subject:"\[Vo\]\:Here comes $500 oil"

I normally pay little attention to magazine articles with titles like 
this, but this one appears to be authoritative. See:


http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/15/news/economy/500dollaroil_okeefe.fortune/

Other oil experts make similar predictions but nowhere near as dire 
in the short term.


- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

2008-09-22 Thread Edmund Storms



His prediction would be correct if nothing else happened. Now we have  
two additional variables in play. The first is a world-wide  
depression. This will reduce energy demand and reduce use of oil - for  
a while. By the time this is over, new sources and effective  
conservation methods will be available. The second is the response of  
users. Already demand in the US has gone down. As the price of  
gasoline goes up, people find ways to save or to use other sources.  
This is not rocket science. A bigger fear is the rise in food prices.  
The obese problem will gradually go away and be replaced by the  
underweight problem. I wonder how the government will handle this  
problem?


Ed

On Sep 22, 2008, at 12:23 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:

I normally pay little attention to magazine articles with titles  
like this, but this one appears to be authoritative. See:


http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/15/news/economy/500dollaroil_okeefe.fortune/

Other oil experts make similar predictions but nowhere near as dire  
in the short term.


- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

The obese problem will go away?  No.  A good portion of the obesity
problem in the us is becuase cheap food is unhealthy food.  Its not
just overeating, its that some people can only afford crap to eat.

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 11:41 AM, Edmund Storms [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 His prediction would be correct if nothing else happened. Now we have two
 additional variables in play. The first is a world-wide depression. This
 will reduce energy demand and reduce use of oil - for a while. By the time
 this is over, new sources and effective conservation methods will be
 available. The second is the response of users. Already demand in the US has
 gone down. As the price of gasoline goes up, people find ways to save or to
 use other sources. This is not rocket science. A bigger fear is the rise in
 food prices. The obese problem will gradually go away and be replaced by the
 underweight problem. I wonder how the government will handle this problem?

 Ed

 On Sep 22, 2008, at 12:23 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:

 I normally pay little attention to magazine articles with titles like
 this, but this one appears to be authoritative. See:

 http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/15/news/economy/500dollaroil_okeefe.fortune/

 Other oil experts make similar predictions but nowhere near as dire in the
 short term.

 - Jed

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil


Edmund Storms wrote:


His prediction would be correct if nothing else happened. Now we have
two additional variables in play. The first is a world-wide
depression. This will reduce energy demand and reduce use of oil - for
a while. By the time this is over, new sources and effective
conservation methods will be available.


Well, I do not think his price projection is central to Simmons 
discussion. The price will depend upon many different factors such as 
energy demand and alternatives. But his main point and his major 
expertise is in whether oil has reached a peak or not, and what the 
decline will look like. His name discovery is that the Saudis are 
grossly exaggerating their reserves. That is what Deffeyes and others 
have said.


The shape of the decline curve will not vary much no matter what 
demand is. Larger demand will spur improved extraction technology 
which will make the curve somewhat shallower at first, and steeper 
later. Reduced demand will stretch it out. The overall amount of oil 
that can be extracted does not vary. What I have read is that the 
improved extraction technology of the last 20 years or so gets the 
oil out more quickly, but it does not increase total extractable oil much.


In any case, I doubt there is more oil anywhere in the world. If 
there was, someone would have found it by now. No one has found any 
large amounts of oil in the US since the Great Depression.


- Jed

RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

So more regulation, right? A paternalistic state must step in here? I dunno.

(Oh, I'm not dossing I'm doing a grant/bid so by the computer a lot. Didn't
think I'd start a hissy fit of some members by merely thinking.)

-Original Message-
From: leaking pen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 22 September 2008 19:48
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

The obese problem will go away?  No.  A good portion of the obesity
problem in the us is becuase cheap food is unhealthy food.  Its not
just overeating, its that some people can only afford crap to eat.

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

2008-09-22 Thread Edmund Storms



On Sep 22, 2008, at 12:47 PM, leaking pen wrote:


The obese problem will go away?  No.  A good portion of the obesity
problem in the us is becuase cheap food is unhealthy food.  Its not
just overeating, its that some people can only afford crap to eat.


True, but a person will lose weight by eating less crap. Nevertheless,  
the effect will be an interesting experiment for us who only have to  
watch.


