The Real Survivor Fiji - A Restricted Press

The Real Survivor Fiji - A Restricted Press

Each by each, Fiji’s democratic institutions are suffering a gradual assault.

Basic freedoms and human rights are being over-run by the all to powerful and illegal acts of an out-of-control Commodore dictator.

The next freedom to suffer is the freedom of the press to operate unhindered.

Now Commodore Frank will try to catch Jell-O by attempting to shut down a website ... an offshore website!!

Excerpts from AAP via Fairfax Digital’s, The Age –

Fiji's coup leader clamps down on media
Australian Associated Press (AAP) - March 8, 2007 - 7:14PM

Fiji's coup leader has warned journalists the military will haul them in for questioning if they are deemed to have filed "irresponsible" reports.

The warning came after the general manager of the Fiji Daily Post and the news director of Fiji Television were detained separately over reports the military objected to.

The Fiji Television report detailed the death of a man after he was allegedly detained and assaulted by soldiers during a drug raid on his village in the east of Vanua Levu, Fiji's second largest island.

Fiji Television has since retracted the story and apologised after the military insisted that soldiers were not involved.

Last week, Fiji Daily Post general manager Mesake Koroi was detained twice for what the military called "anti-military" articles and editorials, the Fijilive online news service reported.

Also on Thursday, the military said it was trying to establish the identities of journalists behind a weblog launched to expose alleged human rights abuses since Commodore Frank Bainimarama's December 5 coup.

Bainimarama, who has appointed himself interim prime minister, told Fijilive that he supported media freedom.

"... it lends credibility not only to the interim government but also to the military, the force behind this interim government and we want it," Fijilive quoted him as saying.

But he issued a warning to journalists, saying there would be consequences for those who made up stories.
----
Fiji Military spokesman Neumi Leweni confirmed efforts were underway to establish exactly who was producing material posted on the intelligentsiya weblog, established by journalists to document alleged rights abuses following the December coup.

The site was launched in January and has used it to publish allegations against the military regime, including several deaths it says resulted from bashings by soldiers.

The accounts have angered the military, which says it has not been given the chance to respond to the claims.
----
A statement posted on the blog on Thursday said the development was worrying.

But it added: "Should anything happen to Intelligentsiya, it would only serve to canonise the blogsite if the authors were captured and taken up for `re-education'."

"There is no shortage of Intelly Agents.

"We'll keep you posted ... and we continue to stand firm, fearlessly."

Webmasters, a Fijian website company, said the domain indicated the website was based overseas.
Read All>>

UPDATE 3-09-2007:

This from fijivillage.com -

Games up for Intelligentsiya
Army tracks cyber critics
Thursday March 08, 2007

The Fiji Military says it has identified a top educational institution in Suva that is being used as a base to run a controversial website that has been branded by the army as a 'pushover' against the interim regime.

Military spokesman, Major Neumi Leweni confirmed that they have identified a group of people operating from the institution.

"We have made major progress in our efforts to apprehend these people who have been reporting negative things about the military and we have been tracking them for quite some time now," he said.

Major Leweni says that the website recently made defamatory remarks against military and is portraying a negative image of the Interim Government.

"This time they have gone too far and we will be making arrests soon because we know who they are," he added.
Reference & Additional Comments Here>>

Additional Comment Update:

Bainimarama has a go at reporters
NewstalkZB - 11/03/2007 8:32:02

First it was the politicians, now Frank Bainimara is threatening to have a go at Fiji's journalists.

The country's self-appointed Prime Minister says reporters who write what he believes to be false or malicious stories will be taken in for questioning.

He says unbalanced and provocative reporting could create unnecessary fear, anxiety and reaction.

The commodore is unhappy at reports on websites claiming as many as four people have died after being taken into custody by the Fiji military since last year's coup.

He says freedom of the press is not limitless.
Reference Here>>

We At MAXINE Saw It, So It Must Be True!

We At MAXINE Saw It, So It Must Be True!
ht: Pajama's Media

Remnants - The L.A. Marathon XXII - 2007 Aftermath

A couple of couples who completed the race, walked in coupled comfort to their respective cars located about four blocks from the Universal City Metro Station. Image Credit: Copyright 2007 - ecj-MAXINE

Remnants - The L.A. Marathon XXII - 2007 Aftermath

The gun sounds, and their off – running 26 miles through the streets of Los Angeles … where “Nobody Walks …. “!

The starting line area of the new point-to-point course (L.A. Marathon XXII - 2007) around the Universal City Metro Line station was quite eye opening. Most people, who were interested in the event, came to the course or watched it on television in the comfort of their own home.

My wife and I are prone to walk around the neighborhood in which we live and it just happens to be about one mile from the new starting line area of the race. Late in the afternoon, we began our walk and the most compelling and interesting post event to the main event was happening right before our eyes.

Many people hobbled as they came off of the escalator out of the Metro station at Universal City near Campo de Cahuenga. Image Credit: Copyright 2007 - ecj-MAXINE

Almost no one stops to think about what happens once the 26 mile running race is over. What happens to the competitors? Where do they go? How did they get to the starting line and how do they get back home to recover from such a tremendous ordeal?

