Water, Food, Fossil Fuels

On-going post on a vicious interconnected, inflationary web:

• higher oil prices -> higher food prices


• water shortage -> higher food prices, food shortages


• water shortage -> higher fossil fuel consumption


• higher natural gas prices -> higher fertilizer prices


• richer, eating more meat -> more feedstock, more water, more energy


• bad monetary and fiscal policies -> monetary inflation

X factor that connects them all: global climate change/global warming

Bad American Fiscal and Monetary Policy:
Rice, death and the dollar
The Economy: Something's Got to Give

Water:
A Drought in Australia, a Global Shortage of Rice - New York Times
Water shortage worst in decades, official says - California dreaming, of water

Food Shortage:
Food Crisis Fuelling Global Instability
Global food shortages: a 'silent tsunami'
Global food Crisis
Emptying the breadbasket
Decades of Great Plains' wheat as king and low prices everywhere are over

Energy Peak/Plateau:
Plateau
Non-OPEC production of crude oil seems to have stalled, promising even higher prices at the pump.

Food and Energy:
Food Riots and Falling Russian Oil Production
Natural gas -> Fertilizer, Food (and fuel) for thought

Bottom Line:
Supply to meet demand? Or economists don't live in the real world, The new face of hunger and Why More Food Is Not the Answer
Cheap energy (oil, natural gas) and heavy fertilizer use can't go on forever:
The Rise of the Neo-Malthusians

I'm in Your Blog, Deconstructing Your Cliches

IEEE Spectrum: Snowclone Is The New Cliche is a look of some of the current internet cliches/memes going around.


moar funny pictures

Hamster-Powered Night Light

Hamster-Powered Night Light

Heh.

Also Rodent Powered Nightlight - Best of Weekend Projects

A Dog of a Goal

Something I've secretly wanted to do some really annoying dogs. [via The Offside Rules]

Like playing soccer a bit too much
Uploaded by kingcarter

*hit Runs Downill

Everyone’s Poop: Texas Monthly December 2007: "They say that shit runs downhill. This is commonly understood to mean that the world is an unfair place, except among those few people who actually work with the substance, for whom it is considered something of an article of faith." via [ The Informed Reader ]

And it is an article of faith, as I can personally testify to from my time working at a waste water treatment plant. Ask the people who work there what the most important invention and they'll say the toilet.