Ed



On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 11:41 AM, Edmund Storms  
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


His prediction would be correct if nothing else happened. Now we  
have two
additional variables in play. The first is a world-wide depression.  
This
will reduce energy demand and reduce use of oil - for a while. By  
the time

this is over, new sources and effective conservation methods will be
available. The second is the response of users. Already demand in  
the US has
gone down. As the price of gasoline goes up, people find ways to  
save or to
use other sources. This is not rocket science. A bigger fear is the  
rise in
food prices. The obese problem will gradually go away and be  
replaced by the
underweight problem. I wonder how the government will handle this  
problem?


Ed

On Sep 22, 2008, at 12:23 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:

I normally pay little attention to magazine articles with titles  
like

this, but this one appears to be authoritative. See:

http://money.cnn.com/2008/09/15/news/economy/500dollaroil_okeefe.fortune/

Other oil experts make similar predictions but nowhere near as  
dire in the

short term.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil



leaking pen wrote:
 The obese problem will go away?  No.  A good portion of the obesity
 problem in the us is becuase cheap food is unhealthy food.  Its not
 just overeating, its that some people can only afford crap to eat.

And here is an irony, indeed an incomprehensible situation --
incomprehensible, that is, if you ignore the government subsidies and
taxes which have led to this situation.

To wit, a vegan diet is *far* less energy and resource intensive than a
meat-based diet, and it's generally healthier.  It's absurd to say that,
globally, people can't afford to eat healthy food; in fact it's the
other way around:  As a species we can't afford to eat as unhealthfully
as we have been eating (at least in the U.S., Canada, and Europe).  We
just don't have the resources to support such a diet across the whole globe.

The trouble is the free markets aren't all that free and prices are
extremely distorted by a range of factors.  McDonald's beef, from steers
fed on and corn and soybeans and fish (yes, fish), should *not* be
cheaper than a mess of potage made from the corn and soybeans, with the
rare and expensive fish left out.  Yet, it certainly appears to be.

Post processing vegetable food by running it through a cow is not an
efficient way to prepare it for market, and it sure shouldn't make the
end result *cheaper*.

Dig far enough into the tax structure, grazing subsidies, transportation
subsidies, water subsidies, and I think you'll eventually dig out the
answer to this conundrum, but I don't think the explanation is simple.

RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

Yeah but the taste of a nice steak... I don't care for being a vegan.

-Original Message-
From: Stephen A. Lawrence [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 22 September 2008 20:21
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

leaking pen wrote:
 The obese problem will go away?  No.  A good portion of the obesity
 problem in the us is becuase cheap food is unhealthy food.  Its not
 just overeating, its that some people can only afford crap to eat.

And here is an irony, indeed an incomprehensible situation --
incomprehensible, that is, if you ignore the government subsidies and
taxes which have led to this situation.

To wit, a vegan diet is *far* less energy and resource intensive than a
meat-based diet, and it's generally healthier.  It's absurd to say that,
globally, people can't afford to eat healthy food; in fact it's the
other way around:  As a species we can't afford to eat as unhealthfully
as we have been eating (at least in the U.S., Canada, and Europe).  We
just don't have the resources to support such a diet across the whole globe.

The trouble is the free markets aren't all that free and prices are
extremely distorted by a range of factors.  McDonald's beef, from steers
fed on and corn and soybeans and fish (yes, fish), should *not* be
cheaper than a mess of potage made from the corn and soybeans, with the
rare and expensive fish left out.  Yet, it certainly appears to be.

Post processing vegetable food by running it through a cow is not an
efficient way to prepare it for market, and it sure shouldn't make the
end result *cheaper*.

Dig far enough into the tax structure, grazing subsidies, transportation
subsidies, water subsidies, and I think you'll eventually dig out the
answer to this conundrum, but I don't think the explanation is simple.

RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil


Remi Cornwall wrote:


So more regulation, right? A paternalistic state must step in here? I dunno.


No, that will not be necessary. The problem can be fixed with several 
steps, mainly by reducing regulations and reducing government 
spending. Fewer but better regulations are called for. Changes such 
as the following are called for:


1. Remove price supports for unhealthy food. This means less 
regulation, not more. It will cost the government and taxpayers less, 
especially if we stop paying wealthy farmers.


2. Modest price supports for healthy food might be in order, to 
offset decades of encouraging bad food habits. At present, there are 
huge price supports for corn, meat and milk and no supports for 
vegetables and fruit.


3. Locally grown food.

4. Better health education in public schools.

5. Improved sidewalks and transportation, to allow more people to 
walk. The obesity rate in urban areas such as New York, Boston and 
Tokyo where people walk a lot is much lower than in suburban areas.


For details, see the book T. Farley, D. Cohen, Prescription for a 
Healthy Nation, Beacon Press, 2005.


