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Somali cleric calls for Muslims to hunt down and kill Pope
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
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-Lurid Crime Tales-
Hit Man Strangled by Intended Victim (Heh™)
Follow-up on an earlier story.
YJCMTSU. Coming soon to Court TV, no doubt.
When Susan Kuhnhausen returned home from work one day earlier this month, she encountered an intruder wielding a claw hammer. After a struggle, the 51-year-old nurse fended off her attacker by strangling him with her bare hands. Neighbors praised the woman for her bravery, and investigators said they believed the dead man -- Edward Dalton Haffey -- was burglarizing Kuhnhausen's home.

But after an investigation, police now say the intruder Kuhnhausen strangled was apparently a hit man hired by her estranged husband -- Michael James Kuhnhausen Sr. -- to kill her.
What gave the game away, Sherlock - could it have been his cell phone number?
The 58-year-old husband was taken into custody Thursday and charged with conspiracy to commit murder and attempted murder. He was ordered held on $500,000 bail. Haffey had worked as a custodian under Kuhnhausen at an adult video store, according an affidavit filed by the Multnomah County District Attorney's office.
Quelle surprise. And what exactly was Mr. H doing under Mr. K, pray tell? Inquiring minds, etc....
For the woman this is a two-fer.
Kuhnhausen and his wife were in the process of getting a divorce, and she told officers "her husband was distraught about the divorce and wanting to reconcile but that she was insisting on the divorce," the affidavit states.

A background check showed Haffey had served lengthy prison terms for conspiracy to commit aggravated murder and convictions for robbery and burglary.
Really? Hooda thunk it.
Inside a backpack Haffey left at the scene was a day planner with "Call Mike, Get letter," scribbled on the week of Sept. 4, the affidavit said. Michael Kuhnhausen's cell phone number was jotted on the inside of a folder, it said.
Why yes, yes it was, Watson!
What was the rest of the note on the day-planner: "Have Mike kill bitch ... call insurance companies ... deposit check ... order new pickup truck ..."
I'd say this is a case of justice truely being served. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/16/2006 05:59 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  eeewwwwww. He did cleanup in a porn store? no wonder he failed to kill her, the claw hammer prolly slipped outta his hands
Posted by: Frank G || 09/16/2006 7:55 Comments || Top||

#2  Shouldn't she get a check for (some part of) the money she's saved the taxpayers not having to try and store that waste of space?
Posted by: Perfesser || 09/16/2006 9:27 Comments || Top||

#3  Hé hé hé.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 09/16/2006 13:06 Comments || Top||

#4  Hahahahhahah!
You're a sicky Frank.
Posted by: 6 || 09/16/2006 13:51 Comments || Top||

#5  She is lucky that she strangled him in time before Maxwell brought down the silver hammer. I was taught to poke at the eyes, sharp blow to the windpipe, then chops to the carotid artery at the neck, in that order or so.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 09/16/2006 15:32 Comments || Top||

#6  the windpipe is a great opening shot, AP. Totally incapacitates, and possibly kills, on the spot. No need for all that vitreous humor on the thumbs....eeewwww
Posted by: Frank G || 09/16/2006 15:58 Comments || Top||

#7  Kuhnhausen and his wife were in the process of getting a divorce, and she told officers "her husband was distraught about the divorce and wanting to reconcile but that she was insisting on the divorce," the affidavit states.

Geeze, at 260 pounds, wasn't there enough of her to share?
Posted by: Zenster || 09/16/2006 19:26 Comments || Top||

#8  Gee, a real-life Dial M for Murder.
Posted by: Ernest Brown || 09/16/2006 20:23 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
Nitwit Nazi Nightengales Told to Get Plucked


Town Tells White Separatist Singers 'No Hate Here'

In the picturesque northwest corner of Montana only 30 miles from Glacier National Park, signs have begun to appear on windows in the city of Kalispell that proclaim "No Idiots Allowed Hate Here." What's the fuss all about? At first, it seems difficult to believe that the focus of the campaign is two 14-year-old twin morons girls. Then it becomes clear.

