Run on rice - Global rice panic

License this rice photo at Alamy.

Countries that normaly export rice (India, Vietnam, China, Egypt and Cambodia) have reduced their exports in order to alleviate their domestic prices. The chain reactions of restricting the amount of rice on the global market has made it to the US. Worried shoppers are buying up rice in California's Asian supermarkets and prices have risen almost 70% since the start of 2008.

Will you help Mother Nature save the Earth?

Environmental advocacy is going beyond the activists rallies. Individual responsibility and contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change is being recognized. Will
consumer behaviour change to reduce consumption? Reducing the consumption of goods and services is a goal of environmentalists to achieve sustainability. What is the economic impact of the reductions? Who will set the global greenhouse gas budget? Will it be based on today's consumption per country or some future ideal "equitable" allocation of carbon dioxide equivalents.

Will we be forced to purchase carbon offsets as a new tax? Will the do-it-yourself crowd be allowed any thoreauvian-lifestyle deductions for their vegetarian diet or backyard garden?

Green Imagery Overdone?

Eco-friendly images previously used to prove "green" credentials are loosing their impact. "Natural icons have become cliched icons for the environment" with all of the "greenwashing." http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7251380.stm

Death & Taxes

It is that time of year when responsible citizens provide for that discretionary budget that is spent by our elected representatives to run this experiment in federalism.

"A pyramid unfinished." Some conspiracy theorists believe that "the all seeing eye" atop the pyramid as seen in the "Great Seal of the United States" is a Masonic symbol. The 'Eye of Providence' (in a triangle) and the pyramid are found separately in ritual. But the combination of Eye and pyramid in not significant outside of the Seal.