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If it hadn’t been published 6 days prior to the 1st I would assume this wasn’t for real, in fact it is so unbelievable I am just going to start off by quoting the first line: “Farmers in North Queensland are doing their bit to be environmentally friendly by investing in a tree that produces diesel.”
The U.S. is currently struggling with oil prices topping $110 a barrel (in no small part thanks to our involvement over seas, can we get a “Go Team!”?). We are fighting to convince car companies and industries that use vast amounts of oil to figure ways to cut back, like producing cars that are more fuel efficient or don’t need it at all. Australians, on the other hand, are taking a tip from Brazil and have purchased over 20,000 trees that produce “oil that can be extracted, filtered and used to power vehicles” that run on diesel.
Although it is apparently a long term investment (it takes between 15 and 20 years for the trees to mature enough and become ready to harvest for oil), though once they have matured, a hectare (100 meters square) can produce 12,000 litres of fuel a year (a bit over 3,000 gallons… or a little more then 75 barrels).
Oh and because it is a tree it is also a renewable source of energy. You can read more about the trees here. Maybe some one might want to mention this to our government.
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Mrs. WineHazard and I find ourselves in New Hampshire this weekend. Travelzoo ran a special off season rate for hotel rooms on Lake Winnipesaukee, and we decided to take advantage of the opportunity to leave the city for some Americana.
Inside of our quaint room at the inn was a copy of the local newspaper, Weirs Times. The local paper is mostly filled with pieces by the locals talking about snow and their pets, the usual fare for such an endeavor. But it also includes a letter to the editor section (Letters From the Mail Boat). One piece in particular caught my attention, and I share it with you, the loyal AmericanMadness reader.
A labor of love, I retyped the following, warts and all:
Pre-School Terror
To The Editor:
Kindergarten has nothing to do with education and everything to do with tyranny.
This is the first step in children’s rights and the otherthrow of parental authority. The state insists that the parents are not qualified to raise children, only the state is qualified.
Russia puts their children in school at the age of three. Get them when they are young and vulnerable and brainwash them.
The authorities have already promised us pre-kindergarten. Schools for two-year olds will follow pre-kindergarten it is reported.
It is also reported that for the first two years of a child’s life agents will make regular visits to the home. I assume they will come unannounced. I believe that they will always find fault in order to seize. They will be authorized to remove children for any reason or no reason. In some cases it is reported that the parents will never see the children again. It is my opinion that the liberal fascists will control our lives from cradle to the grave with terror.
In New Hampshire there is a movement to axe the (no new taxes) pledge. This is about an income tax and a sales tax. This will not lower property taxes. We are instructed that we need new taxes to pay for our new education obligations.
Campaigning in Iowa, Hilary promised to give us pre-kindergarten. Hilary must have a lot of money.
Barack Obama, in a TV speech in Iowa, informed that “Children two months old are intelligent, they can learn and I will educate them. I am not going to waste that talent.”
William Gibbons
Canaaan, NH.
So to recap. Liberal fascists (?) seek to imbed their political agenda on our children, in an initiative to raise taxes in New Hampshire. Got all of that?
Just remember, this state often decides who represents your political party in the run for U.S. President. Daniel Webster, I weep on your behalf.
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Thrasher Funds is a mutual fund management company that that is choosing a different marketing ploy to connect with its potential investors.
Rather then targeting your traditional investor, they are looking for the non-traditional (shocking, I know) younger investor. Folks from the Gen-X and Gen-Y groups who are weary of the typical stuffed shirts down on Wall Street and don’t necessarily think that the folks at MErril Lynch hold the same values that they do.
The GendeX™ Mutual Fund was developed and is managed by young adult investors for young adult investors. A group of more than 60 million Gen X and Y’ers largely untapped by the financial market place…until now.
The idea is to capture younger investors who are typically ignored by the power brokers on Wall Street by making them aware of the benefits of investing at a younger age as well as targeting them through their interests and the mutual fund investments.
Read more »
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I live in Washington, DC so pretty much every third person I know is a spy. Intelligence runs like a leitmotif through every policy discussion in this town on Iraq, Iran, North Korea, China and terrorism. The talking heads on the all news channels and think tank policy wonks who focus on this issue are almost exclusively former intelligence officials now outside the tent pissing back in.
Their bottom line assessment usually goes something like this: “The CIA [or insert three-letter agency of your choice] is so broken it can’t possibly be fixed. The biggest problem is personnel, everyone who ever knew anything has left and now the kids are running the candy store! You have supervisors with less than five years of experience!” There they stop their tirade. The fact that most analysts are under thirty is all that is needed before declaring victory and going home. QED. Read more »
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Well, that was one generation name that never quite stuck did it, too bad for that failed campaign, otherwise we might have a definitive name for the current generation. Another meeting attended, another tidbit of information to throw up here (take that how you will).
There were the Baby-Boomers, Gen-X and now we have the Me-llennials.
Me-llennials (or Millennials) are the Baby-Boomer’s kids, born around 1982 (give or take. While I don’t particularly like the implications of the Millennials, some of the traits described about them fit a lot of the people I know who are currently read and writing for this blog, so there is some cross-over and overlap). They have been called Generation Next, the Generation born with a mouse in their hands, and a number of other things. Anyway, these Millennials tend to be coddled, tech-savvy, over achievers who work well in team settings and when ever they have any problems their parents come to the rescue (these parents are called Helicopter Parents due to all of their hovering or Blackhawk Parents because they feel the need to swoop in and save the day when a problem arises… I heard a tale of a Millennial not getting the raise he desired which prompted his mother to call his boss to find out why he was denied the raise and explain why he so dearly deserved it). Oh, Millenials are also apparently conservative, though about what I am not sure from the television, clothes and marketing directed at them (and all the tales of sexual horrors going on at Bar-Mitzvahs) they are clearly not socially conservatism.
Millennials drive social networking services, prefer email and texting to calling (and emailing is primarily used for contacting “old peopleâ€), probably have their own blog (which may come back to bite them in the ass when they apply for Harvard and the admissions committee reads about the drunken orgy they had at their bar-mitzvah when they were 13), think advertising is dishonest and were raised on the inclusionism of Barney telling them that we are all the same (as opposed to Gen-Xers who were raised on Sesame Street and learned that we are all different, but that is good).
Now, technically I am not a Millennial, and for this I am actually kind of grateful, though I am not really a Gen-Xer either though, those of you I know who are reading this tend to fall into the category with me, we are a little of both: tech-savvy Sesame Street lovers who text, but also know how to dial a phone. Our parents have probably never spoken with our bosses but may have read about them in our blogs.
There was a whole lot more I got from this meeting, but 1- my battery is dying on my computer, 2- I didn’t grab a paper copy of the PowerPoint presentation (I plan on downloading the PDF from the presenters website instead). I’ll post some more ME-llennial information up here as I remember/re-read it, maybe even the presentation, though, unless you work in admissions, it doesn’t contain that much interesting information. And if you are reading this and thinking “Whatever, I am SO not part of the millennial generation†consider how many of your friends have home phones in addition to their cells.
Oh and this is the video they started this meeting with: My Generation
P.S. It is much harder to tag an entry written a few days ago… I am blanking on which tags to use now