I can tell you that a fair number of them do not have a running club or entourage to make sure they are taken care of or pampered. They arrive at the starting line via public transportation or they drive and park in the neighborhood just to end up walking to the check-in point and line up with the thousands of other runners in the race at the starting line.

The gun sounds, and their off – running 26 miles through the streets of Los Angeles … where “Nobody Walks …. “!

Balloons strung over Cahuenga Boulevard near the starting line. Image Credit: Copyright 2007 - ecj-MAXINE

After anywhere from about 4, 5, 6, or 7 hours runners finish. Each runner who crosses the finish line in downtown Los Angeles, receives a medal attached to a red ribbon to hang around ones neck, and gets wrapped in a specially printed and logo’d sheet of plastic to prevent the participant from cooling down to fast.

The race was run and completed, now what?

A couple who completed the race, walked in coupled comfort to their car located four blocks from the Universal City Metro Station. Somehow the experience of the days ordeal seems to be sumed up by the expression on the billboard ahead. Image Credit: Copyright 2007 - ecj-MAXINE

Ok, so we walk two blocks to the Metro Station, hop the subway train, and get back to where we started … we need to get home!

More photos located here!

Here are some of the photo captions located at NowPublic related to the remnants of the Los Angeles Marathon XXII - 2007.

One man exclaimed after posing, “And I’m 49! This was my second L.A. Marathon. I completed one last year.” He was happy to be alive.

One man was walking and asked directions to the starting line - He wanted to visit where it all started earlier that day. He was walking in the wrong direction along Lankershim Blvd. His face was framed in caked, dried sweat salt almost as an additional badge of honor to go with his completion medal.

Stiff, smiling, and wrapped in plastic, a runner is walking to get to his car and make the drive home.

Gate 2 at Universal City with the north side mountain that holds the HOLLYWOOD sign on its south side for all of the world to see.

A successful female runner and very proud male friend at the starting line of the LA Marathon XXII – 2007 (approximately eight hours later).

Temporary crowd control fencing near the starting line of the LA Marathon XXII - 2007.

Close-up of an "only in LA" movie billboard used to drum up distribution. The tell tale sign is the release date - "Coming Soon". Image Credit: Copyright 2007 - ecj-MAXINE

FORE! - Playin' Through The Hard Way

The V40 grenade is spherical in shape, 6.5 cm (2.5 in) high, and 4 cm ( 1.5 in) in diameter - approximately the size of a golf-ball Caption Credit: Wikipedia - Image Credit: Pajamas Media

FORE! - Playin' Through The Hard Way

Can you imagine, taking an explosive object of destruction and trying to conceal it in a way as to pass a frisking ... even a naked frisking?

Well that is what happened in the Central American country of San Salvador the other day.

This from Reuters via Yahoo! News -

Prisoner caught with grenade where?
Reuters - Fri Mar 2, 9:25 AM ET

SAN SALVADOR - An inmate at an El Salvador jail was caught with a hand grenade stuffed up his backside -- a novel attempt to disguise his apparent escape plans.

Guards at the San Francisco Gotera prison outside the capital San Salvador found the V40 grenade, about the size of a golf ball, lodged up the man's rectum during a security clampdown, a prison spokesman said on Thursday.

They also caught another 16 inmates who each swallowed a mobile phone.

"We'll have to expel the objects and if they won't come out we'll have to perform surgery in hospital," said Alberto Uribe, a spokesman for the El Salvador prison service.

The body of the M-67 hand grenade is a 2.5-inch diameter steel sphere designed to burst into numerous fragments when detonated. It produces casualties within an effective range of 49.5 feet (15 meters) by the high velocity projection of fragments. The grenade body contains 6.5 ounces of high explosive. Each grenade is fitted with a fuse that activates the explosive charge. Image Credit: Military Analysis Network

Last year, prison guards found an M67 grenade in the vagina of a female visitor at the overcrowded La Esperanza-Mariona prison on the northern fringes of San Salvador.

Prisoners in the Central American country use weapons to try to escape or attack fellow inmates and prison guards, and use cellular phones to order free gang members to commit crimes or smuggle narcotics.
Reference Here>>

This could not get any uglier. What if Islamo-Fascists terrorists begin to view the world as do the drug dealers view their freedom from imprisonment?

A V40 grenade is quite destructive. The steel body of the grenade has 326 squares pressed into its inside face to produce separate fragments when the explosive fill is detonated.

The V40 weighed 136 gm (4.8 oz) and was issued primed from the manufacturer. Fuse delay time is set for about four seconds.

This grenade was considered lethal up to a radius of 18 meters (20 yards) and dangerous up to 300 m (325 yd) from point of impact. It was commonly referred to as the Mini-Frag.

This incident gives us a whole new interpretation to the expressions like, the "San Salvador Open"! Or, how about the "Back Nine"? ... Divot!

FORE!!!!

The Doom Of Profit

The happy couples at the Oscars - Tammy Lynn Michaels, Melissa Etheridge, Al Gore, Tipper Gore - Image Credit: Jeff Vespa/WireImage.com

The Doom Of Profit

It strikes me that the posting below should be titled "The Doom Of Profit".

