Clear your calendars: the BBC3 will be following on its brilliant Beethoven Experience with A Bach Christmas, broadcasting the complete works of J. S. Bach from December 16 through Christmas (Every Note, Night and Day
Monthly Archives: December 2005
The Costs of Asymmetry
How many small and home office (SOHO) businesses would be made possible by services that let people produce as well as consume?
How many small service businesses can’t grow because people can’t (or don’t bother to) run servers in their homes? How many business-building activities are strangled before they are born by prohibitively narrow upstream bandwidths?
Amen
State’s First BioDiesel Plant Underway
Ground was broken Monday morning on Wisconsin’s first biodiesel plant, a new facility that could dramatically boost demand for state soybeans.
Biodiesel is an alternative fuel that can be made from vegetable oils or recycled cooking oil.
Green Bay-based Anamax Corp. is starting construction on the $15-million plant next to its existing restaurant-grease recovery plant in DeForest on Monday. The plant will be the largest of its kind in the country, WISC-TV reported.
The 15,000-square-foot plant could be a boon for the state’s soybean farmers as more than 85 percent of biodiesel comes from soybeans.
The plant is expected to produce 20 million gallons annually.
The market potential for biodiesel is huge as Americans burn about 50 billion gallons of diesel every year, and almost all of that is currently petroleum-based
Rice on Internet Governance
The Internet will reach its full potential as a medium and facilitator for global economic expansion and development in an environment free from burdensome intergovernmental oversight and control. The success of the Internet lies in its inherently decentralized nature, with the most significant growth taking place at the outer edges of the network through innovative new applications and services. Burdensome, bureaucratic oversight is out of place in an Internet structure that has worked so well for many around the globe. We regret the recent positions on Internet governance (i.e., the “new cooperation model”) offered by the European Union, the Presidency of which is currently held by the United Kingdom, seems to propose just that – a new structure of intergovernmental control over the Internet.
GM’s New Janesville Assembled SUV’s
There’s a lot riding on those SUVs, including the jobs of nearly 4,000 workers who assemble Suburbans, Tahoes and Yukons at General Motors’ Janesville factory.
The plant was spared from GM’s massive restructuring last month, when the company announced it would shutter five factories and scale back a host of others – moves designed to cut 30,000 manufacturing jobs.
The Janesville factory still faces a risk, particularly if oil and gasoline prices spike again, industry observers say.
Automakers Lining Up for Aid
Jeffrey H. Birnbaum and Sholnn Freeman:
Troubled U.S. automakers and their allies on Capitol Hill are seeking billions of dollars in aid from the federal government ranging from health coverage for their workers to extra tax write-offs for themselves.
They’re also asking for one rhetorical favor: Please don’t call the requests a bailout.
I don’t view it as a bailout,” Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.) said.
“We’re not looking for a bailout,” agreed William C. Ford Jr., chairman of Ford Motor Co.
Great Photography – Beauty at Wal-Mart?
Rick Lee posts some fabulous photos from Charleston, West Virginia. Via Virginia Postrel
Tax Cuts for the Very Rich, AMT for the Rest of Us
DO House Republicans harbor some sort of deep rage against moderately affluent families with lots of children?
Maybe not, but take a close look at the $56 billion package of tax cuts that House leaders hope to pass before Christmas, and you have to wonder.
If it were to become law, any family with two or more children and an income of $100,000 ought to run for the hills.
Sift out dozens of nickel-and-dime provisions, and the essence of the House bill comes down to one provision that it includes and one that it omits.
Run Your Car on Cow Fuel
A C$14 million factory near Montreal started producing “biodiesel” fuel two weeks ago from the bones, innards and other parts of farm animals such as cattle, pigs or chickens that Canadians do not eat.
“We’re using animal waste to reduce greenhouse gas emissions,” said marketing director Ron Wardrop of Rothsay, which runs the plant.
SUV Sales Down Sharply
Not a surprise… Sholnn Freeman on the sharp decline in SUV sales:
The sales spiral of the Ford Explorer demonstrates consumers’ shifting tastes. It was once one of the nation’s most popular vehicles, but Ford sold fewer than 12,000 last month, a 52 percent drop from November 2004.
At the height of the SUV boom in 2002, Ford routinely sold 25,000 to 40,000 Explorers a month.
Ford is looking to offset the weakness in trucks with more sales of passenger cars, including the Ford Fusion and Lincoln Zephyr.