It seems unlikely to me that oil production will decline enough to 
affect obesity in the U.S. in the next 20 to 40 years. That will 
happen only if ethanol production from corn continues, and I doubt 
that will happen. Ethanol production decreases the supply of food and 
oil, and increases global warming, because ethanol is an energy sink: 
it takes more fossil fuel energy to produce ethanol than the ethanol 
itself generates. As I noted here before, when you fill up a 25 
gallon SUV tank with ethanol, you consume as much food as an adult 
eats in one year. If there can be such a thing as an obscene 
statistic, this would be it.


- Jed

RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil


Remi Cornwall wrote:


Yeah but the taste of a nice steak... I don't care for being a vegan.


Progress in cultured meat will solve that problem. It will reduce 
energy inputs to food production by a HUGE amount. The energy savings 
are on the same scale as that which we can achieve with hybrid 
automobiles. Plus a lot of that energy comes from oil which is used 
in agriculture for both fertilizer and to power machinery.


This is the kind of thing Ed described here when he said that 
innovation will reduce the demand for oil. Of course it will, and 
that should keep the cost from going up to $500. But innovation will 
not increase the supply of oil, and I doubt that it will decrease 
overall consumption of oil by much before oil essentially runs out.


Some people say that innovation effectively does increase the supply 
of oil by allowing more oil to be extracted, but as I said, what I 
have read recently is that it does not increase the total amount you 
can extract by much; mainly it speeds up extraction and depletes the 
well sooner. (Improvements in the 1920s did greatly increase the 
amount that can be extracted, according to Deffeyes.)


By the way, it is impossible to predict exactly when oil will run 
out, but what constitutes running out can be defined with accuracy. 
The event is likely to happen soon, and we will know instantly it has 
happened. Oil will run out when it takes more energy to extract oil 
than we get from burning the stuff. At present this overhead energy 
is around 15 to 20%. In 1900 it was ~1%.


This condition is described in a quote I uploaded here before:

Franco Battaglia at the University of Rome put it this way: 'You can 
buy an apple for one euro. If you really want an apple, you might pay 
five euros. You could even pay a thousand euros, but you would never 
pay two apples.'


Once the overhead required to extract oil exceeds the energy that you 
get from the oil, oil will only be used for specialized applications 
for which no substitute is available, such as aerospace. If it takes 
110 J of energy to make 100 J worth of aviation kerosene, then you 
can think of the kerosene as synthetic fuel. You might as well 
replace it with some other synthetic fuel that is better suited to 
the application, such as pure hydrogen. A hydrogen powered airplane 
would have a longer range because the fuel is lighter per joule of 
energy it produces. It would probably be safer in an accident, as 
well. See: Hoffman, Tomorrow's Energy.


Hydrogen powered airplanes would be a boon for the military, because 
they could be refueled with nuclear power generator onboard an 
aircraft carrier, or on land with portable nuke where there is any 
supply of water. It does not take much water.


- Jed

RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

You see that's what I love about science, the dreaming and then going in the
lab to try it all out. Aaaah

-Original Message-
From: Jed Rothwell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 22 September 2008 20:55
To: vortex-L@eskimo.com
Subject: RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

Hydrogen powered airplanes would be a boon for the military, because 
they could be refueled with nuclear power generator onboard an 
aircraft carrier, or on land with portable nuke where there is any 
supply of water. It does not take much water.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil



Remi Cornwall wrote:
 Yeah but the taste of a nice steak... I don't care for being a vegan.

Rock solid reasoning.  Dogs reason the same way when someone offers them
chocolate.  Crack heads reason the same way, too.  Very deep thinking.

How's your blood pressure, Remi?  I just checked mine; it's 111/66.

And, no, I'm not 11 years old.

Cows kill more people than wars.

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

The issue in large part is just that, processing.  Most people at or
under the poverty line here in Phoenix live in a place that has a
refrigerator, and MAYBE a stove top, no oven.  A mircowave, as those
are pretty cheap, and quick.  Food processor, blender?  Things like
that to prepare food are expensive, and worse, TIME CONSUMING.  If
you're working two 40 a week jobs, you barely have time to SLEEP, let
alone prepare a meal.  And you don't have a spouse staying at home
prepping one, they work two, just to pay for everything.

So what are you left with?  Preproccessed, already prepared food, and
fast food. Which is to say, foods high in high fructose corn syrup and
hydrogenated oils and proccessed fats.  Unhealty.  The cost of the
food be damned, its the TIME cost of eating healthy.  (You're also
ignoring demand and volume, and the change on price and cost through
that, tied into marketing)

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 12:20 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 leaking pen wrote:
 The obese problem will go away?  No.  A good portion of the obesity
 problem in the us is becuase cheap food is unhealthy food.  Its not
 just overeating, its that some people can only afford crap to eat.