It certainly put an end to the perceived purity of this (truly) evil man's character.

Just think, maybe this will put an end to all of this crazy talk about giving this guy the "Nobel Peace Prize"! Give us all a break from his overbearing and lecturing ways.

As he stated very clearly - This (his profiting from his own "doom prophecy") IS a moral issue. Hey, Al, go back to growing tobacco!

This posted at Now Public -

The Profit of Doom
... and it gets worse
by robert galbraith - February 28, 2007

"As the controversy over global warming doomsayer Al Gore's voracious energy-eater mansion rolls on, there's an angle I think merits deeper investigation than it is currently getting. While much of the focus has been on whether or not Gore is an environmental hypocrite, the story has raised the profile of the role of "carbon offsets" in achieving a "greener," more environmentally friendly world.

In its original story, The Tennessean reported that Gore buys "carbon offsets" to compensate for his home's use of energy from carbon-based fuels. As Wikipedia explains, a carbon offset "is a service that tries to reduce the net carbon emissions of individuals or organizations indirectly, through proxies who reduce their emissions and/or increase their absorption of greenhouse gases."

Wikipedia goes on to explain that "a wide variety of offset actions are available; tree planting is the most common. Renewable energy and energy conservation offsets are also popular, including emissions trading credits."

So far, so good. But how Gore buys his "carbon offsets," as revealed by The Tennessean raises serious questions. According to the newspaper's report, Gore buys his carbon offsets through Generation Investment Management:

Gore helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets. The firm invests the money in solar, wind and other projects that reduce energy consumption around the globe...

Gore is chairman of the firm and, presumably, draws an income or will make money as its investments prosper. In other words, he "buys" his "carbon offsets" from himself, through a transaction designed to boost his own investments and return a profit to himself. To be blunt, Gore doesn't buy "carbon offsets" through Generation Investment Management - he buys stocks."
Reference Here>>

Well, we just finished reading the website for Generation Investment Management.

As Simon Cowell of American Idol fame is prone to say when he gives his best critique ... "If I am going to be honest" - the website for a company that was "established" in 2004 is Nothing But A Bunch Of Fluff ... there is no "there", there ... this company should be based in Oakland! Jerry Brown would fit right in.

The richest statements on the site are:

Our Chairman, former Vice President Al Gore, has assembled Generation's Advisory Board which consists of global leaders and thinkers from capital markets, industry, sustainability, economics, and geopolitical fields. The Advisory Board plays an important part in establishing our long term thematic research agenda into global sustainability issues, such as poverty, climate change, ecosystem services, biodiversity, pandemics, demographics, migration, public policy and responsible lobbying.

We, at MAXINE, really love that word - SUSTAINABILITY - it actually sounds ominous and that we humans have the power to not just have control as to what happens here on earth - as if, but beyond.

And this:

Generation's Advisory Board consists of global thinkers who help us anticipate the changing context for business.

It makes one think, if Al Gore became President of the most powerful nation on earth, how would he use his power to Change The Context For Business!

Tick, Tick, Tick - H5N1 Virus Hits Woman In China

A health worker vaccinates a chicken against bird flu at a Chinese farm. Chinese farmers also have used an anti-viral made for humans on chickens. Image Credit: China Photos Via Getty Images (2005)

Tick, Tick, Tick - H5N1 Virus Hits Woman In China

Migrating birds are the suspected source of the first virus transfer in 2007 to a flock of chickens as China steps up its second-phase clinical trials effort to create a vaccine.

The unusually warm spring weather is expected to hamper health officials' efforts at curbing the spread of bird flu due to the fact that migrant birds may stay longer within the borders of China.

China has not reported a poultry outbreak since September 20 last year, although the health ministry in January confirmed that a man in the eastern province of Anhui had contracted bird flu but subsequently recovered.

Excerpts from China Daily -

First human bird flu case in 2007 reported
By Shan Juan (China Daily) - Updated: 2007-03-02 06:57

A new human case of H5N1 bird flu, the first this year, was confirmed in China.
----
A 44-year-old woman from a remote village in East China's Fujian Province was diagnosed on February 18 as having the virus, according to the Xinhua News Agency.

The villager, surnamed Li, had developed a fever after she had eaten two chickens she had raised.
----
Li is reportedly in a serious condition at a local hospital. All who have had close contact with her are being closely monitored, although none have so far shown any symptoms of virus infection.

Zhang Changpin, vice-governor of the Fujian Province, has ordered the compulsory inoculation of all chickens, and has required local authorities to set up inoculation files and issue certificates for inoculated birds, Xinhua reported yesterday.

The Ministry of Health told Xinhua it had already notified the World Health Organization about the case.

Since 2003, the deadly virus has infected 22 people in China and killed 14.
----
The virus remains essentially an animal disease, but experts fear it may mutate into a form that is easily transmitted to humans and trigger a pandemic.

The Beijing-based Sinovac Biotech, which is co-developing a H5N1 bird flu vaccine with the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, said it is ready for the second phase of clinical trials.

