Category Archives: Science (real)

Spam Scam

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I am, while you read this, driving up the East Coast burning 90% dead dinosaurs and throwing away the other 10% of my fuel dollars on a government scam.

Ethanol is the automotive equivalent of email spam for erection extenders.

You’ve seen the ads.

ED Med proud to offer the world best quality
of erection pills, at huge savings over the brand equivalents.

Ci ialis (only $3 per pill)
Ci ialis Softabs (only $3.33 per pill)
Vaigra (only $1.56 per pill)
Vaigra Softabs (only $1.89 per pill)
Le vitra (only $2.78)

Join our current 5 millions happy users today.

I’ve become increasingly frustrated and it has nothing to do with Mr. ED. We in this part of the blogosphere are doing good things: we’re asking the right questions and we’re honing the good answers.

We’ve known since 2006 that the taxpayer-funded subsidy for ethanol came to $1.45 per gallon. We’ve known for even longer that ethanol cuts mileage at a time the same government that underwrites this non-fuel mandates higher economy and greater ethanol usage. We’ve also known that ethanol laced fuels corrode automotive, marine, and lawnmower fuel systems. And we have certainly announced it.

No one hears us. The Beltway Bandits of the world don’t (won’t? can’t?) listen and 306,711,705 people here in these United States have never even heard of No Puffin (in a wild flight of fancy, I assumed that one thousand peeps have). “ED Med” claims 5,000 times that many satisfied users.

And you, gentle reader, have. You may even agree some of the time.

Unfortunately, that audience of one is insufficient to effect change.

People seem to buy from spam. Otherwise, spammers wouldn’t do what they do.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking?

Ah Choo

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Some people say all men are pigs but I disavow all knowledge of swine flu.

My friend Towse wrote about the hype hype HYPE surrounding the swine flu.

“There is always some flu around and flu is always killing some people,” Towse wrote. “Even when a raw mutant flu manages to kill off more people than a shooting-war, flu has never ravaged whole cities as cholera or the Black Death can do. As awful pandemics go, flu is like the snotty-nosed little sister of awful pandemics.”

As of April 26, there were just 20 confirmed cases of Swine flu in the United States.
California, 7 cases. Kansas, 2 cases. New York City, 8 cases. Ohio, 1 case. Texas, 2 cases.

That said, the swine flu hype is probably justified.

Everyone in the medical community fears a rerun of the 1918-19 influenza pandemic. To put it in the computer terms we all understand, “It’s not a question of whether your hard drive crashes but when.”

I came to know more about the 1918-19 pandemic through Vermont Poet Laureate Ellen Bryant Voigt’s narrative poem, Kyrie, This sequence of persona poems connects different speakers by their location in the pandemic. That epidemic killed more than 30 million people worldwide. Some of Ms. Voigt’s narrators “seem related to one another and form a kind of community. It was an amazing devastation,” she said, “encouraged by World War I. The movement of troops made it easy for the virus to spread.” The name Kyrie (pronounced KEER-ee-aa) is from the Greek meaning “Lord.”

The 1918 pandemic was better known as the Spanish flu. That bug killed more than twice the number killed in World War I.

CDC reports that the current “viruses contain a unique combination of gene segments that have not been reported previously among swine or human influenza viruses in the U.S. or elsewhere… It is not anticipated that the seasonal influenza vaccine will provide protection against the swine flu H1N1 viruses.”

The H1N1 viruses are also unique in that, having jumped from swine and birds to humans, they now make the jump from human to human. Modern air travel means they can travel to all corners of the world in days.

Today, the World Bank announced that there is not enough money on hand to underwrite treating a “simple” flu pandemic across the third world.

I had not planned to address the swine flu. After all, it’s not as if there isn’t already enough coverage. This is not a “little boy who cried wolf” issue. It is really a newspaper science versus real science issue. Even if this particular influenza outbreak peters out instead of pigging out on all our peeps, it’s not a question of whether there will be a pandemic but when.

Men cope better with emergencies if they practice practice practice their response. I hope they practice well on this one.

CDC reminded us of the everyday actions people can take to stay healthy:

  • Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue in the trash after you use it.
  • Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. Alcohol-based hands cleaners are also effective.
  • Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. Germs spread that way.

And, perhaps most important, avoid close contact with sick people.

Cost of Green

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Let us, on this holiest of Earth Days, pause to consider.

“The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy,” President Obama told an Earth Day celebration in Iowa. Meanwhile the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency classified carbon dioxide as dangerous to public health.

Carbon dioxide?

That would be the stuff we breathe out. Oddly, that would also be the stuff we breathe into drowning victims when we perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

What the President said today is good economics and good science. What the administration did today is bad economics based on bad science.

Global Warming is a good example of the politics of the Far Green overwhelming the truth of science. The popular press and the Congress would have us believe that all scientists agree on the causes and outcomes of Global Warming. And yet. And yet the National Climatic Data Center reports that global temperatures in 2006 were the third coldest on record. And yet 32,000 thousand scientists say “Hey, global warming doesn’t happen the way the politicians say it does.” In fact, as Weather Channel founder John Coleman wrote, “the climate of Earth is changing. It has always changed. But mankind’s activities have not overwhelmed or significantly modified the natural forces.”

Thanks to the EPA ruling, synthetic trees that suck carbon dioxide out of the air could suck a trillion dollars per year out of the economy. That’s more than the Administration has sunk into Wall Street “banks.” A lot more.

