bionic diesel

did you all know that there is apparently a fuel out there that can, according to michael briggs of the university of new hampshire physics department, "be used in existing diesel engines with no changes, and is made from vegetable oils rather than petroleum"?? i had heard biodiesel mentioned before as a possible means of reducing our dependency on oil and the various costs associated with it, but it seemed to always get lost in all the hype surrounding the hydrogen fuel cell (which may yet save us all, who knows...) as briggs shows in his article, "Widescale Biodiesel Production from Algae," (click on his name to read it if you haven't already, you lazy bastard) it is presently possible to "begin producing biodiesel on the scale necessary to replace all petroleum transportation fuels in the U.S." in fact, with all his fancy "numbers" and "estimates," not to mention his use of footnotes, he makes it sound downright feasible:

The Office of Fuels Development, a division of the Department of Energy, funded a program from 1978 through 1996 under the National Renewable Energy Laboratory known as the "Aquatic Species Program". The focus of this program was to investigate high oil yield algaes that could be grown specifically for the purpose of wide scale biodiesel production. Some species of algae are ideally suited to biodiesel production due to their high oil content (some as much as 50% oil), and extremely fast growth rates. From the results of the Aquatic Species Program, algae farms would let us supply enough biodiesel to completely replace petroleum as a transportation fuel in the US (as well as its other main use - home heating oil).

but what about the cost, you say? he's way ahead of you:

The operating costs (including power consumption, labor, chemicals, and fixed capital costs (taxes, maintenance, insurance, depreciation, and return on investment) worked out to $12,000 per hectare. That would equate to $33.8 billion per year for all the algae farms, to yield all the oil feedstock necessary for the entire country. Compare that to the more than $100 billion the US spends each year just on purchasing crude oil from foreign countries.

so, this looks like a win/win for everyone, right? save money, stop supporting the oil industry, reduce, reuse, recycle, the whole bit. in my naivete, i am certainly missing something. why are our political leaders not pushing harder for such a magical methadone to the heroin of our modern economy? what have we got to lose?

special thanks to my man tony on okinoerabu for the heads up. (^_^) go lakers

punk no die

punkvoter gets surreptitiously mentioned in the nation:

This spring, with an eye on mobilizing angry punks, Punkvoter commissioned Jello Biafra, NOFX, Alkaline Trio and Authority Zero to play to sold-out crowds of 1,000 to 5,000 in California, Oregon, Washington, Nevada and Arizona in the first part of their Rock Against Bush tour, and recently released the first volume of a compilation album, featuring an impressive roster of old-school and pop punks, which sold more than 35,000 copies in two weeks. Instead of targeting young voters en masse, as a presidential campaign might, Punkvoter employs hard-edged, partisan tactics to mobilize its core audience.

it just warms the heart to see the magazine of "Unconventional Wisdom Since 1865" reaching out to the kids, doing their part to bridge the gaps on the fracturous american left. this is all well and good, this joining of forces to rid us of the bush, but one hopes that once the regime is changed, the forces of the left that toil tirelessly to tilt the tables "until everyone has everything they need," one hopes that the coalition will hold together and keep the flamethrower to kerry's butt.

kerry will get the support he needs to win the election, but in the aftermath, even in our jubilation, we must not forget to hold him accountable once he's in office.

fat mike says:

"The good news is, we actually have the power to change America's--and the world's--future. But only if we get our shit together and get involved in the political process."

blinky bush

the artist formerly known as emma goldman has some insights into the prezident's latest offering:

Bush gave a familiar speech, replete with descriptions of a reality to which few others have access (the transcript's not available yet, so I can't quote text) It was his somber mode, punctuated occasionally by his strange blinking, wherein his delivery was that of a daddy trying to explain death to his four-year-old.

myself only having seen clips of the speech on abc's nightline (broadcast here every tues-fri at 5:25pm on bs1), i must say that he appeared to be not as blinky as he was searching - searching the room after delivering his lines, looking for people who agreed with him, waiting for approval. or maybe it was just that the lights were too bright for his wittle eyes...

as mr. jeff continues:

But then, with about 20% of the speech left, he switched gears. He shifted to Preacher George, messianic George, absolutely certain of his goodness. It was actually quite moving, in a sort of twisted way. He contrasted the horrors of wahabism (using "Taliban" as shorthand) with the purity of American democracy. Where before the words tangled his tongue with their foreigness, now he seemed to be speaking from the heart. It seemed clear that this is a guy who is, at the end of the day, pleased with how things have gone. There was a bad guy there who oppressed his people; we took him out and offered up our perfected ways like a toe-headed boy offering up a golden ring. All is well. God bless America.

yes, god bless america. don't get me wrong, i'm just as scared and confused as the next guy. but that is no reason to put blind faith and trust into the very people who got us into this mess. if i had a nickle for every time i put blind faith and trust into people with a resume like this one, well, i'd be a very poor man. and i am. and the meek shall inherit the earth. and all was well in the land of the yokogawa...

