Could they maybe look a little closer to home?
Like many in the Evansville area I am a interested novice in the
biofuel industry, thus there may be some very good reasons that the federal government and one of the largest US companies is
looking well beyond our borders to supply them with a key alternative component to their business.
I would really like to know what those reasons are though. I suspect there are many in the domestic Biofuel industries who want to know as well.
Showing one's colors
Grumps got me to thinking about political aesthetics. Wally Fellows flood of orange and blue will either be a genius form of instant name recognition or lead to voter revulsion. I'm undecided which as even though the colors are, excuse me, butt ugly; they certainly demand attention. Assuming Janis Ringhand sticks with the baby-blue and white, she may be hidden from view in the sign wars.
Given this is a web medium, I thought it prudent to look at the respective websites.
Janis' is a pleasing baby-blue and white color scheme. Unfortunately, that's where the pleasant viewing ends. Someone talked her (or her webmaster) into frames. So no matter what page you click to, her 1/3 screen banner covers the top. Although this keeps the name up top and adds to recognition, if someone goes to a political site, they likely know the name already. Frames take away from the information being presented as you have to do alot more scrolling to read what would otherwise show on the full screen. The district information map, a wonderful inclusion, is a great example where on normal settings one needs to scroll to see the full map.
Frames also hide the webpage specifics from the address bar and printing frames-based webpages is a major pain. Good webbies don't do frames. ;)
Wally's site, while not as informative as Janis', has a simple easy to use format (once you get past the colors). Simple menu column to logical links. One thing that seems to be missing from it though -- I couldn't find from the site whether he was Republican, Democrat, Green, Alien, or what party. From the articles he has posted in Press Releases (good page, btw), one can decipher that he is a Dem. But without already knowing or researching deep, one wouldn't know. Not sure how that is viewed by the party -- not that the Dems of Rock County have much web savvy.
Repeating history on purpose?
Wonder if Dan Inouye, Robert Matsui, or Norman Mineta would take issue with
this campaign stance from Ron Kind's Republican challenger, Paul Nelson?
"He pointed out that the United States rounded up Japanese-Americans during World War II, and although he doesn’t condone that action, it shows that the nation has been tough in the past."
Past shameful acts don't make current ones correct.
Not in my backyard?
Another
sad reminder that we haven't progressed as a society nearly as far as we might like to think.
Building a Bandwagon
Ok - I admit it. The issue has gone from one of those annoying news items you can't let go of to a honest to goodness cause. I looked around and couldn't find a bandwagon to jump on, so perhaps we need to simply build one.
Why would south central Wisconsin, or more specifically the 80th Assembly District, care about
E85 and the Minimum Markup Law?
Beyond all the reasons you will hear from environmental and anti-oil groups about E85 burning cleaner, being cheaper, reducing our dependency on foreign oil, etc; here are the local reasons why it's a good move:
- It supports a local start up industry in Monroe rather than wait for other industries from border states provide the same product.
- It supports a major manufacturer's future goals. A manufacturer that is a key employer for the region. Given the cost of regular unleaded, I think the demand for a Chevy Blazer that can use E85 for $2 per gallon might just be popular and keep the assembly lines in Janesville moving for a while.
- It supports the traditional backbone of our regional economy - agriculture. Did you notice all the corn we grow?
For good measure - here's a reason that the liberal interest groups might not think of -- E85 offers US auto makers a niche market at a time when Toyota and Honda threaten to dominate the market as the only aggressive hybrid car makers. E85 is currently being pursued by
Ford and GM but not by Japanese companies (they are moving to electric/gas hybrids). Although hybrids will give a better MPG rating, they currently use regular full price gas. E85 could offer a much cheaper driving alternative that uses less petroleum than the current hybrids on the market.
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Edit - I should add that E85 seems like a natural fit for a southern Wisconsin that is looking at getting
a brand new Biodiesel Plant.
Minimum Markup Mayhem
Broken Record Blogger here -- bringing yet another tidbit of mis-information on the Minimum Markup Law skirmish.
The
latest has the petroleum whosesaler/retailers giving out two new arguments:
Doyle's move is a campaign stunt. If so, then someone should alert Mark Green since he already announced his support of the move. Why isn't he being taken to task for his statements as well?
Now we also find out that this will mean us stupid car owners are going to try putting E85 into our tanks and ruin our engines in an effort to pay less at the pumps. First off there are only 35 E85 pumps in the state. Second off, while many of us are stupid, we aren't dumb!
Anyone else old enough to remember the dreaded switch from leaded to unleaded gasoline and all the fears of people putting the wrong gas in their tanks? The fear went away when the industry simply made the unleaded tanks require thinner gas nozzles. Why wouldn't
Ford and
GM (and any other auto maker producing E85 engines) do the same? Or perhaps a sign reading, "Hey Dummy - don't put this gas in your car unless you have an E85 ready engine!"
