Those of you who love a good conspiracy theory should google Obama's Birth Certificate. Go to a couple of different websites will provide several hours of good entertainment. The First "Certificate of birth" you will see is not an original. It is a copy from 2006?. According to several internet websites it is obviously faked. There are bad borders; erased and reprinted text and glaring "2008" politically correct language "negro"/"African" errors. (Like the faked bushes service records that were printed using centered text and default Microsoft Word settings; when Obama was born term negro was used not black or African.) See Obama Grandmother says he was born in Kenya. Plus according to some if he went to school in Indonesian; he would have to be been adopted and give up US citizenship. I particularly like the part that some of the websites purporting to have investigated this are obviously biased because they have taken millions form Ayes and Obama. No doubt it will make very little difference; but a great conspiracy read.
I have a video from youtube about this on my blog. There is a lawyer in PA suing Obama for this reason. All he wants is for him to come up with the documentation. Simple, right? Well, he hasn't done it yet and the mainstream media reporst nothing on this. NBC should change it's name to OBC (Obama Broadcast Channel).
In addition, according to one of his books, Obama went to Pakistan in 1981 with some Pakistani friends. He was 20, and in college at the time. Well, the only problem with that is that at the time, Pakistan did NOT let in American citizens. Maybe that's why he went to Indonesia first...to renew his Indonesian passport. And maybe that's why he won't release his college records--they show him being a foreigner, or even getting foreign aid, or showing his birthplace as Kenya. Hmmn.
A 500 point drop in Dow Jones Industrial Average will keep things interesting at work; after work I let off a little steam with a casual game of volleyball. I lost all four games; but discovered if you pause for a few extra seconds before the serve it can have a psychological effect on the other team. I was thinking OK lets not screw this up, over the net, nice and easy, take your time. But that extra two to three seconds was just enough to mess with them –what's taking so long; why is he waiting?
On Saturday I took a friend out squirrel hunting for his first time. We went to nearby Hardware River Wildlife management area and explored its 1,000 plus acres. Not having been there before it provided an opportunity to see what is there; go for a day hike, scout for deer hunting locations, camping spots and shoot any squirrels we saw. My buddy realized that those country squirrels are a smarter than their city cousins and do not hang around people with guns very much. Score: Squirrels 1; Hunters 0.
Things are getting interesting in politics. I am feeling an intense urge to vote for any gal that can gut a moose. I mean not that I don't support VP candidates that shoot lawyers; they are good to. (We've got too many of them there lawyers in this country to begin with.) For a long time it looked bleak for the Republicans going into this election; but hopefully the Democrats are going to able to lose this one for us. 'til next time I will be bitterly clinging to my guns and religion...
The other day I was having a discussion with a friend over the high price of gas and world food shortage. I was thinking about this while filling up my gas tank and it occurred to me that I should figure out exactly how long a poor starving person had to starve in order for me to fill up my tank.
Now I want to warn you if you want to feel good about ethanol stop reading now. Ignorance is bliss. But I went off on a quest of information. Isn't the internet wonderful. How much corn does a poor person eat? How much corn does it take to make a gallon of gas? I knew the Mexicans ate a lot of corn (48% of their diet-that’s a lot of corn tortia's ) and then I found out that one year the 25% of the corn eaten by Mexician was exported by the US. Hmmm were getting closer.... Well I did a bunch of math that I will spare and made some assumptions to keep things simple. What I found was a little alarming.
It take 2.5 pounds of corn to feed a Mexican each day. It takes 22 pounds of corn to make one gallon of ethanol. Now those of you who are good with math have already figured out that one gallon of ethanol can starve a Mexican for about 10 days. Yikes. Now if you fill up your car with 20 gallons of gas you have starved a Mexican for 200 days. This part of the math is easy you like just add zero...
But lets look at this a little closer. Those of us in the financial markets always talk about oil in barrels. It is at like $120 a barrel A barrel of oil is like 50 gallons... but in actuality there is about 42 gallons of gas in a barrel of oil. The rest is apparently the black stuff you don't want in your engine. Well to substitute one barrel of oil with ethanol it takes a full years food supply of a poor Mexicans person's corn.