"Everything is ready for the second phase which will be carried out when the State Food and Drug Administration (SFDA) gives the nod," Chen Jiangting, director of the clinical trial research department of Sinovac told China Daily yesterday. "We filed the application last September."

She said the first phase of clinical trials on 120 volunteers showed the vaccine could provide 78 percent protection, and the figure meets the standard for seasonal flu vaccine set by the European Union.

"We are upbeat about the coming second phase of clinical trials," Chen said.
Reference Here>>

The Real Survivor Fiji – Point-Of-Order Process Pursued

Laisenia Qarase (born February 4, 1941) was Prime Minister of Fiji from 2000 to 2006. After the coup that led to the removal of Mahendra Chaudhry was quashed by the military, Qarase joined the Interim Military Government as a financial advisor on 9 June 2000, and was subsequently appointed Prime Minister on July 4. He subsequently won two parliamentary elections, but was deposed in a military coup on 5 December 2006. Caption & Image Credit: Wikipedia

The Real Survivor Fiji – Point-Of-Order Process Pursued

It had to happen and after nearly three full months since the head of Fiji’s military, Commodore Frank Bainimarama, faces action in the island nation’s court system.

The hope, through this point-of-order process is to highlight the illegitimacy of of the Commodore’s actions.

This from Associated Press via Zee News (India) -

Fiji military coup to face court challenge
Associated Press - Suva, Mar. 02, 2007

Fiji's governing party that was ousted in a coup three months ago launched court action today to try to have the military chief's actions ruled illegal, increasing pressure on the commander to restore democracy in the country.

The case, if successful, is unlikely to force Commodore Frank Bainimarama to give up power because he controls Fiji's security forces. But it would undermine his claim to be operating within the country's constitution.

Prime Minister Laisenia Qarase's Soqosoqo Duavata Ni Lewenivanua Party formally applied to the high court on Friday to hear its claim that Fiji's military forces illegally removed the democratically elected government on Dec. 5 last year.

In the putsch, Bainimarama removed the government, closed the Parliament, proclaimed himself interim President and imposed sweeping emergency powers on the country. He claimed his actions were within the 1997 constitution, and that he would call elections to restore democratic rule at an undecided future date.

Acting Chief Justice Anthony Gates gave the two sides till March 28 to file detailed affidavits of evidence and defense to the court.

Gates also asked the military not to interfere with Qarase's lawyer and the courts commissioner of oaths traveling to the outlying island of Vanuabalavu to execute affidavits and have them signed by Qarase.
Reference Here>>

The Real Survivor Fiji – Military, And The Human Toll

Japanese tourists from left Nanako Ota, Megumi Fukaya and Matko Yamazaki enjoy their stay in Nadi yesterday. Tourism in Fiji is far from normal, warns stakeholders. Image Credit: Fiji Times Limited

The Real Survivor Fiji – Military, And The Human Toll

Let’s see, what are the positives of the coup? Increased military checkpoints equal reduced crime – that’s good for tourism, right?

The large tourist developments that congregate around the airport are isolated from the rest of the civilian life activity – that hides some of the ugly side of running a military rule country, right?

Most of the touring world located in Europe and North America haven’t plugged into the political issues that are stifling the island nation – so ignorance is bliss, right?

Well in a country the military has taken over since December 5th, things are grinding to a halt and it doesn’t look good for future either. The human toll under the present set of circumstances is increasing and it doesn’t look like it will get any better soon. After all, the innocent citizens of Fiji will not even be able to have a say (vote) until 2010 if the Commodore is to continue to have his way.

Excerpts from the New Zealand’s National Business Review -

Commodore country
By Nevile Gibson, Editor-In-Cheif – National Business Review (NZ) 1-Mar-2007

The holiday conundrum: Fiji Island resorts allow you to get away from the everyday environment of work, household duties, telephones, television, even newspapers.

Yet since the December 5 coup, Fiji’s resort holiday business has nosedived. And personal experience over the past weekend indicates nothing has changed for the holidaymaker.
----
Patrols concentrate on gatherings of young people, who are leading suspects for street crime, burglaries and drug abuse. A new crime in the statistics, threats and swearing at military officers, has boosted the number of arrests to 1200 from Dec 5 to February 15.
----
Monday’s editions of both papers this week led with the story of the death of a 19-year-old, who had been assaulted by soldiers and police a month ago when taken into custody. The Times reported this was the second such death and the story is attracting international attention.

The Times also reports an unnamed organisation has documented 200 cases of official human rights abuse while the Fiji Human Rights Commission has 20.

No doubt some heavy-handed treatment is being handed out but the media reporting, particularly in the just-mentioned report, shows a heartening degree of robustness.

Fiji has a five-star holiday industry grafted on to a third world economy.
----
The main source of tourists is Australia and New Zealand, where news of the coup has been widely reported and where the governments have imposed travel bans.

