Odds 'n' EndsToday seems to be one of those days where the news outlets are focused on all-Karl-Rove-all-the-time, and some little things have flown past the radar. Here are a few things that caught my eye.
Turning Over The Soil
The Des Moines Register ran an interesting special report Sunday on the coming property shifts bound to happen in Iowa as a large generation of small farmers begins to pass from the scene. It's a rather amazing fact that about half of the state's farmland is owned by those 65 and older with a quarter being held by those 74 and over.
The issues of "local control" will haunt us if land begins to shift from small farmers to corporate farmers and out-of-state interests. How do we magically expect farm operations to be "good neighbors" when the owners live in Chicago or Minneapolis?
KA-BOOM!!:
For a little fun, the Register is hosting a video (Streamed QuickTime) of this morning's implosion of Knapp and Storm halls on the Iowa State Campus. It's amazing how big a crowd can be on a Tuesday morning.
Lose Weight: Drink More Milk? (Or Not?)
A physician's advocacy group filed a lawsuit against three main dairy advocacy groups to stop them from running an ad campaign promoting the incredible fat-burning properties of milk consumption.
Not surprising:
PCRM said the dairy industry’s weight-loss campaign is based solely on two small-scale studies using questionable methodology, led by Michael Zemel, Ph.D., an industry-funded researcher at the University of Tennessee. Since 1998, Zemel has accepted nearly $1.7 million in research grants from the National Dairy Council (NDC), and $275,000 from General Mills.
Gee - who could doubt those studies? Look - there are valid reasons to promote milk and dairy consumption, but paying someone to conduct faulty studies to support a pre-supported conclusion is not one of them. (Not surprising - the writers at the Coalition to Support Iowa's [Corporate] Farmers took offense at someone questioning the honesty of an ad campaign.)
Ethanol - A "Corn Dog"
A group of Cornell researchers pointed out that ethanol is not a magic solution to America's energy problem:
[E]thanol boosters are ignoring some unpleasant facts:
Ethanol won't significantly reduce our oil imports; adding more ethanol to our gas tanks adds further complexity to our motor-fuel supply chain, which will lead to further price hikes at the pump; and, most important (and most astonishing), it may take more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it actually contains.
The important thing to keep in mind: they're right. It takes energy to produce the crops and process the outputs into ethanol (or other biofuels). It sure won't help America's energy problem if we have to burn more oil in tractors, pesticides, fertilizers and processing plants.
Ethanol has to be a part of a larger energy supply chain - taking into account solar, wind and other renewable sources. (How about powering ethanol production with wind farms?)