Cost of Oil and Ethanol

The use of ethanol made from corn has helped increased the cost of food to consumers. The corn used for ethanol is feed corn, not sweet corn humans eat, and by corn being diverted to ethanol, its not available to feed chickens, cattle or other animals. Even when the plant waste from ethanol plants are used as feed stock (which it is), the cost of feed has been increasing for the last few years.

But before you run off and invest in farming, it is still a risky investment, one bad storm or harvest could ruin the crop and the farmer is out of business.

But if you really want to reduce the cost of oil, reduce the cost of gasoline, reduce our dependence on imported oil, then we need to start drilling. Its as simple as that. Decisions made 10 years ago are coming back to haunt us now. Will we continue to compound the problem or will we fix it by allowing more drilling now so prices will be lower in the future.

California gun owners face further harrassment

I admit I am using the headline of the article.

This is very bad new for gun owners.

AB2062 is scheduled to be heard on Wednesday, May 7 in the Assembly Appropriations Committee.Sponsored by State Assembly Member Kevin De Leon D-45), AB2062 would require that law-abiding gun owners obtain a permit to buy handgun ammunition and would impose severe restrictions on the private transfers of handgun ammunition. Applicants for a "permit-to-purchase" would be required to submit to a background check, pay a $35 fee, and wait as long as 30 days to receive the permit.

Make Ethanol and the cost of food increases

If you use food crops for fuel and a farmer can make more money turning food into fuel, guess where he will sell his crops to make fuel and not food.

Well now with the increase in wealth around the world meaning more meat is being eaten, it means more grain is needed to feed the animals and with more crop land going to ethanol and with bad harvests in Australia for the last two years, it means there is now a food shortage.

Suddenly, global warming isn't as important as feeding people.

Even here in the US, people can't get as much of the type of rice they want. Which causes hording which makes things worse. There isn't a food shortage in the US (unlike other countries) but there isn't as much of the type of food some people want so people will panic. Each cheaper rice instead of the premium rice and you will be fine.

More on the law of unintended consequences

Most of Columbia's exports to the US enter duty free (no tariff on them). Most of the US exports to Columbia have a tariff (tax) on them making them more expensive.

The free trade agreement between the US and Columbia would remove most of the Colombian tariffs on US products thus making US exports cheaper there and so we can increase the sale of US products there. See how much the tariffs are costing US manufacturers.

The DEMOCRATIC Congress is opposed to the Colombian Free Trade Act because it will hurt American jobs.

Wait, increasing US exports to Columbia will hurt US workers??? Are these people that ignorant, stupid or blind? Enquiring minds want to know.

How did we get so lucky?

Well if your a Republican that is. Times of London (not necessarily a Republican friendly paper) has an interesting article about the Democratic primary.

May Obama and Clinton continue their primary fight and may they decide to fight in a take no prisoner manner.

A screeching halt

To updating this blog that is.

The boss is still suffering from information overload so hasn't updated in a while, he needs to either clear out his cache or install more ram into his head so the overflow won't shut down postings.

I'm still learning my new job and don't have as much time to post as before and we have had many drop dead dates so no time to post. In addition my company's year end was March 31 so had all the year end stuff to do.

So all that to say we will try to get the blog back on track to posting on a regular basis.

Thanks for stopping by.

PS, our first tasting party was a success and we are holding a second on Tuesday April 29 at our place. If your curious about it, please email me or visit the MyMonaVie website link in the upper right hand side of the blog.

Public Educators make us proud /s

Randy Castro, who attends school in Woodbridge, Va. Last November at recess he slapped a classmate on her bottom.

Yeah, hang the guy for harassing a girl, make him register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Oh yeah, here are a few more details:

Randy Castro is in the first grade.

In another incident:

vice principal, Kerry Wilson, "acting on a tip," discovered a fellow student to have a handful of ibuprofen tablets in her pocket. The other girl said she got them from Savana, who denied it. She had no tablets in her own pockets or in her backpack. Vice Principal Wilson, whose mind works in interesting ways, then decided that Savana might be hiding the ibuprofen in her cleavage or her crotch.

So, without contacting the girl's parents, he ordered a school official to strip-search Savana. She was obliged to expose her breasts and "her pelvic area."

So who should be written up as a sex offender? The boy in first grade who slapped a classmates butt or the vice principal who had an 8th grader stripped searched (he wasn't observing the search) for ibuprofen?

Are you sure you want your kids to go to public schools?

April 15th is around the corner

Well another week has come and gone and I'm now just getting to post something, anything.

Its been another full week at work, learning my new job and trying to get that work done. Over the next two weeks have to get all our budgets entered into the main system, but first the budgets have to get finalized. Oh and I have to take next Thurs and Friday off or I go over the max vacation accrual.

They still haven't brought anyone in for either my old position or another accountant whose last day was the 7th. I don't know how the close will be completed this month but I have my new job to do and won't have time to worry about the old position.

We are still having a tasting party this Thursday at our house at 7pm. Come on by if you can, will last till about 8:30.

Have a good weekend.

What a week

Well we finally got the March close done and the numbers sent to our masters accross the pond (I work for a foreign multi-national corporation). I'm moving from the accounting to finance departments, which means for this close I got to do both my jobs. Oh and March is also our year end so all the extra work in getting the year end numbers correct on top of the normal work.

I've managed to finish all my work at my old desk, email the reports to the people who need them, file my stuff and leave the desk clean. I don't think I should have to sit there anymore. That is until the temp finally arrives and I get to train them, while I'm trying to do my new job.

So its been a good week but a very busy week and am very glad for the weekend.

I think I seriously need a good drink.

Speaking of which, to the one or two people who visit this blog, tasting party at my place April 17 at 7pm.

What are we tasting? Well click on "My Mona Vie" to find out about the stuff.

Email if you need/want directions.