But elsewhere in the world, I was told, the news has not filtered through, mainly because little of note has occurred and perhaps there is a greater tolerance of these tourists to hot country politics.
----
But the industry is far from healthy and it will fall well short of its aim this year to exceed $F1 billion in turnover. Hotels Association president Dixon Seeto was quoted at the weekend as saying, “We have to face the reality here that things are not normal.”
----
The effects on employment are palpable, as full time workers were still on reduced hours and casual staff are jobless.
----
A costly coup

While the day-to-day impact of the coup is largely invisible to visitors, the economic impact is already considerable, if not as bad as previous ones.
----
Latest Fiji Reserve Bank forecasts show negative economic growth of 2-4 per cent in 2007, mainly from the decline in tourism. RBF governor Savenaca Narube also confirmed in his latest statement that the key industries of sugar, fishing, forestry, agriculture and mining were also faring badly.

Government budgets are being shrunk and each day brings news of sackings from the public sector. But the finance minister, Mahendra Chaudry, who was himself overthrown as PM in a previous coup, is using the crisis to create a new future for Fiji based on an open economy.

At the weekend, he revealed a programme to remove all state business monopolies, notably in aviation, electricity, telecommunications and television. The companies affected are Telecom Fiji, Fiji Electricity Authority, Fiji Television and Air Pacific.

Quoting from the Rogernomics textbook, he promised a better deal for consumers from greater competition and choice. This is radical stuff for a nation in the Pacific, where land ownership remains largely communal and therefore is unlikely to attract the kind of investment or productivity that can take agricultural output to its full potential.
Read All>>

Cruising On Corn E85 – Not A Smooth Ride

Dan Kallal of rural Chesterfield in Macoupin County, who co-owns and operates Kallal Brothers Inc., where they raise grain and livestock, holds a 6-week-old crossbred pig. Image Credit: The Telegraph/MARGIE M. BARNES

Cruising On Corn E85 – Not A Smooth Ride

The average vehicle driving American would dearly love to be able to do their level best to reduce our dependence on oil and the geopolitical pressures its use presents our country.

It would be nice that ALL cars were FlexFuel capable (able to use both gasoline and E85 for ease of transition to the use of renewable biofuel) and every fuel station provided an E85 fuel pump.

The average city living American, however, may be uninformed as to how difficult a proposition this switch can be. Many believe that all we have to do is “just do it” and everything will be fine – but this pursuit of reduced dependence on fossil fuels has its domino effect on the infrastructures that are already dependent on the easy cellular-fiber sources that exist.

Further, it takes energy to convert fiber to fuel so the question has to be asked, is this move to E85 really economically feasible?

Excerpts from The Telegraph (Alton, Illinois), originally published in two parts -

1) Ethanol demands send farmers scrambling & 2) Ethanol push has livestock producers worried
Becoming less reliant on foreign oil has become the favorite sound bite for politicians.
By MAGGIE BORMAN - The Telegraph - 02/26/2007

From the president to the governor, leaders are putting taxpayer money where their mouths are, subsidizing production of ethanol from the heartland's golden corn crop.

Ethanol, the colorless, flammable liquid produced by the fermentation of sugars from corn and other plants, puts the kick in alcoholic beverages, the pop in popcorn and is used in foods from cereal to soda pop.

Most of the ethanol used as a gasoline additive in the U.S. comes from corn grown in a few Midwest states known as the Corn Belt. Illinois is the nation's No. 2 ethanol producer and the No. 2 biodiesel producer.

In 2007, Illinois' 10 ethanol plants will produce more than one billion gallons, and three biodiesel plants will produce more than 120 million gallons.

The governor has supported a rapid expansion of the E85 infrastructure.
----
The governor's plan, among other things, would invest $25 million to help build five biodiesel plants, boosting the state's production by 200 percent to 400 million gallons per year, or the equivalent of 25 percent of the state's annual diesel fuel needs by 2017.

Although his means of financing are far from clear, Blagojevich wants to invest $100 million over the next five years to build up to 20 ethanol plants across Illinois, with an additional $100 million over the next 10 years to build four plants in Downstate Illinois using new technology to create ethanol from plant waste materials such as corn husks and wood pulp.
----
Ethanol has many supposed benefits - weaning Americans off foreign oil, increasing local industry and jobs, reducing global warming and aiding grain producers, among them.

But many people question the validity of the rush to subsidize the ethanol industry. They want to know if America has the ability to produce enough ethanol to become totally foreign-oil free. Ethanol is placing, in particular, a lot of burden on corn supplies, which affects livestock producers, world food banks and corn food products.

Where will all the corn come from?

In December, Chuck Hartke, director of the Illinois Department of Agriculture, said Illinois produced about 1.7 billion bushels of corn last year. The U.S. Department of Agriculture's year-end statistics released last week estimated the 2006 corn production at 10.5 billion bushels, the third largest on record, but still a 5 percent decrease from 2005.

More than 70 million acres of corn were planted for grain production. Corn acres are expected to increase dramatically this year, due in large part to the rapid increase in fuel ethanol production capacity.

The U.S. ethanol industry has a capacity to produce about 5 billion gallons per year, but more than 4.5 billion gallons of capacity is under construction, according to Ethanol Producer Magazine. The USDA planting estimate for this year forecasts an increase in the range of seven million to 10 million acres of corn.

