Odds and ends, 1/24/08

A letter to the editor received this morning used a variation of the phrase "Don't drink the Kool-Aid," a reference to the mass suicide at Jonestown.


The phrase is a popular one, but slightly inaccurate. The members of the People's Temple didn't drink Kool-Aid laced with poison. They drank Flavor Aid.


Just another example of common knowledge that is wrong.


My favorite example of such is people who say, "The exception proves the rule." But exceptions don't prove rules. They disprove them. Unless, that is, you use "prove" in the King James Bible sense of "test." If you say, "The exception tests the rule," you are more accurate, but you don't sound as smart.

Speaking of which, in three years we shall read and hear all sorts of 400th anniversary of the King James Version. Get ready for all sorts of newspaper articles about the Textus Receptus and all sorts of other stuff you may never have heard of before about the King James Version and the Bible itself.

Then most people will forget about all this until the 500th anniversary in 2111.


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One bad thing about the fight against global warming and for energy independence is that it's making some things worse. Take biofuels, for example. What could possibly be wrong with biofuels?

BANGKOK, Thailand (AP) -- The world's rush to embrace biofuels is causing a spike in the price of corn and other crops and could worsen water shortages and force poor communities off their land, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

Workers in North Sumatra pile up palm oil fruit, which can be used to make biofuels.

Speaking at a regional forum on bioenergy, Regan Suzuki of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization acknowledged that biofuels are better for the environment than fossil fuels and boost energy security for many countries.

However, she said those benefits must be weighed against the pitfalls -- many of which are just now emerging as countries convert millions of acres to palm oil, sugar cane and other crops used to make biofuels.

Making ethanol from corn is not a great idea. From grass, maybe. But not from corn or other food grains.