 And here is an irony, indeed an incomprehensible situation --
 incomprehensible, that is, if you ignore the government subsidies and
 taxes which have led to this situation.

 To wit, a vegan diet is *far* less energy and resource intensive than a
 meat-based diet, and it's generally healthier.  It's absurd to say that,
 globally, people can't afford to eat healthy food; in fact it's the
 other way around:  As a species we can't afford to eat as unhealthfully
 as we have been eating (at least in the U.S., Canada, and Europe).  We
 just don't have the resources to support such a diet across the whole globe.

 The trouble is the free markets aren't all that free and prices are
 extremely distorted by a range of factors.  McDonald's beef, from steers
 fed on and corn and soybeans and fish (yes, fish), should *not* be
 cheaper than a mess of potage made from the corn and soybeans, with the
 rare and expensive fish left out.  Yet, it certainly appears to be.

 Post processing vegetable food by running it through a cow is not an
 efficient way to prepare it for market, and it sure shouldn't make the
 end result *cheaper*.

 Dig far enough into the tax structure, grazing subsidies, transportation
 subsidies, water subsidies, and I think you'll eventually dig out the
 answer to this conundrum, but I don't think the explanation is simple.

RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

Why should I care about how people eat? I'm not losing any sleep over how
the poor budget. Between the choice of giving a good meal for a day to 1
million poor or buying a $million dollar strad for a young violin virtuoso I
would do the latter.

Hand wringing over the poor won't get you to heaven as it doesn't exist. 

Ever seen 'Eastenders' or other British soap operas? No, me neither I don't
give a sh.t 

There's nothing wrong with meat either in moderation 2-3 times a week. I eat
mainly oily fish then do 4-8K on the rowing machine everyday, 20 sets x 3
pressups, 15 x 3 sets pull ups, 70-100 ab crunches, various free weights and
then may be cycle or swim for a change on Sunday.

Gym membership is dirt cheap as is buying a pair of running shoes. Veg and
tinned mackerel are really cheap too. Of course you can 'dig for victory'
and grow your own veg too in an allotment.

Of course burning less heating oil burns calories too. 

-Original Message-
From: leaking pen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 22 September 2008 22:27
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

The issue in large part is just that, processing.  Most people at or
under the poverty line here in Phoenix live in a place that has a
refrigerator, and MAYBE a stove top, no oven.  A mircowave, as those
are pretty cheap, and quick.  Food processor, blender?  Things like
that to prepare food are expensive, and worse, TIME CONSUMING.  If
you're working two 40 a week jobs, you barely have time to SLEEP, let
alone prepare a meal.  And you don't have a spouse staying at home
prepping one, they work two, just to pay for everything.

So what are you left with?  Preproccessed, already prepared food, and
fast food. Which is to say, foods high in high fructose corn syrup and
hydrogenated oils and proccessed fats.  Unhealty.  The cost of the
food be damned, its the TIME cost of eating healthy.  (You're also
ignoring demand and volume, and the change on price and cost through
that, tied into marketing)

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 12:20 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:


 leaking pen wrote:
 The obese problem will go away?  No.  A good portion of the obesity
 problem in the us is becuase cheap food is unhealthy food.  Its not
 just overeating, its that some people can only afford crap to eat.

 And here is an irony, indeed an incomprehensible situation --
 incomprehensible, that is, if you ignore the government subsidies and
 taxes which have led to this situation.

 To wit, a vegan diet is *far* less energy and resource intensive than a
 meat-based diet, and it's generally healthier.  It's absurd to say that,
 globally, people can't afford to eat healthy food; in fact it's the
 other way around:  As a species we can't afford to eat as unhealthfully
 as we have been eating (at least in the U.S., Canada, and Europe).  We
 just don't have the resources to support such a diet across the whole
globe.

 The trouble is the free markets aren't all that free and prices are
 extremely distorted by a range of factors.  McDonald's beef, from steers
 fed on and corn and soybeans and fish (yes, fish), should *not* be
 cheaper than a mess of potage made from the corn and soybeans, with the
 rare and expensive fish left out.  Yet, it certainly appears to be.

 Post processing vegetable food by running it through a cow is not an
 efficient way to prepare it for market, and it sure shouldn't make the
 end result *cheaper*.

