I would like to get to the point and ask, why don't you guys look out for the investors for once. I along with my group of investors have been holding your stock and discussing it for almost 3 years now. It has become extremely depressing holding on to your company's stock. It not only has not given us any gains, but also caused us to lose a considerable amount of equity. Obviously the company is doing well, but there seems to be no vocabulary in your communication with the investors to help the stock do as well also. Do you guys care about the investor? If not, let us know and we will cut our losses and move on.

List of Independence Days

 

Country	Date	Significant event
Afghanistan	August 19	Independence from United Kingdom control over Afghan foreign affairs in 1919.
Albania	November 28	(Dita e Pavarësisë) Proclaimed by Ismail Qemali in 1912 and signalled the end of five centuries of Ottoman rule.
Algeria	July 5	Independence from France in 1962
Angola	November 11	Portugal grants independence to its former colony in 1975.
Antigua and Barbuda	November 1	Partial independence from the United Kingdom in 1981.
Argentina	July 9	Independence from Spain in 1816.
Armenia	September 21	Independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Australia	January 1	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1901.
Azerbaijan	October 18	Independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Bahamas	July 10	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1973.
Bahrain	August 15	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1971.
Bangladesh	March 26	Declaration of independence from Pakistan in 1971. Start of the Bangladesh Liberation War
Barbados	November 30	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1966.
Belarus	July 3	Liberation of Minsk from Nazi Germany in 1944.
Belgium	October 4	(Belgian revolution) Independence from the Netherlands in 1830.
Belize	September 21	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1981.
Bosnia and Herzegovina	March 1	Independence from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1992.
Botswana	September 30	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1966.
Brazil	September 7	(Sete de Setembro) Independence from Portugal in 1822.
Brunei	January 1	Independence from United Kingdom in 1984
Bulgaria	September 22	Independence from Ottoman Empire in 1908
Burkina Faso	August 5	Independence from France in 1960
Burundi	July 1	Independence from Belgium in 1962
Canada	July 1	Independence from Britian rule through the British North America Act of July 1, 1867, known as Canada Day or Confederation Day.
Cape Verde Islands	July 5	(Cape Verde Independence Day) Independence from Portugal in 1975.
Central America	September 15	Celebrated in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador - September 14, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica, the former states of the United States of Central America, who achieved independence from Spain or Mexico on this date in 1821.
Chile	September 18	Independence from Spain in 1818.
China, People's Republic of	October 1	Established in 1949.
Colombia	July 20	Independence from Spain in 1810.
Democratic Republic of the Congo	June 30
Croatia	October 8	Independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
Republic of Cyprus	October 1	Independence from United Kingdom in 1960.
Czech Republic	October 28	As Czechoslovakia, marking restored independence from Austria-Hungary in 1918.
Dominican Republic	February 27	Independence from Haiti in 1844, after a 22-year occupation.
East Timor	May 20	Independence from Indonesia in 2002.
Ecuador	August 10 and May 24	Proclaimed independence from Spain in August 10, 1809, but failed with the execution of all the conspirators of the movement in August 2, 1810. Independence finally occurred in May 24, 1822 at Battle of Pichincha.
Estonia	February 24	Independence from Imperial Russia in 1918.
Finland	December 6	Independence from Russia in 1917.
The Gambia	February 18	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1965.
Georgia	May 26	Independence from Russia in 1918.
Ghana	March 6	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1957.
Greece	March 25	Declaration of independence from Ottoman Empire in 1821. Start of the Greek War of Independence
Guyana	May 26	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1966.
Haiti	January 1	Independence from France in 1804.
Iceland	June 17	Independence from Denmark in 1944.
India	August 15	(Independance Day) Independence from the United Kingdom in 1947.
Indonesia	August 17	Proclamation of Independence day (Hari Proklamasi Kemerdekaan R.I.) Independence from Japan in 1945.
Israel	5 Iyar	(Yom Ha'atzmaut) celebrated on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday nearest to that date, so could actually occur between 3rd and 6th of Iyar, which could occur between April 15 and May 15. The Gregorian date in which Israeli independence was proclaimed is May 14, 1948 (from the United Kingdom).
Jamaica	August 6	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1962.
Jordan	May 25	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1946.
Kazakhstan	December 16	Independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Kenya	December 12	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1963.
Korea, North	September 9	Founding of the DPRK in 1948.
Korea, South	August 15	(Gwangbokjeol) Independence from Japan in 1945.
Kyrgyzstan	August 31	Independence from USSR in 1991.
Latvia	May 4	(Neatkaribas deklaracijas pasludinasanas diena) Independence from the Soviet Union in 1990.
