I've Heard It So Many Times: "Instead, We'll Have Barack's People Contact Neal's People" - Right?

"Biodiesel innovation wasn’t exactly at the top of the crowd’s agenda."

-- Nate Chinen, with another review of a Neal Young concert (“We’re auditioning for our old record company, so when you hear those new songs, you make a lot of noise whether you like ’em or not, O.K.?”) for The New York Times.

I have dreams at night of challenging, both, new and over-the-hill artists to a musical duel - one where I show them how conventional they, their ideas, and their art, are - while revealing to the audience how much damage has been done because they choose to blindly follow those lamers without ever demanding (or even knowing to demand) anything better. Right now, as far as I can tell, the majority of contemporary musical entertainment choices seem to be:

A) Syrupy songs about how shitty it feels to be betrayed. Of course, in this NewAge, I understand the attraction of this genre - except for the syrupy part. Personally, I'd rather shoot myself than be the kind of loser who willingly listens to such nonsense.

B) Songs that admonish a "girl" to shake her booty as fast as humanly possible. These songs are made by male and female artists, giving detailed directions to stupid girls on how to end up as the subject of Genre A. They're nothing without the visuals.

C) Is it just me or have Country music's lyricists lost the whole concept behind meter and rhyme? They're supposed to be free/but with a real sense of seriousness/so real emotion is left - and do it in time.

But they don't anymore. Why?

D) Hippie cult garbage - like what Neal Young/Madonna/Kanye/U2, etc. are selling - in which everything depends on agreeing with the gooey thought-stopping message, rather than the art having any worth on it's own merits.

Like newspapers (being willing to go broke rather than change their editorial positions) record companies are only hurting themselves. Hint: It's not the internet, you guys, it's YOU.

And no - I ain't auditioning for anybody - you want me? You pays up-front:

Manipulated By Moralizing Morons

BRUSSELS — European Union legislators on Monday proposed ratcheting back an ambitious goal to raise Europe’s use of biofuels, signaling a significant retrenchment.

At the same time, a new report by the British government cast fresh doubt on using fuels from crops in the fight against climate change.

Until recently, European governments had sought to lead the rest of the world, setting a goal of 10 percent of transportation fuels to be derived from biofuels by 2020. But the allure has dimmed amid growing evidence that the kind of targets proposed by the E.U. are contributing to deforestation and helping force up food prices.

“I think when we will look back we will say this was the beginning of a turning point for Europe on biofuels,” said Juan Delgado, a research fellow specializing in energy and climate change expert at Breugel, a research organization in Brussels. “It will be very difficult now for Europe to stick by its targets.”

In the United States, an energy bill passed last year required that 36 billion gallons of biofuels be produced annually by 2022. But criticism is gaining ground there, too, with calls to end tax breaks for corn ethanol and other measures to stop so much American corn — about one-fourth of the crop — being used for biofuels.

Over the last 18 months, studies have shown that the current generation of biofuels reliant on crops like canola, corn and soybeans helps drive up food prices by using agricultural land, aggravates deforestation and may be worse for the climate than conventional oil once the cost of production and transport are taken into account. The majority of biofuels produced in the world today are extracted from corn in the United States, sugar in Brazil, and both grain and oil-seed crops in Europe.

Those findings now are pushing Europe into an about-face on biofuels that has gained momentum in recent days.

-- James Kanter, reporting on how the idiotic ideas environmentalists insisted on are - as this blog predicted - turning to shit brown, for the New York Times

But Who - Pray Tell - Was The Con Man, Man?

"Biofuels are no green panacea,...They can damage the climate and wreck rainforests. The public is being conned if it thinks they are a green solution."

-- Adrian Bebb, a spokesman for Friends of the Earth - which had supported and pushed for the use of biofuels - in Leo Cendrowicz's article about Europe's rethinking on the subject, in TIME Magazine

And the walls came tumbling down,...