Agricultural Research Service Scientists Study Peanuts as Feedstock For Biodiesel Move over, soybeans and corn: Peanuts may be elbowing their way into the biodiesel fuel market. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) scientists are searching for economically feasible peanut varieties for that very purpose. Agronomist Wilson Faircloth at the ARS National Peanut Research Laboratory at Dawson, GA, and Daniel Geller, a collaborative engineer at the University of Georgia, are testing a peanut called Georganic. It's not suited to current commercial edible standards for peanuts, but is high in oil and has low production input costs. Georganic--or similar varieties--will likely be the future of peanut biodiesel because it can be planted and grown with just one herbicide application for weed control, compared to the three to four applications typically sprayed during a growing season for edible peanuts. Additionally, these fuel peanuts are grown without fungicides, which are the greatest input cost in traditional peanut production. To further reduce production costs and increase yield, the research team is also studying technology such as conservation tillage and selection of varieties with high tolerance to multiple diseases. Currently, there are 24 peanut varieties being scrutinized in this biodiesel screening project, including Georganic, which was developed by ARS breeders in Tifton, Ga. Promising varieties also include DP-1 and Georgia-04S, a new high-oleic-acid, Spanish-type peanut. Many old and new peanut varieties are being tested for field performance, and their oils are being analyzed for diesel performance characteristics. It has been found that high-oleic-acid peanuts--a quality desired for extended shelf life of food products--also make the best biodiesel fuel. Today, soybean oil is the primary oil used in the United States for biodiesel fuel production. Soybeans produce approximately 50 gallons of fuel per acre, while traditionally grown peanuts can produce approximately 120 to 130 gallons of biodiesel fuel per acre. ARS is the U.S. Department of Agriculture's chief scientific research agency. For more information, call Sharon Durham at 301-504-1611

Just thought you might want to catch that...

Julia Dahl, Salon, August 2, 2007 Newt Gingrich was looking fit and tanned as he stood before a sea of young conservatives this morning at the Young America's Foundation National Conservative Student Conference. The weeklong event, held at George Washington University in Washington, is billed as an "entry point into the conservative movement," and this year's version featured speeches by Robert Novak, Michelle Malkin and, wrapping up the event Friday night, G. Gordon Liddy. With panels titled "Standing Up to the Left in Hostile Places" and "Liberal Bias in School Textbooks," planners may have imagined that Gingrich would give a lively rah-rah-Republican presentation. They would have been wrong. Prior to Gingrich's arrival, the crowd -- a mish-mash of polo shirts and pinstriped suits, platform heels and pashmina wraps -- had been worked up by Republican Sen. James Inhofe, who taught them all about the "far left elitists" and their Chicken Little climate change hysteria. Inhofe's PowerPoint included slides of polar bears and "environmentalists" like Leonardo DiCaprio and Barbra Streisand (boo!). He referenced Al Gore's "science fiction movie," and finished off the hour with some good news about the war: "A miracle is taking place now in Iraq," he said, and explained that there is now zero anti-American propaganda in the country's mosques and that American troops, instead of retreating to the Green Zone at night, are now "bedding down" with Iraqi families. As 9 a.m. drew near, the students started to get restless, turning in their seats to see if Gingrich had come in. Finally, the former speaker of the House -- who'd been introduced as "the most articulate communicator of conservative principles alive today" -- made his way to the stage amid a standing ovation, thunderous applause and cheers. He began benignly enough, using an anecdote about going to Disney World with his grandchildren to explain an epiphany he'd had about the value of not "thinking like a Republican." From there Gingrich moved into waters the students surely did not expect. He cited the Detroit school system, where a black male is more likely to go to prison than graduate from high school. Read More Here

Melanie Markley, The Houston Chronicle, August 2, 2007 The revised Texas pledge: Honor the Texas flag; I pledge allegiance to thee, Texas, one state under God, one and indivisible. Texas students will have four more words to remember when they head back to class this month and begin reciting the state's pledge of allegiance. This year's Legislature added the phrase "one state under God" to the pledge, which is part of a required morning ritual in Texas public schools along with the pledge to the U.S. flag and a moment of silence. State Rep. Debbie Riddle, who sponsored the bill, said it had always bothered her that God was omitted in the state's pledge. "Personally, I felt like the Texas pledge had a big old hole in it, and it occurred to me, 'You know what? We need to fix that,' " said Riddle, R-Tomball. "Our Texas pledge is perfectly OK like it is with the exception of acknowledging that just as we are one nation under God, we are one state under God as well." Read More Here

"The polls are notoriously unreliable in the sense that they change all the time and they bounce around all over the place." --Dick Cheney to Larry King when asked about opposition to the Iraq war

A.J. Walzer, Media Matters for America, August 1, 2007 On the July 31 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh claimed that Democrats have "aligned themselves with the enemy" in Iraq and went on to assert: "The enemy kills more soldiers, their spokesmen here in the U.S. are the Democrats. When we kill more of the enemy, the Democrats are silent and they say nothing." He continued: "But when we have reports of, you know, another IED, or pictures of a car on fire -- then the Democrats assume the role of media PR spokespeople for Al Qaeda." From the July 31 broadcast of Premiere Radio Networks' The Rush Limbaugh Show: LIMBAUGH: I mean, there's almost a mathematical formula to this that I have detected. To the extent that we make progress, the Democrats' political hopes are diminished. Now, what kind of political leaders position themselves that way so that they only win when their country loses? And what kind of brains do they have to position themselves in such a way so that when we make progress, their political aspirations are diminished? They're the ones that created this situation. They have aligned themselves with the enemy. They continue to align themselves with the enemy. They won't admit it, obviously. The enemy kills more soldiers, their spokesmen here in the U.S. are the Democrats. When we kill more of the enemy, the Democrats are silent and they say nothing. But when we have reports of, you know, another IED, or pictures of a car on fire -- then the Democrats assume the role of media PR spokespeople for Al Qaeda. Read More Here