If you are living in Pennsylvania, there is a cutting edge technology business being developed right here in our state. Check out Agra Biofuels .

It can be used for cars and heating homes and reduces CO2 emmissions by 78%. The only bi-product . . . soap! Yep, soap that can be sold to pharmaceutical companies and put on the shelves in your local grocery store.

So Flavia, you could use it to drive your car and keep it clean at the same time.

Sorry. Here is the link for Agra Biofuels:

http://www.agrabiofuels.com/faqs.html

Couldn't agree with you more. Just imagine the results if we had spent that $200+ billion we wasted on the war in Iraq on alternative energy. We wouldn't need anything from the Middle East, they'd be stuck with a product nobody wanted to buy, and they wouldn't have the money to develop nuclear weapons or sponsor terrorists. And the country voted for Bush, why??????

Great question Norton. It is a matter of priorites and W doesn't share them with regular folks like you and me. If you go to nationalpriorites.org you can see in black and white how much we spend on the war at the expense of other things. You can even see a comparative for your own state. Its eye opening and makes our endeavour at citizen hunter and at the polling places even more urgent.

joseph, what a great web page. It is a tad disturbing, folks need to see this stuff.

thanks~

Jimbolio, I know you are away from home, but Happy Easter. People in the rear need to remember that guys like you are sacrifing time they could be with their families to protect ours. Regardless of where people stand on priorites and issues, one thing everyone should agree on is that we should always remember what people are doing for us today and everyday. I'm working on my yard today, long overdue, and I consider myslef lucky to be where I'm at, because tomorrow, I might be there, with you guys, but that aint bad at all. I couldn't think of a finer bunch to spend Easter with if I was there. Good to hear from you sir.

just got home, but thanks for the kind words.

we could all do worse than to be American.

HERE IS TO BEING AN AMERICAN!

thanks again for the great link.

jimbolio

I went to see my brother for the Easter weekend, and did I get a surprise when I had to fill up my gas tank. I'm really starting to think Springer's parity ads for Extorco oil aren't really a parities. Their slogan is "we'll keep pulling the energy out of the ground, and the prices out of thin air." Things need to change. And change begins at the top, George and Dick have to go!

Your welcome jimbolio and I second that! I gotta share something with you because are "conversation" a week or so ago got me to thinking about the way I approach things and today it seemed to come full circle.

Today I was mowing my lawn and my lawn mower gave out, so I borrowed one from my neighbor Terry. He came with his dog later and we were talking about people talking about things, complaining, versus actually doing something. Terry wants to get a neighborhood watch. He wants to make our little community better. He compared us helping each other out today with lawn equipment or keeping an eye out on each others homes to the time protesters crossed the New Orleans Crescent City Connection to protest Gretna's Police Department's response to people trying to cross from Orleans after Katrina. He said that they could have done more to further their cause by having those thousands who marched go to the 9th Ward instead to help rebuild something, anything. That was the march Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton was leading if I remember correctly. Now, I think they had a point. They should have been allowed to the West Bank for at least some shelter and water and MRE's which is more than they had on the highway.

But I think the how you go about to change things is as important as the message itself. Its funny, I don't remember who was leading that protest march, but I do know it didn't help one home get rebuilt. Terry made sense.

Another thing I thought was interesting was a conversation my running partner and I had yesterday. As you may know, New Orleans is in a middle of an odd election where voters are voting absentee from all over the country. One candidate for councilman was at the 10K and I asked him if he was A Republican or a Democrat. He was a Democrat. Jenn said that things are so screwed up locally and nationally that it doesnt matter if it's a Republican or a Democrat, as long as they fix things (she had lost her home). She was right, it's like asking a plumber if he's Republican or Democrat as your pipes are bursting. At this point it doesn't matter, they just need to fix the damn thing. I learned a bit this weekend and actually adjusted a view. And it makes sense to me, so overall it was a good weekend.