 Dig far enough into the tax structure, grazing subsidies, transportation
 subsidies, water subsidies, and I think you'll eventually dig out the
 answer to this conundrum, but I don't think the explanation is simple.

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

2008-09-22 Thread John Steck


Going veggie shrinks the brain:
http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24336544-5003426,00.html

It explains a lot.  8^)


--
From: Stephen A. Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 3:57 PM
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil




Remi Cornwall wrote:

Yeah but the taste of a nice steak... I don't care for being a vegan.


Rock solid reasoning.  Dogs reason the same way when someone offers them
chocolate.  Crack heads reason the same way, too.  Very deep thinking.

How's your blood pressure, Remi?  I just checked mine; it's 111/66.

And, no, I'm not 11 years old.

Cows kill more people than wars.

RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

Well if you socialist types genuinely feel so much for the poor, sell the
shirt off your back, admit the LHC's crap, stab a modern artist hack, take
all the subsidy back.

Oh but n, there will always be poor and striving after an unobtainable
goal makes people feel guilty for what? To make them controllable. Pass
through the gates of heaven with one convenient, index linked, monthly
direct debit payment to the Labocrat party. Then they'll get in and take
even more off you.

Bah humbug!

No use the talent you have to create wealth instead of trying to get at the
wealth of the talented (for your own contrived schemes) or impeding the
ability to make wealth by excessive regulation and tinkering with the
economy.

RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

2008-09-22 Thread Ron Wormus

Another well written entertaining book that address the food question food is:

The Omnivore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan in which he traces the origin of the foods used in 4
meals; fast food, big organic, grass fed, hunter gatherer.

Ron

--On Monday, September 22, 2008 3:32 PM -0400 Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:

Remi Cornwall wrote:

So more regulation, right? A paternalistic state must step in here? I dunno.

No, that will not be necessary. The problem can be fixed with several steps,
mainly by reducing
regulations and reducing government spending. Fewer but better regulations are
called for.
Changes such as the following are called for:

1. Remove price supports for unhealthy food. This means less regulation, not
more. It will cost
the government and taxpayers less, especially if we stop paying wealthy farmers.

2. Modest price supports for healthy food might be in order, to offset decades
of encouraging bad
food habits. At present, there are huge price supports for corn, meat and milk
and no supports
for vegetables and fruit.

3. Locally grown food.

4. Better health education in public schools.

5. Improved sidewalks and transportation, to allow more people to walk. The
obesity rate in urban
areas such as New York, Boston and Tokyo where people walk a lot is much lower
than in suburban
areas.

For details, see the book T. Farley, D. Cohen, Prescription for a Healthy
Nation, Beacon Press,
2005.

It seems unlikely to me that oil production will decline enough to affect
obesity in the U.S. in
the next 20 to 40 years. That will happen only if ethanol production from corn
continues, and I
doubt that will happen. Ethanol production decreases the supply of food and
oil, and increases
global warming, because ethanol is an energy sink: it takes more fossil fuel
energy to produce
ethanol than the ethanol itself generates. As I noted here before, when you
fill up a 25 gallon
SUV tank with ethanol, you consume as much food as an adult eats in one year.
If there can be
such a thing as an obscene statistic, this would be it.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil



John Steck wrote:
 Going veggie shrinks the brain:
 http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,24336544-5003426,00.html
 

The article raises a serious issue, which is that vegans should take
B-12 supplements.  If you read the article, they were apparently blaming
lack of B-12 for the problem.

(And vegan cats need a taurine supplement, for that matter.)

FWIW flax oil supplements are also a good source of Omega-3's, which are
also mentioned in the article.

Flying blind into any radical diet change is a poor idea.

Putting it all together from that article, it sounds like a 75 year old
fat woman who drinks a lot, smokes dope, lives on a vegan diet, and
doesn't take vitamins or other supplements is seriously at risk of
losing her marbles.

 
 
 --
 From: Stephen A. Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: Monday, September 22, 2008 3:57 PM
 To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
 Subject: Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil
 


 Remi Cornwall wrote:
 Yeah but the taste of a nice steak... I don't care for being a vegan.

 Rock solid reasoning.  Dogs reason the same way when someone offers them
 chocolate.  Crack heads reason the same way, too.  Very deep thinking.

 How's your blood pressure, Remi?  I just checked mine; it's 111/66.

 And, no, I'm not 11 years old.

 Cows kill more people than wars.

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

Becuase again, the poor have land to grow their own vegetables, money
to buy seeds equipment and fertilizer, or TIME to do more excercising,
or buy fish (more expensive by the pound than any other protein.

