Friday, May 23, 2008

It will probably happen over here too!

Fuel price rises are causing a few rather unexpected problems over in the USA too. This from MSNBC reports on the fact that waste cooking oil (known as french fry grease over there) is now being regularly stolen by 'rustlers' who transesterify the oil into bio-diesel in home made backyard stills.

A few years ago waste cooking oil was a commodity that you had to pay people to take away. Now they pay you for it. The increasing cost of petrol and diesel has now made it a commodity worthy of theft!

Watch out for the grease rustlers near you soon!

Not all oil is quite what it seems

This from News.co.au had me in stitches - I'm quite au fait with people 'taking the p**s', but 'selling the p**s' is a new one on me!

Note the last statement. We think we're suffering, but Zimbabwe has 165,000 per cent inflation and 80 per cent unemployment. Strewth!

Stingers on the forecourt

This from Metro.co.uk is symptomatic of the craziness that is resulting from what the ever increasing cost of fuel is doing to the world.

The number of non-paying drive aways on petrol forecourts has increased to the point that service stations are now fitting automated stingers to shred the tyres of any car that attempts to drive off without paying!

What next? Maybe armed guards with machine guns?

In praise of means testing. Not.

Especially when it comes to enviro-support.

Aussies too rich for solar panels

This could just as easily go over to my El Burro Hotay blog.

I am not a big supporter of means testing. In theory it could mean a necessary measure of support going to those most in need.

In practice it just means a whole new layer of unproductive pay and pension parasites get in the way of sensible delivery. There's a newgovernment over there, right?

And, too often, consequences that actually undermine the theoretical benefits intended.

Ripper.

Syncrude

Perhaps it ought to have been named SinCrude given the damage that recovering oil from oil tar sands causes to the environment.

A fascinating insight into the booming Alberta Tar Sands extraction industry from Time Magazine. Canada looks set to become the 'Venezuela of the north', and its all down to those nice chaps from big oil's biggest, ExxonMobil.

Well worth a read.