The two teens are those spokeskids for white trash separatists, Lamb and Lynx Gaede, who vaulted to international attention after they appeared on ABC's "Primetime" last year. The girls, their mother, April ”Fool”, and stepfather ”Carnival” Mark Harrington recently moved to Montana from Bakersfield, Calif., after April told "Primetime" that Bakersfield was "not white trash enough." Now Kalispell has put the family on notice, "Not in my backyard." Last week a group of neighbors printed information sheets about the family and distributed them door to door. "This letter is not written as a means to harass the family or to begin a witch hunt," the flier said. "We wish the family no harm.
Don’t go away mad, just go away.
Our goal is to peacefully communicate that this kind of idiotic hate and ignorance will not be accepted here in our neighborhood where we live and raise our families." Lamb and Lynx created the band Prussian Blue Light Special to communicate their white trash separatist views musically. The song "Sacrifice" praises Nazi leader Rudolph Hess, Adolph Hitler's deputy. The two have modeled T-shirts featuring Hitler smiley faces.
Awww, how cute. Smiley faces with little toothbrush moustaches.
They mostly appear at rallies for white trash nationalist causes and maintain a Web site with links to other white trash separatist organizations. "The music that Prussian Blue Plate Special performs is intended for white trash people," says the Web site. "They hope to help fellow moron whites come to understand that goat love for one's race is a beautiful gift that we should celebrate." Rebecca Kushner-Metteer, one of the people who handed out the fliers, says the teens and their parents moved into her south Kalispell neighborhood a couple of weeks ago. At first, no one paid much attention until another neighbor showed a rerun of the "Primetime" broadcast. They then recognized their new Nazi neighbors.

Now Kushner-Metteer and other families say they have received threats. "We're very concerned about our safety," says Kushner-Metteer. Postings by members of Stormfront.org and Libertyforum.com, which are community sites linked to the Prussian Blue site, have included addresses and phone numbers of those involved in passing out the fliers. A photograph of a mother and her daughter that was published by the Daily Inter Lake as they distributed the fliers can also be found on the sites. Kalispell Police Chief Frank Garner says all the threats have come from outside the region but are being investigated. He also says none contained death threats.
But you are following up on these threats, right Chief?
In the "Primetime" interview, Lynx who was 13 at the time, says she and her sister were "proud of being white trash." "We want our people to stay white trash," she says. "We don't want to just be, you know, intelligent, or anything, just a big muddle. We just want to preserve our missing chromosomes race." The Gaedes apparently want to be left alone.
Unless they’re onstage spewing their Nazi excrement to fellow bigots.
They have refused to answer their door or telephone. However, the Kalispell Police Department has heard from the family. The police say they received a complaint that the family was being "harassed" by the neighbors posting the fliers. In an irony not lost on many in the community, the officers had to explain that the neighbors' free speech rights made the fliers perfectly legal. Just as legal as the free speech rights afforded Lynx and Lamb Gaede.
But it’s their Nazi buddies who are making the threats, not the neighbors. Go figure.
Although a date has yet to be set, the 1,400-member Montana Human Rights Network is planning a rally in Kalispell. Seems all area residents are now exercising their free speech rights in northwest Montana.
Posted by: Zenster || 09/16/2006 18:46 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:


JoeM AI Exposed, 11A5S Accepts Apologies
Posted by: Thomose Sneash1945 || 09/16/2006 13:40 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  They are missing the obvious: such an AI would be invaluable in a humanoid robot.

The way to have such an enormous and computer intensive system available is to not try and limit the robots brain in its physical body.

Keep its local brain just for physical operations, movement, sensors and navigation. Then, in the area, connected to the robot by WIFI, would be its "midbrain", which could be like a dedicated PC. It would be what would have terabytes of storage and RAM, along with several powerful microprocessors. Here is where you keep its AI.

Finally, the PC is connected to an "upper brain", a very powerful computer system kept by the manufacturer. This would be used to handle unknown and unexpected problems, to access external information like Google, and for safety features.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/16/2006 14:20 Comments || Top||

#2  the Betty-Crocker OWG Hillarycrats that created this ABOMination should be neutralized
Posted by: Frank G || 09/16/2006 14:46 Comments || Top||

#3  Anonymoose - you're talking about a Bolo if you give it weapons and armor.