Maybe it's time the petroleum wholesaler/retailers began sharing their real fears. Are they concerned about a new product (E85) that stations will be competing for? Or is just change itself that scares them?
What's my line?
As an avid news watcher, I really enjoy it when a group or interest realizes that it has to say something even though they are realizing over time that they are on the wrong side of the issue.
Yesterday, I noted the next big news story -- Wisconsin's Minimum Markup Law and its impact on alternative fuel prices. Now the retail petroleum industry is struggling to choose its message.
This morning
they blasted Doyle for "suspending" the law and trying to "eliminate" the law.
Obviously their PR person was writing faster than the brain was moving since most folks who have minimal understanding of how the checks an dbalances of government work could tell you that Doyle can't do either of those two things. The most he can do is direct the DACPT on how to interpret and enforce the law. Only the Legislature can suspend/eliminate it.
So now the retail petroleum lobby has a new tactic --
official apathy. They state there will be no impact on prices from this move by Doyle. Then one retailer/wholesaler states that this will actually drive up the price on ethanol blends due to increased demand.
Huh? If the price on normal ethanol blends (not E85) went up, that would make them more expensive than straight petroleum based gas -- and no one would buy them, duh.
Now will the demand for E85 go up and thus the price? Maybe once we get more engines made to handle it (Ford and GM have announced plans on doing this). But I think that might just be a good thing -- for energy usage, for the environment, and for the Wisconsin economy.
Back to the news watcher fun -- lest one think this is another Doyle vs Business fight, the very Republican Senate Majority Leader,
Dale Schultz, claims that Doyle is doing this only after being pressured to by Schultz's office. I can hardly wait to see how the GOP and WMC try to choose sides on this!
Shielding Her Modesty
I just finished reading one of the more enjoyable and informative books that I have read in a long time.
Shielding Her Modesty, by
Sita Bhaskar, is a collection of short fiction that revolves around the often conflicting and sometimes complimentary cultures of life in the US for Indian nationals and life in upper class India. Stories of Indian students studying in the US heartland and facing Western pressures while meeting traditional Indian expectations leads to some very interesting and often humorous situations -- whether it be the $6,000 diamond ring one young man buys for the wife he has yet to meet or the daughter buying Viagra for her father.
Other stories also do a masterful job at capturing the infiltration of Western culture into the traditions of Indian society. The title story revolves around a billboard painter who relishes the prospect of painting a scantily clad blonde haired beauty, yet reviles the lust he sees from passers by on the street. Perhaps my favorite is the story of the children in the Barbie and GI Joe factory who want so much just to have a tiny piece of the culture they are manufacturing for American children.
The author does a splendid job of painting the stories in broad strokes and not over-detailing cultures and scenes. The stories read fast and lightly, though the reader will often finish them to find himself smiling or with a tear in his eye. For a dollar per story, this is truly a wonderful investment in knowledge and enjoyment, not only of Indian/Western culture, but simply of the human condition.
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Disclaimer -- I should note that the author is a colleague of mine, thus I may have an inherent bias. However, I went into the book not expecting much (as anyone would with a book that friend had just written), and came away truly delighted. More specifically, if I didn't believe what I wrote, I certainly wouldn't blog it!
No exploding tea cup ride?
There are so many jokes to be made
here, I just don't have time to start!
Well ok, I am disappointed that the Rumsfield Hot Air Baloon Ride is a no go! But really, I offer this up as a gift article to any enterprising blogger out there!
This isn't what the Govern-meant
This hasn't gotten much press yet, but as gas prices go up it could be the story of tomorrow.
I am trying to catch up on what the heck Wisconsin's Unfair Sales Act was meant to fix! The
FTC doesn't seem to think it is all that fair. I know I have heard the argument that Wisconsin's minimum mark up of 9.18% is the highest in the country and I am only now beginning to understand how the law works.
Let's see if I have this right, gas retailers must use the "average posted terminal price" as determined by the petroleum industry as their base price and add 9.18% to cover what the Legislature feels is the exact amount of business costs and overhead. Presumably this is to prevent the BPs of the world from undercutting the Mom&Pop gas stations (that for the most part don't exist anymore).
Obviously, the Legislature wasn't thinking of their being alternate petroleum fuels such as E85 on the market when this was enacted. Only 15% of E85 fuel is petroleum based gasoline, the rest is ethanol - which is much cheaper than petroleum. Thus the base cost for E85 is significantly less. But according to
S.100.30, there is no difference and E85's price is required by law to be artificially inflated to that of regular unleaded.
Those of you who understand this better than I please let me know what I am getting wrong here, cause this just makes no sense!
And for my left leaning friends -- please tell me why
Dale Schultz and
Mark Green are the only politicos to pick up on this story so far!
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Edit -- apparently the
Governor's office has taken notice in a good way.
How can you tell if Smart Growth becomes Stupid?
