What Caught My Eye Today

Energy - In an article appearing in the December issue of Esquire magazine, energy-independence advocate, Gal Luft has a rather straightforward 4 step plan to solve America's energy crisis.

1. Make gasoline-only cars illegal. Mandate that every vehicle sold in the U.S. is flex-fuel compatible so that it can run on just about any blend of hydrocarbon-based fuel. The technology already exists and the process is cheap, about a hundred dollars per vehicle. So if the auto industry doesn't get hurt by this, who's getting shortchanged by this deal?


2. Kill the Iowa caucuses. The ethanol lobby has managed to place huge tariffs on ethanol produced abroad. It portrays itself as the domestic solution to our reliance on foreign oil, but it really just protects a tiny number of Midwestern corn farmers. Even if every single kernel of corn grown in America were converted to ethanol, it would only replace about 12% of America's gasoline requirement. What is it with Iowa? They control the national political scene for months ahead of every Presidential election and now I hear about this ethanol lobby? People, this is flippin' Iowa we're talking about? What gives?


3. Think of the world in terms of sugarcane. Many of the United States closest allies in Latin America, Africa and Southeast Asia grow sugarcane, from which you can make ethanol at half the cost of making it from corn. Too bad, these countries don't get to vote for President of the United States.


4. Revolutionize waste. 65% of our garbage is biomass which can be converted to methanol. The process has been around for 200 years and methanol is twice as efficient as cellulosic ethanol. The same logic applies to America's vast coal reserves and recyclables. Coal can be converted to clean burning methanol as can black liquor--a toxic by-product of the paper industry. Doing so would generate 9 billion tons of methanol a year--almost twice the ethanol now produced from corn. And here I am thinking that coal and trash are fouling up the environment. Shame on me.

Literature - Amazon.com CEO, Jeff Bezos has release the Amazon Kindle, an electronic device that he hopes will leapfrog over previous attempts at e-readers and become the turning point in a transformation toward Book 2.0--shorthand for a revolution that will change the way readers read, writers write and publishers publish. Call me old-fashioned (I've been called worse) but too me part of the satisfaction of reading a 700 or 800 page book is being able to look at the heaping tome and say to yourself, "I like totally read that!"

Tourism - According to the Commerce Department, the United State is the only major country in the world to which travel has declined in the midst of a global tourism boom. Here are two examples. The number of Japanese visiting the U.S. declined from 5 million in 2000 to 3.6 million in 2006. For tourists from Great Britain, the United States is cheaper than ever, with the pound worth about $2. Between 200 and 2006, the number of Britons visiting America dropped 11%. At the same time, tourism to India went up 102%, to New Zealand, 106%, to Turkey, 82% and to the Caribbean, 31%. So let's see here. What is different between 2000 and now? Well, Bush became President and there is that whole war on terrorism that that's been going on since 2001. And you cannot deny that none of those other place listed above are governed by Bush or actively involved in the war on terrorism. But hey, I'm sure those are just coincidences.

Death-care - I swear that I am not making this up. I read about this in Newsweek. According to Service Corp. International (SCI), the Houston-based company with 2000 funeral homes, the number of funeral services fell 4% last year. And revenue per funeral barely kept pace with inflation, rising just 2.7%. In theory, death care should be immune from short-term economic swings...as death is one of only two sure things in life. Admit it, you're chuckling aren't you? But costs for raw materials are rising will the flow of customers has slowed. According to the National Center for Health Statistics, the U.S. death rate fell from 8.8 per 1,000 in 1999 to 8.5 per 1,000 in 2005. Customers are also opting for a cheaper option to the traditional casket. This next line is from the author, though I wish I could take credit for it. Cremation is, well, on fire. The cremation rate rose from about 15% in 1985 to about one-third in 2006. Cremation has a lot going for it. It's cheaper by almost half than a traditional casket funeral, it has been sanctioned by the Catholic Church since 1963 (Let's face it, who cares what the other denominations think?), more Americans no longer feel the need to be interred in a particular spot (I have to disagree on this one. I'm definitely going to Disneyland.) and cremation frees up space that would otherwise have to be used for cemeteries. I could go on, but the fear of haven't you laugh yourselves to death, is more than my conscience can bear.