That brings up drilling in Alaska. People have proposed drilling in the Alaska Artic National Wildlife Refuge, but the environmentalist object because the mating Moose might have oil rigs off in the distance. They say it contains about 3.2 to 11 billion barrel of oil. I am not oil expert; but I am a financial analyst who knows basic math really well. That means we could feed the entire nation of 108 million Mexicans for thirty years based on the oil in the ground in ANWR. Or there's about 6 billion people in the world if there is 3 billion barrel of oil in ANWR; that could feed the whole world for 6 months.
So I am taking a new political stance. I think we should pave the ANWR. We should shoot all the moose and feed them to starving Mexicans. It could be like Moose Gravy for the corn bread biscuits. If you disagree with me you obviously hate poor starving Mexican Children. We can launch an awareness campaign at every gas station pump that contains 10% ethanol. It could show a tree hugger filling up with ethanol saying "I use ethanol because I love to starve children. They then die and we are rid of them. " The person could be yanking the bread away from a naked, sad, hungy, starving, malnourished child in a third world country and have it morph into a teaspoon full of oil for their SUV.
Folks no matter how you look at it using corn for gas is plain silly. Yet last year 25% of the US corn production went into ethanol. It does not save the planet; it starves poor people. You may think I am nuts.... but If you research it others have come up with the numbers close to mine. http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20070501faessay86305/c-ford-runge-benjamin-senauer/how-biofuels-could-starve-the-poor.html
I couldn't agree more. By the way, I did end up in Chester, VA. I am working with the rivermont church of Christ rmcoc.com We ought to try to get together sometime.
Also, the net ratio of energy produced with Ethanol is too little to be worth the cost. With oil, it produces much more energy than what was put into producing it.
"The other black stuff" - we use practically every drop in a barrel of oil, just for a bunch of other stuff.
Well I guess it has been a long while since I have posted. Ok well here is a quick update. I manage to keep myself fairly busy. A couple of weekends ago I went out to West Virginia and hit three caves over the course of two days. The highlight was when I repelled about 85 feet inside a Cave Mountain Cave and then climbed back up the rope. If you think I am crazy you are probably right. It was a 45 minute hike up to the top of the mountain and the cave entrance. After about 20 minutes of walking we set up an anchor around a large rock and threw down a rope. I slid down the rope (with the rappel rack) and then climbed back up the single rope using my vertical gear. (Called a frog system- It has two ascenders that clamp onto the rope and make climbing easier.) it is more exciting when you can't see the bottom of the whole and have to avoid all the falling rocks. It as an awesome trip and my first venture into vertical caving.
I have been busy with the outdoor club I am part of. Sunday afternoon I did a high ropes course including a 500 foot zip line, Saturday I helped someone move and then went to the shooting range with some guys from church. This weekend I am going to take a Wilderness First Aid course (I have had basic... but I guess I get to weave splints out of sticks we'll see.) then at the end of October I will be Chicago for a conference and plan to swing by Wisconsin for a few days.
But overall things are going ok. No big life changes. I am still working as a financial analyst. I haven't committed but I am planning on going to the 10 year FC reunion in Feb '08. Hard to believe it has been that long and would be great to see some of ya'll again.
Did I miss something or did I just go brain dead? You live in/near Charlottesville, VA??? I am going to be in Chester, VA Oct. 19-21 to see about working with the Brethren at the Rivermont church of Christ. If I end up there, it would be great if we could get together every now and then.
I am planning to head up to the appleton Green Bay area where I grew up and visit people up there. My mom lives near Nashville these days so I head over there more often 9like thanksgiving. Yes; I live in Charlottesville; it si about an hour and a half from Chester.
We're probably going to miss it because we have a baby due that week. If you are passing through Knoxville it would be good to see you though -- lots of good places to hike and stuff around here too!
