In article ,
Bill C wrote:

On Jun 21, 7:03*pm, "
wrote:


If you want to give TK credit for knocking down strawmen,
that's fine, but if you want to flip off people who argued
with him, be prepared to show examples of them saying
what you're criticizing.

Ben- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

I'm too lazy to do that for what was intended as a troll. It's there
though. You look it up. I'm tempted to, just to make the point, yet
again, that a ****load of folks here would be ice skating on hell
before they'd admit to having been wrong, or mistaken.

Then make the point, Bill. Why should Ben be expected to go find things to prove
*your* statement that everyone treated Kunich like an idiot for saying that the trend
toward use of biofuel had drawbacks. The main reason that is a nonstarter as an
argument is that Kunich didn't actually say anything like that. Ben is corrrect to
point out that he (TK) was raving about how biofuel stuff was going to cause mass
genocide and liberals/progressives didn't care. In other words, Kunich was being his
usual hysterical self. You know, if he'd said, "I think that the redirection of corn
and soy to the biofuel industry might have consequences for less priviliged people in
the Third World" he would have gotten little disagreement. But he had to go into
full-on drama queen mode and say things like, "There you have it as I was predicting.
Guilt ridden middle class white men are planning on starving the world in order to
pretend that they're going to fight world use of oil and global warming." Oh, and
that was a mild one for him.

Anyway, as for the biofuel/food isue: One point is that in Asia, the price of rice
is skyrocketing due to a limited supply (for example, drought has destroyed
Australia's rice industry, leading to the closure of the largest rice mill in the
Southern Hemisphere). This is *not* due to anything to do with biofuels. Rice does
not convert into biofuel, although the ricestraw has shown possibilities (and
ricestraw is a leftover from the harvest). Additionally, the land that rice is grown
on is very rarely converted into use by other crops, as it's unsuitable for such
things as corn (or pretty much anything but rice).

Another point is that the price of corn in Mexico and South America has been going
up for several years. This isn't due to them converting over to the use of corn as a
biofuel, as it started happening at least five or six years ago and there was no
corn/biofuel industry there then (and not much now). Brazil uses sugar cane for its
biofuel ethanol.

There are certainly a number of liberals/progressives calling for greater use of
biofuel but the driving force is companies like ADM. They get huge subsidies for
growing corn for biofuel. The subsidies they got for simply growing corn is one
reason why corn producers in Africa are out of business: food aid does not show up as
dollars, to be spent were the receiving country chooses (like buying from local
sources). It invariably is set up to show up as a comodity, sourced from here. And
that means subsidised ADM corn.

You're making the argument that progressives and environmentalists
haven't called for alternative energy/fuels??

No, he's not. Strawman.

Oh, and furthermore, people don't criticise TK for saying the road is basically
black, they do so for the way he says it. He earns the abuse he gets by being an
overbearing asshole more often than not. He squawks that people in here act like they
know more than experts in any subject, yet he is guilty of that more than everyone
combined. Christ, Bill, you've been on the receiving end of that ****. He continues
to perpetuate false arguments (like the ICC report was modified to reflect the
conclusions of the summary that was written before the report) even though he has
been corrected on them multiple times. The way he alwasy seems to have worked at some
place or on some thing that is relevent to a discussion, which implies *his*
expertise is more valuable than the rest of the "idiots" (as he sees us, "us" being
everyone but Tom) in here is absolutely laughable. He claims, for example, to have an
engineering degree from the USAF but he thinks there are "pockets" in the air where
airplane wings don't have lift. Ha! I could go on, but why bother?

--
tanx,
Howard

The bloody pubs are bloody dull
The bloody clubs are bloody full
Of bloody girls and bloody guys
With bloody murder in their eyes

remove YOUR SHOES to reply, ok?