Really, are you just trolling, or are you really that arrogant,
pretentious, and ignorant?

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 2:52 PM, Remi Cornwall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 Why should I care about how people eat? I'm not losing any sleep over how
 the poor budget. Between the choice of giving a good meal for a day to 1
 million poor or buying a $million dollar strad for a young violin virtuoso I
 would do the latter.

 Hand wringing over the poor won't get you to heaven as it doesn't exist.

 Ever seen 'Eastenders' or other British soap operas? No, me neither I don't
 give a sh.t

 There's nothing wrong with meat either in moderation 2-3 times a week. I eat
 mainly oily fish then do 4-8K on the rowing machine everyday, 20 sets x 3
 pressups, 15 x 3 sets pull ups, 70-100 ab crunches, various free weights and
 then may be cycle or swim for a change on Sunday.

 Gym membership is dirt cheap as is buying a pair of running shoes. Veg and
 tinned mackerel are really cheap too. Of course you can 'dig for victory'
 and grow your own veg too in an allotment.

 Of course burning less heating oil burns calories too.

 -Original Message-
 From: leaking pen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: 22 September 2008 22:27
 To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
 Subject: Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

 The issue in large part is just that, processing.  Most people at or
 under the poverty line here in Phoenix live in a place that has a
 refrigerator, and MAYBE a stove top, no oven.  A mircowave, as those
 are pretty cheap, and quick.  Food processor, blender?  Things like
 that to prepare food are expensive, and worse, TIME CONSUMING.  If
 you're working two 40 a week jobs, you barely have time to SLEEP, let
 alone prepare a meal.  And you don't have a spouse staying at home
 prepping one, they work two, just to pay for everything.

 So what are you left with?  Preproccessed, already prepared food, and
 fast food. Which is to say, foods high in high fructose corn syrup and
 hydrogenated oils and proccessed fats.  Unhealty.  The cost of the
 food be damned, its the TIME cost of eating healthy.  (You're also
 ignoring demand and volume, and the change on price and cost through
 that, tied into marketing)

 On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 12:20 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:


 leaking pen wrote:
 The obese problem will go away?  No.  A good portion of the obesity
 problem in the us is becuase cheap food is unhealthy food.  Its not
 just overeating, its that some people can only afford crap to eat.

 And here is an irony, indeed an incomprehensible situation --
 incomprehensible, that is, if you ignore the government subsidies and
 taxes which have led to this situation.

 To wit, a vegan diet is *far* less energy and resource intensive than a
 meat-based diet, and it's generally healthier.  It's absurd to say that,
 globally, people can't afford to eat healthy food; in fact it's the
 other way around:  As a species we can't afford to eat as unhealthfully
 as we have been eating (at least in the U.S., Canada, and Europe).  We
 just don't have the resources to support such a diet across the whole
 globe.

 The trouble is the free markets aren't all that free and prices are
 extremely distorted by a range of factors.  McDonald's beef, from steers
 fed on and corn and soybeans and fish (yes, fish), should *not* be
 cheaper than a mess of potage made from the corn and soybeans, with the
 rare and expensive fish left out.  Yet, it certainly appears to be.

 Post processing vegetable food by running it through a cow is not an
 efficient way to prepare it for market, and it sure shouldn't make the
 end result *cheaper*.

 Dig far enough into the tax structure, grazing subsidies, transportation
 subsidies, water subsidies, and I think you'll eventually dig out the
 answer to this conundrum, but I don't think the explanation is simple.

RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

*(*^(%!!! Vegan cats!!

Like the poor moggy had any choice in the matter.

I can just imagine some deranged cat owner saying Cats are sinful
creatures, pussy must learn to be a good pussy cat. Tofu for tiddles.

-Original Message-
From: Stephen A. Lawrence [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 22 September 2008 23:42
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil


(And vegan cats need a taurine supplement, for that matter.)

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

Ohh, god, I had a friend who did that.  I spent thirty minutes
lambasting her for her total and complete hypocrisy.

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 3:49 PM, Remi Cornwall [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 *(*^(%!!! Vegan cats!!

 Like the poor moggy had any choice in the matter.

 I can just imagine some deranged cat owner saying Cats are sinful
 creatures, pussy must learn to be a good pussy cat. Tofu for tiddles.

 -Original Message-
 From: Stephen A. Lawrence [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: 22 September 2008 23:42
 To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
 Subject: Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil


 (And vegan cats need a taurine supplement, for that matter.)

RE: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

No completely shallow. I'll catch some more of the soft porn late night tits
on TV and then turn in.