"Currently we are using about 400 million bushels of corn to produce ethanol in Illinois, and by the end of 2008 we should be consuming close to a billion bushels to produce ethanol," Hartke told the Chicago Tribune in December.
----
Here is an easy formula to remember: 1 ton of corn equals 39.4 bushels, which equals 110 gallons of ethanol.
----
All this would increase the corn needed for distilleries to 139 million tons, Brown said. This would yield nearly 15 billion gallons of ethanol, satisfying only 6 percent of U.S. auto fuel needs (this estimate does not include any plants started after June 30 that would come online in time to draw on the 2008 harvest).

At the end of January, the Illinois Farm Bureau said Illinois farmers might expand corn production acres by at least 9 percent over the 2006 levels, according to a survey conducted at the Corn and Soybean Classic meetings around the state. If realized, Illinois farmers would plant about 12.6 million acres in corn this spring - the highest corn acreage since records began in 1866.
----
Ethanol push has livestock producers worried

No one questions the need to reduce the nation’s reliance on foreign oil. But pushing ethanol as the solution has people like pig farmer Ken Doyle worried.

Doyle, who runs Hickory Grove Pork Farm between Carlinville and Gillespie, said production of ethanol stands to deplete the corn stock that livestock farmers count on to feed the animals that feed much of the world.

"Those of us that are well-fed and warm at night don’t consider the impact an increase in feed prices will have globally," Doyle said. "That is a rather sobering aspect of this that the press isn’t covering. Right now we have all these politicians beating on their chests speaking about how wonderful it is to have alternative energy, but there is a downside for the hungry of the world that is quite frightening."

Controversy remains over the use of America’s fertile cornfields as the best and most economical means to replace gasoline. The demands are having an impact on livestock producers, consumer food prices, exports and world food banks.

While ethanol-related industries and the National Corn Growers Association have asserted that corn-guzzling ethanol demands outlined under President George Bush’s energy plan can be done, even the president recognizes it may be difficult to meet his goal of 7.5 billion gallons of ethanol by 2012.

"Ethanol produced today comes from corn, and we’ve got hog growers and chicken growers that need corn to feed their animals," Bush said while speaking at a DuPont plant in Delaware last month. "Therefore it’s going to be kind of a strain at some point in time on the capacity for us to have enough ethanol to make us less dependent on oil."
----
Steve Ring, general manager of Hog Inc. in Greenfield, a Greene County-based cooperative composed of about 100 pork producers whose principal business is the manufacture of feed for hogs, said many pork producers were not counting on how quickly the market would respond to the ethanol boom.

"We are facing a new dilemma. In 2006, the country raised the third-largest corn crop in history. Because of the current and projected demand from the ethanol industry, corn prices are the highest they have been in 10 years," Ring said.

In October 2005, Ring said the average his cooperative paid for corn was $1.65 a bushel. In October 2006, the price averaged $2.85, and in December 2006, the average was $3.65. The price as of Jan. 26 was $3.78.

"So our price of corn has jumped 72.7 percent from October 2005 to October 2006. It jumped 121 percent from October 2005 to December 2006, and 129 percent (on Jan. 26)," Ring said. "That is one heck of a change in a short period of time."
----
It takes about 10 bushels of corn to raise and finish a hog to market. Utilizing the current price of corn, it represents an increase of $21.30 per hog, Ring said, noting that most other ingredients have also increased.
----
Ring said Hog Inc. has had a few hog producers that have already discussed dropping their hog operations and only raising grain. If hog producers have older buildings, for example, that need to be replaced within a few years, "it is difficult for them to pencil out a profit with current corn prices that may well increase."

"As the ethanol industry grows, it will require more corn," Ring said. "While there is talk out of Washington about cellulose crops (another means of ethanol production), the technology for corn and the tax incentives will keep pressure on to grow corn-based ethanol."

The ethanol industry has a 51-cent-per-gallon tax advantage while the livestock industry has no tax incentives.
----
"I have read several reports that estimate the ethanol industry can pay $4.05 per bushel for corn when crude oil is $50 per barrel. The higher crude oil goes, the more the ethanol industry can afford to pay," Ring said.

Ring supports the use of ethanol and less reliance on foreign oil. He owns a flex-fuel vehicle and purchases E85 on a regular basis.
----
Ring’s final concern is the impact corn-based ethanol would have on U.S. consumer food product costs and corn for export to the world’s hungry.

"My sincere hope is that legislators will have an open discussion on the positive and negative aspects of an aggressive expansion of the ethanol industry.
----
Dan Kallal, who lives in the rural area outside the Macoupin County town of Chesterfield, and his brother, Dave, own and operate Kallal Brothers Inc., where they raise grain and livestock.
----
"We are shifting to growing as much corn as we can, as price will be a factor if we have to buy corn," Dan Kallal said. "Feed costs are about 60 to 70 percent of our production cost so if we have to buy $4 corn, it will definitely affect us."