Posted by: FOTSGreg || 09/16/2006 19:18 Comments || Top||


Man needed surgery after sex with hedgehog
A Serbian man needed emergency surgery after he had sex with a hedgehog on a witchdoctor's advice. Zoran Nikolovic, 35, from Belgrade, says the witchdoctor told him it would cure his premature ejaculation. But he ended up in an operating theatre after the hedgehog's needles left his penis severely lacerated.

A hospital spokesman said: "The animal was apparently unhurt and the patient came off much worse from the encounter. We have managed to repair the damage to his penis."
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 09/16/2006 11:06 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Zoran the moron.
Posted by: JerseyMike || 09/16/2006 11:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Well, if it's too painful to have sex then, technically speaking, you really have cured your premature ejaculation. Though I doubt this is what Zoran had in mind.
Posted by: Jonathan || 09/16/2006 11:37 Comments || Top||

#3  witchdoctor's advice..yea right

LOL!
Posted by: RD || 09/16/2006 13:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Well, if you can't trust your witchdoctor, who can you trust, I ask you?
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 09/16/2006 13:28 Comments || Top||

#5  I told the witchdoctor, I was in love with you
I told the witchdoctor, I was in love with you
And than the witchdoctor, he told me what to do
He said that

ooh eeh ooh ahah, ting tang wallawallabingbang
ooh eeh ooh ahah, ting tang wallawallabangbang
ooh eeh ooh ahah, ting tang wallawallabingbang
ooh eeh ooh ahah, ting tang wallawallabangbang


Scales fall from my eyes.
Posted by: 6 || 09/16/2006 13:59 Comments || Top||

#6  But the hedgehog needs rehab. Poor little guy (gal?).
Posted by: Perfesser || 09/16/2006 15:02 Comments || Top||

#7  "Witchdoctors" in Serbia?
A European, orthodox christian country?
In the 21st century?

Yeah right...


Posted by: john || 09/16/2006 16:58 Comments || Top||

#8  I dunno, makes sense for me... lot of rural parts of Europe have long standing tradition of "low key" sorcery, used to cure diseases, ease cow delivery, sometimes to put a curse (like rendering a newly wed-man impotent, or making milk go sour,... etc, etc, often with a religious undertone (for example the two most well-known tomes of traditional french rural magic are "Le petit Albert" and "Le grand Albert", where magic is performed with prayers and so on.
"Witchdoctor" is perhaps a bad choice of words, think rather "healer" or "wise man". Sorcery is not reserved for Africa or Asia.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 09/16/2006 17:07 Comments || Top||

#9  When I was a teen I worked at a restaurant. Whenever the waiter/patron got burned, he phoned an aged relative, so he could say a prayer and "cut the fire", IE make the pain go away.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 09/16/2006 17:09 Comments || Top||

#10  Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/16/2006 20:40 Comments || Top||

#11  Does Zoran Nikolovic tanslate into Dinsdale Piranha in English?

Insert obligatory Spiny Norman joke >here<.
Posted by: Zenster || 09/16/2006 22:17 Comments || Top||

#12  If only he'd been a Terry Pratchett fan he'd have known this was impossible!

Our hearts go out to the victim. By which of course we mean the hedgehog.
Posted by: The Hedgehogemony || 09/16/2006 23:43 Comments || Top||

#13 
Posted by: twobyfour || 09/16/2006 23:46 Comments || Top||

#14  YJCMTSU. :-D
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/16/2006 23:51 Comments || Top||


Africa North
Morocco plans Arab world’s first high-speed train
RABAT - Work on the Arab world’s first high-speed train -- stretching from the Mediterranean to the door of the Sahara desert -- could begin next year, the head of Morocco’s rail company said. The trains would travel at up to 300 kilometres (186 miles) per hour, slashing times from Tangier in the north via Marrakesh to Agadir in the south, and from Casablanca on the Atlantic to Oujda on the Algerian border.