Can't be bothered to argue this one out. 

BORE!

-Original Message-
From: leaking pen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] 
Sent: 22 September 2008 23:48
To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
Subject: Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

Becuase again, the poor have land to grow their own vegetables, money
to buy seeds equipment and fertilizer, or TIME to do more excercising,
or buy fish (more expensive by the pound than any other protein.

Really, are you just trolling, or are you really that arrogant,
pretentious, and ignorant?

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 2:52 PM, Remi Cornwall [EMAIL PROTECTED]
wrote:
 Why should I care about how people eat? I'm not losing any sleep over how
 the poor budget. Between the choice of giving a good meal for a day to 1
 million poor or buying a $million dollar strad for a young violin virtuoso
I
 would do the latter.

 Hand wringing over the poor won't get you to heaven as it doesn't exist.

 Ever seen 'Eastenders' or other British soap operas? No, me neither I
don't
 give a sh.t

 There's nothing wrong with meat either in moderation 2-3 times a week. I
eat
 mainly oily fish then do 4-8K on the rowing machine everyday, 20 sets x 3
 pressups, 15 x 3 sets pull ups, 70-100 ab crunches, various free weights
and
 then may be cycle or swim for a change on Sunday.

 Gym membership is dirt cheap as is buying a pair of running shoes. Veg and
 tinned mackerel are really cheap too. Of course you can 'dig for victory'
 and grow your own veg too in an allotment.

 Of course burning less heating oil burns calories too.

 -Original Message-
 From: leaking pen [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 Sent: 22 September 2008 22:27
 To: vortex-l@eskimo.com
 Subject: Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

 The issue in large part is just that, processing.  Most people at or
 under the poverty line here in Phoenix live in a place that has a
 refrigerator, and MAYBE a stove top, no oven.  A mircowave, as those
 are pretty cheap, and quick.  Food processor, blender?  Things like
 that to prepare food are expensive, and worse, TIME CONSUMING.  If
 you're working two 40 a week jobs, you barely have time to SLEEP, let
 alone prepare a meal.  And you don't have a spouse staying at home
 prepping one, they work two, just to pay for everything.

 So what are you left with?  Preproccessed, already prepared food, and
 fast food. Which is to say, foods high in high fructose corn syrup and
 hydrogenated oils and proccessed fats.  Unhealty.  The cost of the
 food be damned, its the TIME cost of eating healthy.  (You're also
 ignoring demand and volume, and the change on price and cost through
 that, tied into marketing)

 On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 12:20 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED]
 wrote:


 leaking pen wrote:
 The obese problem will go away?  No.  A good portion of the obesity
 problem in the us is becuase cheap food is unhealthy food.  Its not
 just overeating, its that some people can only afford crap to eat.

 And here is an irony, indeed an incomprehensible situation --
 incomprehensible, that is, if you ignore the government subsidies and
 taxes which have led to this situation.

 To wit, a vegan diet is *far* less energy and resource intensive than a
 meat-based diet, and it's generally healthier.  It's absurd to say that,
 globally, people can't afford to eat healthy food; in fact it's the
 other way around:  As a species we can't afford to eat as unhealthfully
 as we have been eating (at least in the U.S., Canada, and Europe).  We
 just don't have the resources to support such a diet across the whole
 globe.

 The trouble is the free markets aren't all that free and prices are
 extremely distorted by a range of factors.  McDonald's beef, from steers
 fed on and corn and soybeans and fish (yes, fish), should *not* be
 cheaper than a mess of potage made from the corn and soybeans, with the
 rare and expensive fish left out.  Yet, it certainly appears to be.

 Post processing vegetable food by running it through a cow is not an
 efficient way to prepare it for market, and it sure shouldn't make the
 end result *cheaper*.

 Dig far enough into the tax structure, grazing subsidies, transportation
 subsidies, water subsidies, and I think you'll eventually dig out the
 answer to this conundrum, but I don't think the explanation is simple.

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil



leaking pen wrote:
 Ohh, god, I had a friend who did that.  I spent thirty minutes
 lambasting her for her total and complete hypocrisy.

Huh?  Hypocrisy in what?  Buying vegan food for her cat?  How does that
make her a hypocrite?

Commercial vegan cat foods, of which there are several, contain taurine
supplements.  (Vegecat, Evolution, and Ami come to mind immediately, and
there are others.)

In fact, commercial non-vegan cat foods also contain taurine
supplements; by the time the stuff's been processed and steamed, so much
of the natural taurine is destroyed that the manufacturers have no
choice but to add additional taurine.

