beings either. Africa is not only a land of tribal peoples, but of great Muslim extremism. if you think we have the Islamicists pissed at us for our involvement in those oil rich countries, think what happens when we tell the ones we have been feeding all these years to suddenly go fuck themselves. Without water and without food, they have nothing to live for except to hurt us, and hurt us they will. They flock to terror training camps with not a holy crusade, but revenge in their hearts…

read more | digg story

Is there a solution to all of this? Not an easy one, and not one that doesn’t mean changing our habits and demanding better fuel efficiency now, rather than cheaper fuel prices later. We will never see dollar a gallon gas prices again, but I do believe it is possible to see twenty miles per dollar spent on fuel.

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Alright, my first test post after activating several plugins was a painless experience.  All my tabs were open on the post page.  This was both good and bad, as All in One SEO Pack was open and ready to use, but so was every other section requiring lots of scrolling.

The plus side is All in One SEO Pack, AutoMeta, WordPress Database Backup, Twitter Tools, Technorati Tags and ShareThis seems to work.

Bad News: LiveJournal CrossPoster, and Adhesive don’t work.

I guess it will be a while before I bother upgrading…

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I’ve been making Jell-O shots for years. They are easy to make, deliver the right buzz, and don’t give you that bloated feeling. So after years of dixie cups and seeing all the new innovative “delivery systems” - heck one is even called suck and blow - I thought I’d look for a more adult solution and…

Well here it is on a Friday i give you Saturday entertainment. Follow the Digg Story and give them props for innovative ways of getting hammered.

read more | digg story

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It is of course not possible for a photographer to be in the pool during a swimming competition, but that doesn’t stop a determined photographer getting the picture!

I have worked on this problem over a number of years, and got it down to a fine art.

The technique is not new. I had a housing for my f4s way back in the day when it was the top end of action photography. Remote and motion sensor photography also isn’t new. The only new thing about this is how quickly he can not put this out to his editors. Ten years ago the best we could hope for was an hour to develop the film, a couple of minutes to scan the negative, a few more to photoshop it, then a few more to email it where it needed to go.

The speed is great, and so is the shot, but there is very little new in the way of technique.

read more | digg story

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Arbella Perkins Ewings blew out all 114 candles on her birthday cake on March 13 and quietly took part in the celebration that comes with being the third-oldest person in the world.

There was a proclamation from Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert, speeches by friends and family, TV cameras and a roomful of well-wishers.

read more | digg story

As I read by this little blip from Digg, I knew I had to say something more than the tiny comment area warranted. At a 114 I am sure this woman was imporant to her friends and family, but I want to know what she did to help society the last 30 years or more. What did she contribute to the world? Why are we celebrating, and more importantly why should we be? Is living a long time reason enough to be happy? Or does a person have to do something other than breath and use resources to be worth celebrating?

As we live longer and longer, the question because what is the point? We retire in our mid sixties from a job, then live another twenty or thirty years to do what. What do old people really contribute to our society once they retire. Sure some of them provide childcare for their children and grandchildren so they can work or go to school, and that is a great help to the economy. Some people work long past the age of retirement or get a job even after their official retirement. However why should we get excited about those who don’t? What benefit do people who sit around and just wait to die provide?

Should we allow people to keep living after they quit being useful? Congress is in fact full of useless people, and by no means do I advocate killing them, so I can’t advocate euthanizing old people just because they quit contributing. However, I do think that there comes a time as a society when we must start putting the financial burden of living just for the sake of living on the the person and their family if they wish to keep living. Our planetary resources are limited so the smaller the population we have the better off the world is. We need to start thinking about the reality of that or one day not many generations from now all these kids we have to make our life feel complete will be killing each other over food and water rather than oil and ideals…

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