“Marrakesh to Tangier in two and a half hours -- it’s as if the country’s shrinking,” rail operator ONCF’s managing director Mohamed Rabie Khlie told Reuters in an interview. “A high-speed rail network will put us in the rail industry’s big league.”
Powered by djinns!
If the plans are approved, the 1,500 kilometres of track may take until 2030 to complete at a cost of around 25 billion dirhams ($2.87 billion), Khlie said. Once financing for the new lines is sealed, engineering work could begin in the second half of 2007, Khlie said.

And Khlie said plans mooted years ago for a tunnel from Europe to Africa across the strait of Gibraltar were still on course, meaning trains may one day travel direct from Madrid to Marrakesh. “A Moroccan-Spanish committee is working very hard on this issue and it’s going very well,” he said. “We feel quite a clear willingness on the Spanish side to push things forward.”
Posted by: Steve White || 09/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I wonder how well they'll be able to hang onto the outside of the train at 300kph.
Posted by: gorb || 09/16/2006 5:31 Comments || Top||

#2  Arabs were once handed a railway. They ran it into the ground:

From Desert

To Desert
Posted by: Snease Shaiting3550 || 09/16/2006 5:32 Comments || Top||

#3  #2 linkys no worky
Posted by: Barbara Skolaut || 09/16/2006 5:42 Comments || Top||

#4  All aboard that train!
All aboard that train!
Posted by: 6 || 09/16/2006 7:49 Comments || Top||

#5  I worked on a plan to extend Moroccoo's railway from Marrakesh to the port in the disputed (former) Spanish Sahara in 1978. The King reported saw it as a way to tie his country together, ala the USA Transcontinental Railroad.

Turned out to be too expensive, in part, I thought, to the French criteria better suited for France (60 mph minimum, thru the mountains). That's where I had my experience with (what seemed to be) Moderate Muslims. Half the girls wore scarves, and traditional garb, the other half wore jeans.

While waiting with the French geologist to be picked up by our driver, a man came out of a hut and insisted we have lunch with him. I doubt he had much to eat, but he wanted to share it with us. We agreed to some tea, and he was delighted.

Just one incident, but I remember it pretty well.
Posted by: Bobby || 09/16/2006 9:26 Comments || Top||

#6  Links fixed
Posted by: Pappy || 09/16/2006 9:34 Comments || Top||

#7  Just imagine that damage thay they will be able to inflict at 186 miles per hour. Derailing is one of the regions most popular pastimes.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/16/2006 10:01 Comments || Top||

#8  Bobby, I wuz wondering how you could pickout an out of focus derailer. Liver and learn.
Posted by: 6 || 09/16/2006 11:03 Comments || Top||

#9  Who they getting this from, ChiComs ? Where do they get money, oil ? I didn't think they had appreciable oil deposits. Other than piracy and smuggling, how do they generate cash ?
Posted by: SOP35/Rat || 09/16/2006 14:16 Comments || Top||

#10  finally, the vision of CSN&Y is realized!
Posted by: Frank G || 09/16/2006 14:44 Comments || Top||

#11  Yep, build a high speed railway and the jihadis will flock to derail it.

BTW, That pic in the article is the Southern Pacific Coast Daylight, SF to LA. I rode on it as a little kid, one of my first memories, then they went diesel, with the A & B units (black widows).

Well, Morocco, good luck with your plans. If you can make it work, it is because you eliminated terrorism in your country.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 09/16/2006 15:16 Comments || Top||

#12  Morocco is a tourist destination from France and Germany, especially the beaches at Agadir.

They export fruit (oranges, at least), wine, and phosphate for fertilizer.

And that's just from memory.

Sorry, AP. That's a Norfolk and Western Class J 4-8-4 in excursion service. Streamlined like a Southern Pacific GS-4. Both were among the purdiest.
Posted by: Bobby || 09/16/2006 18:09 Comments || Top||


Down Under
Revenge theory in stingray attacks
This is sad.
BRISBANE, Australia (AP) -- At least 10 stingrays have been found dead and mutilated on Australia's eastern coast since "Crocodile Hunter" Steve Irwin was killed by one of the animals last week, an official said Tuesday, prompting concerns of revenge attacks on the normally docile fish.