Unfortunately our country is in quite a predicament right now that yes we a Mercenaries! Its a horrible mess, that I can't say with a great amount of confidence was fully unavoidable.

We're in big trouble.

* this didn't get much news coverage, but Bolivia just nationalized its oil industry. Bolivia is the second largest oil producer in SA, after Venezuela, which has also nationalized its oil industry.

* Russia is blackmailing all of Europe by saying "sell us your natural-gas delivery companies or no natural gas for you."

* And Chad got the World Bank, the U.S. government and Exxon Mobil to cough up disputed royalties by threatening to shut its oil pipeline.

* Nigeria's oil industry is under constant attack by Muslim insurgents.

* Iraq's oil output is below pre-Iraq war levels.

* Iran has thumbed its nose at the United States and the United Nations, figuring that the world needs its oil too much to actually do anything about its nuclear weapons program. the idea of the world's 4th largest oil producer, Iran, being armed with nuclear weapons and backed by Russia and China, is a nightmare.

* All this, while oil companies are reporting the largest quarterly and annual profits of any corporation in history, ever!!!

Do you remember the super-secret cabal of US energy executives in 2000 who produced President Bush's energy policy? It included VP Cheney and soon-to-be convicted felon Ken Lay. At best, the policy they built is irrelevant to today's reality. At worst, all of the aforementioned items are either a direct or indirect result of that super-secret cabal of US energy executives.

Regardless of who you voted for in previous elections, any objective observer has to admit this administration doesn't have a lot to be proud of, and the present energy fiasco least of all.

Have you had enough yet? Are you mad enough yet?

Govs Think National Energy Policy is a Joke, I Agree!

Govs. criticize national energy policy By ROBERT TANNER, AP National Writer
Mon Aug 7, 10:17 PM ET

Governors worried about damage to the economy and complained about years of neglecting energy policy after an Alaska oil field shutdown, but offered far different solutions on Monday.

Energy independence and alternative fuels had already been part of the weekend's summer meeting of the National Governors Association. News of the oil field shutdown and the spike in oil prices, spurred by corrosion of a key oil pipeline, put a sharper edge to the topic.

Democratic Gov. Kathleen Blanco of Louisiana, whose state is at the center of the nation's fuel production and distribution, criticized the federal government's monitoring of critical infrastructure.

"From our perspective in Louisiana, our wetlands are disappearing and it's exposing our network of pipelines," she said. "That's potentially putting our whole infrastructure at greater risk." She said local development and pollution also spurs erosion, but said more federal involvement is needed.

Republican Gov. Haley Barbour of Mississippi said the problem was environmentalists and others who fight increased drilling and pipeline construction.

"We need supply to grow. That means more drilling like (proposals to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge), more nuclear energy, more coal to liquid," he said. "We see how the shortsightedness of not-in-my-backyard resistance can cause enormous reduction in supply, which is going to result in higher prices."

Governors from both parties said the disruption would hopefully spur a willingness to tackle a more ambitious approach to energy.

"Our energy policy for the last 30 years is a joke. We've been asleep at the switch, both Republicans and Democrats," said Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, who has been pushing alternatives such as ethanol and wind energy at home.

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer, a Democrat, said the disruption only strengthens his argument for a federal energy policy that would encourage greater investment in coal to produce synthetic fuels. He had earlier laid out a plan where Montana coal could replace more than half the foreign oil imported each year.

"We've got the solution but we've got to move. We've got to have a balanced portfolio of fuels," he said.

Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano of Arizona said she was waiting to hear more to understand the wider impact. "It's just further confirmation of the fact that we need a national energy policy. It's further confirmation that our continued dependence on foreign oil is a problem."

Republican Gov. Mark Sanford of South Carolina said that if the disruption lasted so would higher prices, given the rapid escalation in prices over the last year and the latest Mideast instability.

"It's sort of wrong time, wrong place," he said.