Non-vegan animal foods (dog and cat) have also been known to show up
with chopped up pet collars in them.  It almost makes you wonder where
they get their meat from ... China, the source of a lot of pet food, is
not a very animal-friendly place.

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil



Stephen A. Lawrence wrote:
 
 leaking pen wrote:
 Ohh, god, I had a friend who did that.  I spent thirty minutes
 lambasting her for her total and complete hypocrisy.
 
 Huh?  Hypocrisy in what?  Buying vegan food for her cat?  How does that
 make her a hypocrite?

Let's put this on a firm footing.

hypocrisy
 n 1: an expression of agreement that is not supported by real
 conviction [syn: lip service]
 2: insincerity by virtue of pretending to have qualities or
 beliefs that you do not really have

One may be wrong about something, and do something which in the long run
proves to have been a poor choice, but that does not make one a hypocrite.


 
 Commercial vegan cat foods, of which there are several, contain taurine
 supplements.  (Vegecat, Evolution, and Ami come to mind immediately, and
 there are others.)
 
 In fact, commercial non-vegan cat foods also contain taurine
 supplements; by the time the stuff's been processed and steamed, so much
 of the natural taurine is destroyed that the manufacturers have no
 choice but to add additional taurine.
 
 Non-vegan animal foods (dog and cat) have also been known to show up
 with chopped up pet collars in them.  It almost makes you wonder where
 they get their meat from ... China, the source of a lot of pet food, is
 not a very animal-friendly place.

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

Since her main arguement for having gone vegetarian in the first place
was a belief that humans are meant to be herbivourous, and that eating
meat goes against nature.

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 4:15 PM, Stephen A. Lawrence [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:


 leaking pen wrote:
 Ohh, god, I had a friend who did that.  I spent thirty minutes
 lambasting her for her total and complete hypocrisy.

 Huh?  Hypocrisy in what?  Buying vegan food for her cat?  How does that
 make her a hypocrite?

 Commercial vegan cat foods, of which there are several, contain taurine
 supplements.  (Vegecat, Evolution, and Ami come to mind immediately, and
 there are others.)

 In fact, commercial non-vegan cat foods also contain taurine
 supplements; by the time the stuff's been processed and steamed, so much
 of the natural taurine is destroyed that the manufacturers have no
 choice but to add additional taurine.

 Non-vegan animal foods (dog and cat) have also been known to show up
 with chopped up pet collars in them.  It almost makes you wonder where
 they get their meat from ... China, the source of a lot of pet food, is
 not a very animal-friendly place.

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

leaking pen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Since her main arguement for having gone vegetarian in the first place
 was a belief that humans are meant to be herbivourous, and that eating
 meat goes against nature.

Ah. You are saying it is hypocritical to apply that argument to cats,
because they are not people -- not omnivores, that is.

I do not think hypocritical is quite the right term for that. It is
muddled, or stupid. Hypocritical would mean insincere and she sounds
sincere.

I have heard that some cats in Japan are fed mainly rice, and they
seem to survive. It seems unlikely, but I wouldn't know. Dogs are more
omnivorous, and dog food sometimes contains rice.

- Jed

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil

hypocritical also means applying opposite standards to oneself.  She
feels humans are natural herbivores, but theres no doubt that cats are
primarily carnivores.  Therefore, making a cat an herbivore is, by her
own logic, unnatural.

I haven't seen anything saying cats are fed mainly rice.  I see
articles that mention cats feeding themselves in rice storehouses, but
that likely means hunting vermin as cats have been used for for
forever.

And yes, dogs and cats are a bit omnivourous.  generally dog food is
60 to 70 percent meat, and cat food 70 to 80 (i make my own pet food.
No preservatives, and while its more work, time wise, its actually
cheaper. )

On Mon, Sep 22, 2008 at 6:25 PM, Jed Rothwell [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
 leaking pen [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 Since her main arguement for having gone vegetarian in the first place
 was a belief that humans are meant to be herbivourous, and that eating
 meat goes against nature.

 Ah. You are saying it is hypocritical to apply that argument to cats,
 because they are not people -- not omnivores, that is.

 I do not think hypocritical is quite the right term for that. It is
 muddled, or stupid. Hypocritical would mean insincere and she sounds
 sincere.

 I have heard that some cats in Japan are fed mainly rice, and they
 seem to survive. It seems unlikely, but I wouldn't know. Dogs are more
 omnivorous, and dog food sometimes contains rice.

 - Jed

Re: [Vo]:Here comes $500 oil