Last month the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York ordered the FDA to allow 17-year olds to buy the “Morning After Pill.” The ruling took the FDA to task for allowing ideology to trump the scientific evidence. The Agency had ignored its own scientists in creating the overturned regulations.

The court’s decision is the second major case this year that forces the government to put science ahead of politics.

I don’t like using a judicial decision to determine science but that does seem to be all the Administration understands. It is time for a court to tell the Administration what more than 30,000 scientists already know. It is time for science to trump ideology.

Or we could all hold our breath.

Vamping Us

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The undead are popular this year. Moonlight, the CBS Friday night crime drama with a vampire as the lead detective, drew a 2.1 share last Friday. That may have been the episode in which our hero came back to life and then reverted to his nighttime habits, but the show is popular every week.

Vampire Power. David Pogue in the NYTimes calls it “the juice consumed by electronic gadgets even when they’re turned off (also called phantom loads, standby power or leaking electricity). They just sit there, plugged in, sucking electricity, at a cost to you and to the environment. According to the Energy Department, vampire gadgets account for about 25 percent of total residential electricity consumption in the U.S.”

Say what?

OK, I admit that we have a teevee or two, more than our share of VCRs that show the time rather than blinking, and a couple or seven electronic phones. We also have a refrigerator and two freezers along with a water pump to pump the water in and a sump pump to pump it out, an electric mattress pad, and an electric stove.

This household burns through 666 KW-Hrs per month or so. Vampire power measured in watts is 25% of that kilowatt load? So those blinking green lights would account for 167 KW-Hrs per month? 167 KW-Hrs??? I don’t think so.

This sounds more like the Far Green in action. I need proof. Like actual, measured data, instead of being vamped by hyperbole.


Congress is planning to announce a possible investigation into something. Whew. That ought to keep them out of trouble for the entire term.

Porn Shortage: The Ethanol Scam

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Sheesh.

A local radio talk show reflected on that shortage recently. Turns out they really said “shortage of corn” and were talking about how dumb it is to make biofuels out of the food on our table.

It’s worse than that.

Using just 10% ethanol-based “gasoline” decreases real world fuel economy by about 7% compared with burning 100% gasoline. (Using 85% ethanol-based fuel decreases real world fuel economy by about 37% compared with burning 100% gasoline. Fuel injection systems in FFVs are built to inject about 40% more fuel.)

Ethanol corrodes the ferrous materials and aluminum it comes in contact with. It eats rubber hoses. It is particularly nasty on some fiberglass fuel tanks in boats.

I reckon that means you get leaks.

That thrills me. Dripping a $4/gallon liquid from my 1980 Keyscar next to a person smoking in a parking lot (because no one can smoke inside anymore) is going to get exciting.

Ethanol doesn’t work with the capacitance-based fuel gauge sensors many auto manufacturers now fit in gas tanks. It causes sparks and increases internal wear in the electric fuel pumps most modern auto manufacturers also fit in gas tanks.

As an aside, doesn’t it seem really really really stupid to put something that makes sparks inside a jar full of high explosives? And they do it on purpose?

Mileage is going down here in the Keys as the Homestead, Florida-based Dion’s Mobil gas station/quick stop chain is now switching to E10 across the board. I think they are the first in Florida to do so. All other fuel distributors in Florida will follow suit.

Dion Oil CEO Sue Banks said she knew of no problems for cars running E10, although there was no cost savings to be had for the switch. She did say the change would cost distribution companies and station owners. Ms. Banks also doesn’t know if the ethanol-based fuels will bump consumer prices.

Swell. I get to pay more for something that corrodes my car, delivers lower mileage, and was promised to us as a way to save money. After all, corn is cheaper than dead dinosaurs.

Ms. Banks said the fuel switch is a mandate by the feds but darn it I can’t find anything to back that up.

For an oil company exec, Ms. Banks seems, um, underinformed.

Fortunately, there are _some_ other peeps noticing the drop in heating value: www.floridastategasprices.com

All this in April, the time we know know as Financial Literacy Month.

Earlier this month, Germany cancelled that nation’s proposed 10% ethanol fuel mandates.

I wonder what Germany knows that we don’t?

EPA has revised its methods for estimating MPG to better represent current real-world driving conditions.

The 2008 C1500 Silverado FFV with a 5.3 liter V8 and automatic transmission is a case in point. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) produce the Fuel Economy Guide. According to the guide, that truck gets 11/15 mpg on E85 but 15/20 mpg on regular unleaded gasoline. Since E85 is supposed to cost less, EPA says that means a $2,768 annual fuel bill on E85 v. $2,849 on plain gas. Of course this is based on 15,000 miles driven on $1.71/gallon E85 or $2.80/gallon gasoline. The Chrysler Sebring Convertible with a 2.7 liter V6 and automatic transmission is rated 13/19 mpg on E85 but 18/26 on regular unleaded gasoline. EPA claims a $2,401 annual fuel bill on $1.71/gallon E85, $100 more than the $2,306 bill with $2.80/gallon gasoline.

Naturally, there is no such thing as $1.71/gallon E85, let alone $2.80/gallon gasoline despite a 54-cent per gallon federal ethanol subsidy. In fact, don’t forget that Ms. Banks might charge more for the ethanol blend than for straight gas.

The Business Week Ethanol: A Tragedy in 3 Acts is good additional reading.