So the Evansville Smart Growth Plan faces its first real challenge fourteen months after it was put into place. Upon the Plan Commission's recommendation, the City council will be holding a public hearing tonight on whether to amend the plan to redesignate 47 acres from Undeveloped/Agriculture to Future Residential. Although this does not by itself accelerate Evansville's growth beyond the 27% over 20 year goal stated by the plan, it opens the bureaucratic gates for doing so.
Once a city's plan designates an area as appropriate for future development (residential, commercial, industrial, etc), developers have a green light for their business planning. The argument at that point becomes not "if" but "when?"
During my years on Council and Plan Commission, I was periodically chastised by developers for not understanding their perspective and business point of view. So rather than simply rehash the fine comments already given by
Grumps and
The Observer, I thought I would try and explain this process and the implications from the developer's point of reference.
A developer looking at property outside the city will first look to the city's
Master Plan or Smart Growth Plan to see if they have a shot in hell at getting an annexation and approved land division from the City. The Plan represents the City's philosophical "line in the sand" for not what will happen but rather what ideas of development the City is willing to entertain.
A developer knows that the first step is for the Plan to show the land as future development - regardless of the planned use. Any land shown as future development means that 1. the city has expressed interest in future annexation and 2. the township that currently governs the land is aware of that interest. Thus future use lands are less controversial for the developer since the debate between city and township were likely resolved or exhausted during the Plan process.
For example -- the Brunsell property on the south side of Hwy 14 (across from the Piggly Wiggly) has been designated as future land use for nearly two decades. When it was originally added to the Master Plan in the mid 1980s, it was designated as future Industrial. From that point onward, the Town of Union accepted the fact that the land was Agriculture - 1 on borrowed time. When the Master Plan was updated to change part of the land to future Commercial, the Town of Union didn't bat an eye - they had already written off the property as future city land.Once the land has been designated as future use, there is no going back. You are now in the competetive phase of development -- the competition between the Plan (27% over 20 years) versus the Market (the developer's business plan). This competition almost always favors the developer even though the city appears to have all the control.
At this point the developer will begin spending cash on the project. Surveys, soil testing, engineering studies, environmental impact, marketing studies, real estate surveying, etc. Thousands of dollars will be invested by the developer in putting together their comprehensive plan for development. This is where the city typically goes weak in the spine - the developer will cry out about the money invested and how the Plan supports the development, how could the city possibly say no at this point? Every "delay" that the city "causes" equals more dollars spent and lost by the developer.
What the developer will leave out of the conversation is that these preliminary costs are also necessary to their loan or satisfy their investors -- not just to convince the city. They have to spend this money up front regardless of the city's wishes.
The developer will likely argue that simply updating the Plan to include 47 acres as future land designated for development does not equal immediate growth. However, they wouldn't push the issue on to Plan Commission's agenda if they didn't have near future plans - why go through the headache? If the idea is floated during the Smart Growth Planning process, then it may well be just a concept for consideration. If the idea is pushed forward only a year after the Plan has been implemented, then the developer has a short-frame timeline already in mind.
So the question comes to the City Council -- do you wish to have this 47 acres on your agenda for the next year or two, first as an annexation request, then as a formal land division. Because, in spite of what Mr. Morning might say tonight, that is what this really means.
Oh, and do you think maybe you should ask the Town of Union how they feel about 47 acres of land that they thought safe from development over the next 20 years now being on the annexation table?
A Simple Question...
This started off as an honest question into the local area Blogasphere:
What are the details of the road construction for Main and Madison Streets?
Then I realized -- gee, since you rarely blog anymore, no one is going to read this. And gosh, if no one reads this, you won't get any answers.
No problem there -- I have the internet and bandwidth to spare! I will just check some obvious spots:
Anything on
Grumps' site? Nah - he is busy keeping the neo-cons on their toes. Wonder if folks in Evansville realize just how big our local blogger has gotten? Regular hat tips from X-Off and a regular host of the Carnival! Frankly, I don't want him to get bogged down too much in local stuff as he is adding so much at the state level of bloggers.
So, how about
The Observer? After closing the figgin' Bravenet pop-ups, I scrolled through the potpourri of news, stories, etc. but couldn't find anything. Took a while to search and I am starting to wonder if the EO hasn't outgrown the blogger format?
Ok, what about the
OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER FOR THE CITY OF EVANSVILLE? Surely they will have something on this upcoming event that will literally shut down major portions of the city? Oh yah - I forgot the Gildners don't believe in the internet yet. Somehow, I don't think I have the strength to go sifting through the Official City Articles on what happened 60 years ago.
So, how about
The City has it's own website! If anyone would have information on a major City project it would be the City! …….or not…… Maybe it is there - who would know with trying to look through the orange-hued clutter?
So apparently
Mayor Decker was right after all. If citizens want to know something, they can just hoof it down to City Hall and ask in person.
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Many thanks to Grumps for
some insight! Not sure how nice I was, but I definately appreciate the follow up. =P