The dead stingrays have been discovered on two beaches in Queensland state, including two that were found Tuesday with their tails lopped off, state fisheries department official Wayne Sumpton said. Sumpton said fishermen who inadvertently catch the diamond-shaped rays sometimes cut off their tails to avoid being stung, but the practice is uncommon.

Michael Hornby, the executive director of Irwin's conservation group Wildlife Warriors, said he was concerned the rays were being hunted and killed in retaliation for the TV star's death. "It may be some sort of retribution, or it may be fear from certain individuals, or it just may be yet another callous act toward wildlife," he said. He said killing stingrays was "not what Steve was about."

"We are disgusted and disappointed that people would take this sort of action to hurt wildlife," he said.
Posted by: Steve White || 09/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Steve Irwin would have been disgusted with this.

He was a truly great man, the best Australia has produced for half a century.

I was devastated, I cried.

It's amazing how the entire nation just loved him except for a couple of knob-heads here and there.

He really tried hard to save wildlife, and the animals that cannot save themselves.

Sadly, people have tried to exploit his memory already. One person caught scamming by putting a free memorial ticket for sale on Ebay for $50. Outraged fans soon stopped that little ruse.
Another woman was caught selling fake "wildlife warrior" stickers pretending to donate to his wildlife charity.


RIP Steve Irwin, we'll never see another character like you. You were the real deal.

You are sorely missed.
Posted by: anon1 || 09/16/2006 11:26 Comments || Top||

#2  I suspect that shortly there will appear on E-Bay "The actual Stinger that killed Erwin"
Posted by: Redneck Jim || 09/16/2006 13:00 Comments || Top||

#3  Sad, and sad-assed.
Posted by: Perfesser || 09/16/2006 14:42 Comments || Top||

#4  This sort of idiocy is like demolishing all Porsche 550 Spyders in order to avenge the death of James Dean, only even more incredibly stupid.
Posted by: Zenster || 09/16/2006 16:43 Comments || Top||


Europe
Paris Fears Rabid Apes
Posted by: Grunter || 09/16/2006 00:48 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I think Poe did this one before...
Posted by: Abdominal Snowman || 09/16/2006 2:00 Comments || Top||

#2  "Apology is not enough! We demand Action!"
-- Cornelius / Dr Zaius
Posted by: flyover || 09/16/2006 2:27 Comments || Top||

#3  France fears everything. Let's hope their not muslim apes.
Posted by: gorb || 09/16/2006 5:30 Comments || Top||

#4  LOL Flyover.
Posted by: 6 || 09/16/2006 7:50 Comments || Top||

#5  Does cheese-eating cause rabies?
Posted by: Flea || 09/16/2006 8:07 Comments || Top||

#6  Paris Fears Rabid Apes

?? pongodistophobia ??

My Greek neologia is not as good as it used to be!
Posted by: Almost Anonymous5839 || 09/16/2006 9:25 Comments || Top||

#7  Romanowskiphobia
Posted by: Frank G || 09/16/2006 9:30 Comments || Top||

#8  Photobucket - Video and Image Hosting

/sorry
Posted by: Anonymoose || 09/16/2006 9:49 Comments || Top||

#9  Let's hope their not muslim apes.

Well, they are.

They're north african baboon-like wild monkeys, brought from the old country by Youths, to be used as some kind of trendy pit-bulls. Problem is, they can't be tamed, so they often end up released into the wild (hint : France is not exactly Brazil or central Africa, it is densely populated).
Same thing for rabid dogs, there was an another rabid dog scare a couple of years ago, with dozen of dogs forcibly euthanazied, much to the chagrin of their legitimate owners, because a rabid dog had been brought back from morocco or algeria by a Youth.
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 09/16/2006 11:12 Comments || Top||

#10  'moose, you'd BETTER be sorry for that travesty.

Ugh.
Posted by: lotp || 09/16/2006 11:30 Comments || Top||

#11  Is it Car-B-Que season yet?
Posted by: imam oron || 09/16/2006 14:22 Comments || Top||

#12  don't you hate it when they don't trim up down there?
Posted by: Frank G || 09/16/2006 14:47 Comments || Top||

#13  Is it Car-B-Que season yet?