Kallal said the demand for corn-based ethanol production would have a global effect as well; there won’t be as much corn meal to donate to the World Food Bank for other countries, nor will there be enough corn for export.

"It is a global market, and if we are competitive we can export; if we aren’t, someone else will pick up the market."

Doyle, who along with his family runs the Hickory Grove Pork Farm, a farrow-to-finish swine facility that includes a breeding herd and a market herd, said his farm purchases all of its corn.

"Feed costs are about 60 percent of our operation and it takes about 10 bushels of corn to create a market weight," Doyle said. "With a dollar and a half increase on corn it equates to about $15 per pig increase."
----
"The outlook for our industry in 2007 is not positive. When you are dealing with a global economy, this doesn’t just affect our operation but every operation in the world," Doyle said. "In a world market, it is demand for feed grains -- not just corn -- that has gone up."

The price of feed grains in time will affect the cereal, dairy, eggs, beef and pork products Doyle said, as well as the World Food Program, which feeds more hungry people than any other agency.
References Here & Here>>

A Hollywood Moment Meets An Inconvenient Truth

Former Vice President Al Gore is shown in a scene from his documentary "An Inconvenient Truth." The film received two Oscar awards - best documentary feature and best original song. Image Gerdit: Eric Lee / Paramount Pictures Classics via AP

A Hollywood Moment Meets An Inconvenient Truth

Can you say Al Gore? … I knew you could.

It is not enough that Al Gore, during the Oscar telecast last night, got everyone on camera (almost) to say the word CRISIS when they were hammering home the less than truthful message of his Oscar award winning lecture … ahh! … errr! … “Documentary”.

No, the seas are NOT going to rise 20 feet but the Gore household uses at least twelve (12) times the electricity than the average American household while he pursues the Nobel Peace Prize!

This in from Instapundit –

AN INCONVENIENT UTILITY BILL
By Glenn Reynolds - February 26, 2007 - posted at 06:46 PM

"Gore’s mansion, located in the posh Belle Meade area of Nashville, consumes more electricity every month than the average American household uses in an entire year, according to the Nashville Electric Service (NES)…

. . . The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy.

In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh—more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh—guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year. As a result of his energy consumption, Gore’s average monthly electric bill topped $1,359."
Reference Here>>

The Quest For Hollywood Cash & Caché

Democratic presidential candidate Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) speaks to supporters at a rally in Austin, Texas February 23, 2007. Image Credit: REUTERS/Peter A. Silva

The Quest For Hollywood Cash & Caché

It’s a small pond with a lot of very big and influential fish. Hollywood political money, for some on both sides of the process, is more about position and stature than the value of the money and the power it brings.

Rob Reiner, through his political appointment and failed attempts to direct how Californians live and pursue their lives, is only one example of the abuses that may take place when Hollywood money and influence meet up with the potential of placing someone with real political power into office … any office.

All one needs to do is review the events of the past week after a major fund raising event to see how important it is for liberals to court and carry the majority of the “Hollywood Cash & Caché”.

Excerpts from the World Socialist Web Site (a liberal insider’s POV) -

The “scramble for Hollywood:” the Democratic Party and entertainment industry liberals
By David Walsh - 24 February 2007

The squabble that erupted this week between the camps of Democratic Party senators and presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton of New York and Barack Obama of Illinois might best be described as a skirmish in the “scramble for Hollywood.”

The dispute brought to the foreground a sordid reality of contemporary American politics: the general hustling for cash from corporate contributors and wealthy donors that dominates US election campaigns, and the role, in particular, of studio executives and other major figures in Hollywood in funneling tens of millions of dollars to the Democratic Party.

Two Democratic heavyweights for the 2008 presidential nomination - Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton and Senator Barack Obama - decided to bring their arsenals into the open. And the first salvo has been fired by Clinton in response to remarks made by Obama fundraiser, David Geffen. Image Credit: EARTHTIMES

Clinton and Obama, along with the other Democrats, are presently battling over Hollywood’s treasure trove of campaign funds.

As everyone in America knows and the media brazenly acknowledges, winning the presidential nomination of one of the two major parties depends in large measure on collecting more money than any of your rivals. Success in fund-raising is the principal indication that you are a “serious” candidate. It both confirms that you have the backing of powerful corporate and financial figures, the people who count, and encourages further support from these circles.
----
During the Presidents’ Day recess of Congress this week, many politicians found themselves fund-raising in southern California. Democratic House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer of Maryland, Senator Barbara Boxer of California, Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois and Senator Joseph Biden, another presidential hopeful, were among those who held one or more events in the Los Angeles area.

Obama’s campaign grabbed the spotlight by organizing a $2,300-per-ticket Beverly Hills reception Tuesday evening, the most significant event this month, attended by film stars, studio executives and others. The affair raised some $1.3 million.

Jennifer Aniston, Ben Stiller, Eddie Murphy, Morgan Freeman, George Clooney, Barbra Streisand, Ron Howard and Dixie Chicks’ lead singer Natalie Maines were reportedly among those who attended. Obama, according to press reports, told the mostly film industry crowd, “Don’t sell yourself short. You are the storytellers of our age.”

