DebateGate
General Category => 3DHS => Topic started by: Plane on October 24, 2007, 12:31:09 AM
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"The danger of a massive world famine is aggravated by Mr. Bush's recent initiative to transform foods into fuel," Castro wrote in Cuban news media, referring to U.S. support for using corn and other food crops to produce gasoline substitutes.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071024/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cuba_castro
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Sugar is the new oil.
Castro could be the new Chavez.
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But is he rght to assert that the world depends on US food production?
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Considering the US pays people to NOT farm in order to keep the price of corn up, I don't think anyone has a valid point yet.
I don't think corn oil or sugar is going to be a viable replacement for oil one to one. Three or four different sources could potentially add up to oil but unless the oil companies can be kept from killing everyone that wants to use sea water for fuel, oil will stay king till there is none left. I give it 50 years.
I can't wait. Today's middle east will seem like ice cream socials and sock hops compared to what the world will be then.
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Our food supply is based on corn. Subjecting it to speculation in the energy market is a dangerous thing.
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There are alternatives to corn. Corn just is easy to harvest.
Think kudzu and pine wood waste
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Our food supply is based on corn. Subjecting it to speculation in the energy market is a dangerous thing.
How is our food supply based on corn? If you are talking about feeding animals to slaughter, there are superior grains. Corn is actually, in terms of nutritional potency, barely ferior. That would make other grains more valuable for both animals to slaughter and to us eating them.
There are some grains of corn, though, that are quite superior, but you have to hunt for them--they are not in cornflakes.
Subjecting anything to the current energy behemoth is dangerous.
My suggestion for restoration to sanity in this country regarding both food and energy is to seize and cause divestiture of both those massive food conglomerates (a misleading term, given the sharing of the pie) and the oil barons, Exxon, Chevron, etc. Imagine the things you can conclude are inimical to your well-being in America, and see how soon you recognize the treads of Big Oil. Halliburton, it's abandoned child--Blackwater, etc.
They are well beyond monopoly, and are only waiting for a dozen or so Boone Pickens to package up the water to place their seal--The Company credit card--in the wax.
People tend to think of processed food as against unprocessed food, but there is another point--if they own it, you're getting corn pops, whether you believe their advertising and whore scientists or not.
Only common sense in any society tells you it is getting out of hand when it becomes reduced to only a handful of hands.
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Sugar is the new oil.
Castro could be the new Chavez.
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No, it's not. Cuba has had to IMPORT sugar for several years.
Fidel will be long dead before Cuba is producing enough sugar to matter as a source of alcohol.
It sound like you resent Chavez becausae Venezuela has so much oil.
I suppose you will want a war to "democratize" Venezuela as well.
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Sugar is the new oil.
Castro could be the new Chavez.
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No, it's not. Cuba has had to IMPORT sugar for several years.
Fidel will be long dead before Cuba is producing enough sugar to matter as a source of alcohol.
It sound like you resent Chavez becausae Venezuela has so much oil.
I suppose you will want a war to "democratize" Venezuela as well.
First there have to be Weapons of Mass Destruction. ;)
The problem of course, and the reason we've never gone into Colombia and wouldn't dare to go into Venezuela is that either would make Iraq look like toddlers fighting in the sandbox. FARC is one of the oldest and most formidable militant groups in the world, and the Colombians have used torture (I don't think they sit around and discuss the semantics of it), and outright slaughtering of entire villages for decades to fight them. I imagine that Venezuela would be no different, note that Chavez was a coup plotter before becoming a populist president.
I think we'll return to the days of putting in our own Pinochet types before we try another direct invasion after the lessons of Iraq are dilligently studied in the Pentagon and State Department offices.
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the Colombians have used torture (I don't think they sit around and discuss the semantics of it), and outright slaughtering of entire villages for decades to fight them. I imagine that Venezuela would be no different, note that Chavez was a coup plotter before becoming a populist president.
Can't be. Both Colombia and Venezuela have signed and ratified the UN Convention Against Torture.
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the Colombians have used torture (I don't think they sit around and discuss the semantics of it), and outright slaughtering of entire villages for decades to fight them. I imagine that Venezuela would be no different, note that Chavez was a coup plotter before becoming a populist president.
Can't be. Both Colombia and Venezuela have signed and ratified the UN Convention Against Torture.
Don't know much about Venezuela, but torture in Colombia is almost a tradition - UN treaty or not.
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Don't know much about Venezuela, but torture in Colombia is almost a tradition - UN treaty or not.
Colombians are better than that. What kind of example are they setting for the rest of the world. They have squandered all their good will.