Isn't it always?
Posted by: anonymous5089 || 09/16/2006 14:51 Comments || Top||

#14  Was anyone else reminded of this?

Left Bank Serenade

A. J. and entourage start into Parisian night club. A. J. is leading a purple-assed baboon on a gold chain. A. J. is dressed in checked linen plus fours with a cashmere jacket.

MANAGER: "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. What's that?'

A. J.: "It's an Illyrian poodle. Choicest beast a man can latch onto. It'll raise the tone of your trap."

MANAGER: "I suspect it to be a purple-assed baboon and it stands outside."

A. J. and entourage start into another Parisian night club.

A.J.: Hot damn, boys! Elegant fags and old c*nts. Avanti ragazzi!

A.J. pickets the baboon with a golden spike driven into the floor. A.J. lights a cigarette, his cigarette holder sways to and fro as if endowed with some sort of loathsome reptilian life.

A.J: So there I was, flat on my stomach at 40,000 feet when ...

Suddenly A.J. leaps to his feet with an inarticulate snarl on his lips.

A.J.: You purple-assed c*cksucker, I'll teach you to sh*t on the floor!

A.J. pulls a riding crop from his umbrella and cuts the baboon across the ass. The baboon, snarling, sh*tting and pissing in terror tears loose from the spike and crawls up a lady at the next table who promptly dies of heart failure on the spot.

In a frenzy, A.J. whips the baboon from one end of the bar to the other ...


Didn't think so.
Posted by: Zenster || 09/16/2006 20:11 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Mob torches buses after accident
MULTAN: A speeding bus on Friday crushed to death seven people, after which an angry mob set four buses ablaze to protest the incident, police said.
Something similar happened in Chicago. Transit train jumped the tracks and injured people, so a mob set fire to a half-dozen subway trains. Oh wait ...
A speeding bus rammed into people standing in front of a roadside shop, killing five men instantly, while two died at hospital in Shujabad, police officer Munir Chishti said. After the accident, local residents set the bus ablaze, blocked the main road and burnt three other buses after forcing out their passengers and drivers, the police officer said. Severe tension gripped the area and extra police contingents were rushed in to control the situation, the official said. Pakistan has the world's third highest death rate from road accidents.
Posted by: Fred || 09/16/2006 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  A cunning reply wrought with whit and irony.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/16/2006 9:59 Comments || Top||

#2  Sixty years after the British left, these people burn public property as if their tax dollars did not pay for them, as if they didn't have to use these very same buses.

The bus, a product of modern technology, is a alien thing. Something not made in Pakistan, something owned by the government, itself an imposed thing, an alien, colonial construct.

There is no resort to law and the courts. Only mob justice.
Posted by: john || 09/16/2006 12:17 Comments || Top||

#3  Sixty years after the British left, these people burn public property as if their tax dollars did not pay for them

That's because its your tax dollars paying for them john.
Posted by: DoDo || 09/16/2006 12:44 Comments || Top||

#4  "Pakistan has the world's third highest death rate from road accidents."

Who'd have guessed that? With all those well maintained roads and all.

Al
Posted by: Frozen Al || 09/16/2006 14:35 Comments || Top||

#5  Pakistan has the world's third highest death rate from road accidents.

Not high enough.
Posted by: Zenster || 09/16/2006 22:10 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
RITE and Honda Jointly Develop New Technology to Produce Ethanol from Cellulosic Biomass
Posted by: 3dc || 09/16/2006 05:05 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Carbon dioxide (CO2) released by the combustion of bio-ethanol is balanced by the CO2 captured by plants through photosynthesis and, thus, does not increase the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Assuming you don't use fertilizer, machines and of course CO2 expelling humans in growing and harvesting the plants.