The Hillary Clinton-Obama dispute broke out the following day after remarks made by the host of the event, film and recording mogul David Geffen (along with Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg, one of the founders of DreamWorks SKG), appeared in Maureen Dowd’s column in the New York Times. Geffen, who raised $18 million for Bill Clinton during his presidency, has thrown his support and considerable influence behind the Illinois junior senator and rival of Hillary Clinton. Geffen asserted that Hillary Clinton was “overproduced and overscripted,” according to Dowd. He criticized her for not apologizing for her 2002 vote in support of the Iraq war.

Dowd wrote that relations between Geffen and the Clintons ruptured in 2001, when the president, during his last hours in office, pardoned international commodities trader Marc Rich while refusing to free political prisoner Leonard Peltier, the American Indian Movement leader who was framed up for the deaths of two FBI agents in 1977.

Geffen commented, “Yet another time when the Clintons were unwilling to stand for the things that they genuinely believe in. Everybody in politics lies, but they do it with such ease, it’s troubling.”

The Clinton camp quickly shot back and the battle of press releases was on.
----
The stakes are high for the Democratic candidates. According to Eric Alterman in the September 2004 edition of the Atlantic Monthly, “During the 2000 election cycle, zip-code areas on average yielded slightly more than $35,000 in political contributions, while residents of Beverly Hills, 90210, ponied up slightly more than $6.2 million. In the same year Pacific Palisades, Bel Air, and Brentwood were each good for $1.7 million to $3.3 million.

“In 2002 entertainment ranked first among all industries funding Democratic Party committees, and roughly 80 percent of the industry’s party contributions went to Democratic candidates and committees; just 20 percent went to the Republican Party. From 1989 up to the start of the current election cycle Hollywood had given the party nearly $100 million for federal elections alone—close to the $114 million Republicans received from their friends in the oil and gas industries. Together with organized labor and the trial bar, Hollywood is now one of the three pillars of the Democrats’ financial structure.”
----
The Hollywood elite is not a monolith. Film studio and entertainment industry executives, leaders of the handful of enormous conglomerates that largely determine what Americans and much of the world see on cinema and television screens and listen to on CD and radio, belong to the same financial-corporate oligarchy that has a stranglehold over every aspect of American life. These are multi-millionaires and billionaires who have a very large say in determining who should hold political office and protect their interests.

The Center for Responsive Politics notes that the film industry has specific issues which it pursues with the politicians it helps bankroll, including “trade, copyright protection and free speech concerns.” The CRP continues, “While many of the big-name stars give mainly for ideological reasons, the corporate executives who run the industry take a more pragmatic view in dispensing their campaign dollars.
----
“A perennial concern of the industry is copyright protection, particularly as it concerns the practice of sharing music and video files via the Internet.
----
The film industry executives lean toward the Democrats for cultural and political reasons. The success of their business in this day and age depends on a certain “permissiveness” in the social atmosphere. The dominance of the Christian Right, for example, would not be helpful to those often attempting to market violence and sexual suggestiveness, nor would it accord with the temperaments and lifestyles of writers, directors, actors and musicians by and large.
----
The economic concerns of studio chiefs and their general political inclinations merge and overlap with the outlook of the extremely well-heeled layers who make up the upper echelons of the film and music industry in Hollywood and organize support for the Democratic Party — figures like Geffen, Spielberg, Streisand, Rob Reiner, Laurie David (producer-comic Larry David’s wife) and others.

No doubt, in many cases, a sincere desire to see social reform and improve the general conditions of life motivates such people in supporting liberal politicians, as well as environmental and charitable causes.
----
However, this is a privileged layer that sees the world and the political process in the US through a thick haze. Its particular brand of liberalism is shaped by a terrible distance from the working population and its concerns, the degree to which it is shielded from everyday life in general by managers, assistants and intermediaries of every sort, and its essential satisfaction with its own lot.
----
The continued flow of Hollywood cash to the Democrats, whatever the motives or intentions of its organizers, is a deeply reactionary fact of American political life.
Read All>>

At Maxine, we wonder why all of this Hollywood Cash & Caché can't be directed toward issues of self-reliance and the kind of social reform that leads toward self-determination in the pursuit of happiness here in America … what is so really wrong with that?

I was reminded this morning in a presentation at the church I am prone to attend … with all of the liberal bashing that George Bush gets for being “dumb”, one assumes that the point these people seem to be making is that they posses greater knowledge than others … any others, save themselves.

1 Corinthians 8:1 states that “knowledge puffs up, but love builds up” - I am beginning to think with the more I listen and watch to what is being said this last week in Los Angeles, that people from the upper echelons of the film and music industry in Hollywood like those who organize support for the Democratic Party - figures like Geffen, Spielberg, Streisand, Rob Reiner, Laurie David (producer-comic Larry David’s wife) and others feel they have great knowledge … but lack love.

The Oscars are on tonight so here at MAXINE we plan on tuning in to "feel the love".

NOTE: After watching last nights Oscar presentations ... the key to get Hollywood Democrat CASH a flowin'? ... one word - CRISIS!