Yale Center: Ethanol Mandate Raising Global Food Prices

From the YaleGlobal Online Magazine: a short piece on global food price factors.  Quote (emphasis mine): Third, the US ethanol subsidy diverted more than 100 million metric tons of corn into ethanol last year. This did little to reduce global warming, and made basic grains and meat more expensive for most people in the world. Nearly a third of US corn is now used for fuel. If the Senate lowered the US deficit by reducing the tax break on ethanol,...

Mahindra MPG Fail

If you have been following the sorry saga of Mahindra's attempt to import Indian built compact diesel pickups into the U.S., here's more bad news.  The EPA mileage rating of the crew cab automatic has come in at 19/21 MPG.  Compare this with a Ford Ranger 4x2 with a 4.0L V6, which gets 15/21 MPG, or a Nissan Frontier with a 4.0L v6 at 15/19 MPG.   So where is the reason to buy?  If people are going to give up refinement, possibly...

Nice T-shirt

Nice T-shirt, for a DUI arrest!http://www.wtsp.com/slideshows/2010/Mug-Shot-Roundup/Amanda-Bailey%20DUI%20DWLS.jpg...

NASA on Toyota: Tin Whiskers May Be An Issue

The headline for the NHTSA/NASA report on the Toyota unintended acceleration, as widely reported, was that Toyota's electronics were not at fault, because the overwhelming evidence was that people were either pressing the wrong pedal, or the pedal was entrapped/stuck. NASA evaluated Toyota's diagnostic strategy, and as I blogged about before, found that the only way to have an undetected failure with a runaway throttle would be a very specific mutli-point...

Chrysler Superbowl Commercial

Well done. Gritty, in your face, beautiful. I hope the car can live up to the marketing....

Caribou Coffee: Ending My Boycott

In the past, I have been boycotting Caribou Coffee because they were bought out and majority owned by Arcapita (formerly First Islamic Bank of Bahrain). As part of their ownership, Arcapita required Caribou Coffee to have an official policy of adhering to Sharia (Islamic law) with regards to their business, whicn included bans on interest and pork. Even though Caribou was certified to not be supporting overseas groups involved in terrorism, I did...