What's shocking and sad is this drivel passes as self evident truth in many quarters.
Posted by: phil_b || 09/16/2006 7:50 Comments || Top||

#2  Just this week I read an article that claimed it took more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than you can get back out of it. More calories go into farming it, harvesting it, trucking, distilling, blending and distributing than that crap could ever yield.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/16/2006 9:55 Comments || Top||

#3  Oh, and by the way. Have you ever driven a car that burns that E85 fuel? Gutless turd is not a big enough word for what it is.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 09/16/2006 9:56 Comments || Top||

#4  More calories go into farming it, harvesting it, trucking, distilling, blending and distributing than that crap could ever yield.

True, but think of ethanol as a derivative of coal or nuclear energy, a conversion of energy to a form somewhat useable in transportation.
Posted by: 6 || 09/16/2006 11:07 Comments || Top||

#5  Brazil runs their cars on ethanol. Not only does it cut down on carbon emissions (it is a closed carbon system, the carbon it releases is the same as absorbed by the plants that grow) but also it burns much cleaner than petrol so you don't get the air pollution.

It produces carbon and water only whereas unleaded petrol produces that same plus chemicals like benzenes that cause cancer.

Plus CSR the Australian sugar producer uses waste sugar cane to produce ethanol which it burns at an electricity plant to power a whole town on the Queensland coast (I think it's bundaberg from memory).

Ethanol is a very useful alternate energy.

And big deal about fertiliser, it's used in most agriculture anyway.
Posted by: anon1 || 09/16/2006 11:30 Comments || Top||

#6  Fertilizer is a big deal, anon. When considering the total energy costs of one gallon of fuel over another, and the total carbon costs, you have to take into account all factors. Fertilizer is one of those.
Which is why biodiesel in certain areas is actually a useful product : it is produced from the yellow grease wastes of restaurants, a product that would normally be introduced into the city's waste stream. By reprocessing it into biodiesel, the various costs associated with yellow grease disposal is reduced to the point that it actually has a positive energy/carbon payback. Major cities like New York, Chicago, and LA could benefit from yellow grease biodiesel conversions; New York especially because of the well-documented and very expensive problems that city's sewer system has with yellow grease dumping.
Posted by: Shieldwolf || 09/16/2006 12:49 Comments || Top||

#7  I'm glad to see Honda involved. They are usually very committed to their projects, once begun. We need to work this, to make the break throughs. Ethanol is a good liquid fuel. It has less energy density then gasoline, but burns slower, thus higher octane rating. You can make plenty of power without detonation. I work on a blown alcohol dragster which runs around 6.5 seconds, so plenty of power. The engine needs more compression and more fuel flow. It's true that for every mile driven on the road , you would get 25-30% less fuel economy. Thus, 30 mpg on gasoline would yield ~ 20 mpg on alcohol. But, we wouldn't need Arabs any longer. We could torch their camel asses with impunity without considering the impact to world economy.
Posted by: SOP35/Rat || 09/16/2006 14:28 Comments || Top||

#8  Cellulosic Biomass is not corn or sugarcane. Read the article. Its things like straw and sawdust and stalks and stems and paper and ... currently waste material.

Posted by: 3dc || 09/16/2006 14:47 Comments || Top||

#9  I have been a Honda fanatic for decades.

http://world.honda.com/news/2006/4060108FCX/

This is the deal.
As part of its effort to ensure the viability of a hydrogen-based society, Honda is developing the Home Energy Station, a comprehensive system designed to meet residential energy needs by supplying electricity and heat in addition to hydrogen fuel for vehicles. Generating hydrogen from natural gas supplied for residential use, the Home Energy Station system also offers consumers the convenience of refueling hydrogen-powered fuel cell vehicles at home. The system is equipped with fuel cells that generate and supply electricity to the home, and is configured to recover the heat produced during power generation for domestic water heating. In addition to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by some 40 percent, the Home Energy Station system is expected to lower the total running cost of household electricity, gas and vehicle fuel by 50 percent.


A unit like an air conditioner outside doing everything.
Posted by: J.D. Lux || 09/16/2006 18:21 Comments || Top||

#10  The Brazil example is spurious. For many years the world price of sugar has been depressed by EU and other countries agricultural subsidies.

Brazil started to make Ethanol from sugar when it was around 4 cents a pound, far below the cost of production, which is closer to the US price of 22 cents a pound.