you may comment, but be careful not to hurt my wittle feelings.

meeting expectations

eric alterman says

Excuse me, but just what was so hard to understand about this bunch? We knew they were dishonest. We knew they were fanatical. We knew they were purposely ignorant and bragged about not reading newspapers. We knew they were vindictive. We knew they were lawless. We knew they were obsessively secretive. We knew they had no time or patience for those who raised difficult questions. We knew they were driven by fantasies of religious warfare, personal vengeance and ideological triumph. We knew they had no respect for civil liberties. And we knew they took no responsibility for the consequences of their incompetence. Just what is surprising about the manner in which they've conducted the war?

having watched this whole fiasco unfold from abroad, and having spoken with small town folk over here in kagoshima at every twist of the slippery slide as we slid into this quagmire, i believe that i can answer his rhetorical question with a resounding "nothing." it's just a shame that this administration has lived up to our expectations is all.

and it's a real bummer when you meet people who say they don't want to visit your country because they are afraid of your countrymen. we're not all bad, but i sometimes fear that, because of the policies of our government, we have our work cut out for us in convincing others of that fact.

a day in the life

take yesterday as an example...getting out of bed is always the hardest part, but it wasn't so bad yesterday because i knew that i had made a particularly delicious bento lunch the night before and that the only way to enjoy it would be to get up and go to work and wait for lunchtime. so i got up and walked down the hill to the board of education. you see, i work as an english teacher/token foreigner in a small town (pop.5,500) in southern japan. i came here in august of 2001 as a participant on the jet programme as a means of a)paying off my college loans, b)gaining experience living in a foreign culture, c)trying my hand at teaching, d)avoiding the bush years, or e)all of the above. anyways, i came here originally on a one year contract to assist in the teaching of english and all things foreign in the local junior high school and elementary schools. as i became accustomed to life here in the sticks (or should i say bamboo?), i decided that there were worse things i could be doing with my life and i signed up for a second year. my lovely girlfriend, raw bone, soon joined me (in japan, at least, though she had to live on the opposite side of kyushu for a year or so) and we decided to stay for what would be my third and final year (her second). having completed her contractual obligations to aeon eikaiwa, she has since joined me (for real this time) down here in yokogawa town and we are passing our final days and months tending to the garden and eating and screaming at the sight of the many-legged "geji-geji" that sometimes crawl over us as we sleep. trust me, you would scream too.

but i digress...i wanted to write about my yesterday as a representative day in the life of a small town assistant language teacher in rural southern japan. so let's see...yes, i walked down the hill to the office, shot the shit with tokunaga-san and nakagawa-san, then walked over to yokogawa shou gakkou (elementary school). i taught four classes, starting with the first graders where we talked about the numbers 1 through 10 and their favorite animals, then moved onto the fourth and sixth graders where we discussed the various sports and fruits we enjoy. i like banana. at 12:30, i ate the aforementioned bento with the fourth graders (a delicious blend of an island miso paste and aloo masala on flat noodles with vegetables and tofu and a side of brown rice and beans), shot the shit with the students at my table, and then it was time for dodgeball. seeing as i'm not such a big fan of this game, i kinda went through the motions for a while and then snuck away to go play basketball in the gym with some of the older students.

at the end of the lunch recess, every student is compelled to put down their soccer balls and unicycles (yes, unicycles) and pick up a broom or a dust-rag for compulsory cleaning time. i usually sneak away from this, too. i bumped into the principal, kamiya kouchou sensei, a very sweet and intelligent man in his early fifties, and he explained to me that he had just received a letter from miss jinjay, a chinese "yankin" (a beautiful hammer dulcimer-type instrument) musician who had recently toured around the area and had given performances in yokogawa and makizono (where the broken winds had the pleasure of sharing the stage with her at the mayor's residence). he wanted to reply to her, but he knew no chinese and his english was rusty. so he wrote out a letter in japanese which i translated for him, and then he drew me a map of how to get to his favorite spot for viewing takachiho no mine.

i taught one more class after compulsory cleaning time. this one was full of squirmy second graders who asked me lots of questions including "why are your eyes blue?" and "why is your nose so big?" ah, precious. after class, i walked back to the board of education where i spent the rest of the afternoon trying to avoid the overly jugemental glare of the superintendent. he doesn't approve of my beard.

well, that should serve to give you a decent idea of what my life has been like over here for the past few years. in my free time, i play covers of tunes by ween and the scud mountain boys with the makizono town coordinator for international relations as the dynamic duo "the broken winds". though it may not be apparent at this point, my adventures in japan, at the schools, with the broken winds, and as the solo artist "rick barrs" have laid the foundation for the next logical step in the evolution of the species: tepid industries. but more on that later...

tepid industries

welcome to the official blog of tepid industries! sssssssick! we at tepid are dedicated to bringing you quality in all its forms. more later after we get our heads out of our asses.