In recent months when sugar rose to around 15 cents a pound, still below the cost of production in most places, ethanol became more expensive than gas in Brazil.

Ethanol may make sense from some sources in some places, but in most cases ethanol as a fuel (competative with oil) is an unintended consequence of massive agricultural subsidies.
Posted by: phil_b || 09/16/2006 18:36 Comments || Top||

#11  And using Natural Gas to produce Hydrogen to power a motor vehicle is lunancy.

Pretty much any petrol driven vehicle can be converted to run on Natural Gas for about $2,000. Not only is this far cheaper than a Hydrogen powered vehicle, it consumes about half the energy (of a Hydrogen powered car) because of the inherent inefficiency of NG to H conversion.

BTW, Honda makes a refuel at home NG driven car.
Posted by: phil_b || 09/16/2006 18:51 Comments || Top||

#12  That one is cool too.
It may be lunacy but they're doing it.
I like it better than running on food.
Posted by: J.D. Lux || 09/16/2006 19:42 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
NYT: El Lay Times Editor Openly Defies Owner’s Call for Job Cuts
The editor of The Los Angeles Times appears to be in a showdown with the paper’s owner, the Tribune Company, over job cuts in the newsroom. In a highly unusual move, Dean P. Baquet, who was named editor last year, was quoted yesterday in his own newspaper as saying he was defying the paper’s corporate parent in Chicago and would not make the cuts it requested.

The paper’s publisher, Jeffrey M. Johnson, said he agreed with Mr. Baquet. “Newspapers can’t cut their way into the future,” he told the paper.

The number of jobs at stake is unclear but the paper, the fourth largest in the country, has eliminated more than 200 positions over the last five years from an editorial staff that now numbers about 940. “I am not averse to making cuts,” Mr. Baquet told the paper. “But you can go too far, and I don’t plan to do that.”

The paper reported that Scott C. Smith, president of the Tribune Publishing division, had asked the paper’s executives to come up with a plan for trimming their budgets, but when Mr. Smith visited Los Angeles late last month, they had produced no such plan.

Mr. Baquet “made his opposition to further cuts clear and said there was no need for further discussion,” the paper reported.

Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Thomose Sneash1945 || 09/16/2006 13:36 || Comments || Link || [12 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Someone has a very serious misunderstand of who an owner is. When the investors decide their dollar gets a better return on something else, its going to be interesting to see how long you can run on empty.

an editorial staff that now numbers about 940

Sounds like the Educational Professionals crying about cuts in the admin overhead back at the main office.

“Newspapers can’t cut their way into the future,”

That's the problem, they are the past. I'm sure the horse and buggy manufactures and horse breeders thought it would last for ages too, if it wasn't for Mr. Benz and Mr. Ford.

“In this rapidly changing media environment, we are all working together to best serve our communities, customers and shareholders.”

Notice the last one in line is the shareholders?
Someone forgot that the only reason a commerical business exists is to derive a benefit to its shareholders?
This just in - the Soviet Union fell. Communism doesn't work. Neither does its half brother, Socialism. It just takes a wee bit longer for rigor mortise to set in.

He said many in the newsroom thought Tribune would be reluctant to fire the editor and the publisher because doing so could bring further embarrassment and spell chaos for the already troubled company. But it is not clear how the company will respond.

I understand Donald Trump is not busy this season.
Posted by: Anguns Elmolurt1126 || 09/16/2006 15:51 Comments || Top||

#2  940 editorial staff? You'd think they would be able to put out a quality product. Obviously ideologically driven peter principled hires...read Patterico and you'll see just how bad the paper is
Posted by: Frank G || 09/16/2006 16:19 Comments || Top||

#3  In the brave new world of journalism, everyone's an editor.
Posted by: Pappy || 09/16/2006 16:53 Comments || Top||

#4  Oh, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE


sell the Cubbies.
Posted by: anonymous2u || 09/16/2006 18:03 Comments || Top||

#5  Keep the Cubbies.
Sell the LA Times.
Posted by: Chuck || 09/16/2006 22:42 Comments || Top||



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