	November 18	(Latvijas Republikas proklamesanas diena) Independence from Soviet Russia in 1918.
Lebanon	November 22	Independence from France in 1943.
Lesotho	October 4	Independence from United Kingdom in 1966.
Lithuania	February 16	Independence from Imperial Russia in 1918.
Macedonia	September 8/May 25	(Den na nezavisnosta or Ден на независноста) Independence from Yugoslavia in 1991.
Malawi	August 31	(Hari Merdeka) Independence from the United Kingdom in 1957
Malaysia	July 6	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1964
Maldives	July 26	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1965
Mali	September 22	Independence from France in 1960
Malta	September 21	(Independence Day (Malta)) Independence from the United Kingdom in 1964.
Mauritius	March 12	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1968.
Mexico	September 16	Declared Independence from Spain on that date in 1810, not Recognized until September 27, 1821
Moldova	August 27	Independence from the Soviet Union in 1991
Mongolia	November 26	Independence from China in July 11, 1921
Montenegro	June 3	Independence from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in 2006. Vote of secession occurred May 21, 2006.
Morocco	March 2	Independence from France and Spain in 1956
Mozambique	June 25	Independence from Portugal in 1975
Myanmar	January 4	Independence from United Kingdom in 1948
Namibia	March 21	Independence from South African mandate in 1990
Niger	August 3	Independence from France in 1960
Nigeria	October 1	Independence from United Kingdom in 1960
Norway	June 7	Independence from Sweden in 1905. Commonly celebrated on May 17th, the Constitution Day set by siging of the Norwegian Constitution at Eidsvoll in 1814.
Pakistan	August 14	(Yaum e Azadi) Independence from the United Kingdom and Separation from India in 1947.
Panama	November 3	Independence from Colombia in 1903.
Papua New Guinea	September 16	Independence from Australia of the former Territories of New Guinea, and Papua, in 1975.
Paraguay	May 15	(Día de Independencia) Independence from Spain in 1811.
Peru	July 28	Independence from Spain in 1821.
Philippines	June 12	(Araw ng Kalayaan) Independence from Spain in 1898.
Poland	November 11	(Święto Niepodległości) Restoration of Poland's independence from Austria, Prussia, and Russia in 1918.
Portugal	December 1	Restoration of Portugal's independence (from Spain) in 1640. The country's original independence (from the Kingdom of León) was recognized on the 5th of October of 1143. That day is a holiday in Portugal, but for a different reason. (Implantation of the Republic, or Republic Day. Event of 1910.) Note that none of these events are similar to today's declarations or recognition of independence as these are in fact the recognition of the rule of a king to the land. Portugal existed as a separated entity before 1143 and during the union with Spain between 1580-1640.
Romania	May 9	Independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1877.
Russia	June 12	(Russia Day)
Rwanda	July 1	Independence from Belgium in 1962.
Serbia	February 15	The beginning of the First Uprising against Ottoman occupation in 1804.
Seychelles	29 June	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1976.
Singapore	August 9	(National Day) marks exit / separation from Malaysia in 1965.
Slovakia	July 17	Declaration of Independence (only a remembrance day), but the independence came only on January 1, 1993 from the division of Czechoslovakia (public holiday).
Slovenia	December 26	(Independence and Unity Day) Date of the release of the official results of the independence plebiscite in 1990, confirming secession from Yugoslavia.
South Africa	Dec 11	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1931. Not a public holiday. Union of South Africa formed on 31 May 1910 and Republic of South Africa declared on 31 May 1961
Sri Lanka	February 4	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1948.
Suriname	November 25	Independence from The Netherlands in 1975.
Swaziland	September 6	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1968.
Sweden	June 6	Independence from the Kalmar Union in 1523.
Switzerland	August 1	Alliance against the Holy Roman Empire in 1291.
Tajikistan	September 9	Independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Trinidad and Tobago	August 31	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1962.
Tonga	June 4	Independence from the United Kingdom in 1970.
Turkey	October 29	Declared independence in 1923.
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus	November 15	Declared independence in 1983.
Ukraine	August 24	Independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
United Arab Emirates	December 2	Independence from Britain in 1971.
United States	July 4	(Fourth of July) Declaration of independence from Great Britain in 1776.
Uruguay	August 25	(Día de la Independencia) Declaration of independence from Brazil in 1825.
Uzbekistan	September 1	Independence from USSR in 1991.
Venezuela	July 5	Declaration of independence from Spain in 1811.
Vietnam	September 2	Declaration of independence from France in 1945.
Western Sahara (SADR)	February 27	Declaration of independence from Spain in 1976.
Yemen	November 30	South Yemen Declaration of independence from United Kingdom in 1967.
Zambia	October 24	Declaration of independence from United Kingdom in 1964.
Zimbabwe	April 18	Declaration of independence from United Kingdom in 1980.

The rise in American consumer debt has been accompanied by a sharp increase in complaints about aggressive and sometimes unscrupulous tactics by debt collection agencies, a phenomenon that has government regulators increasingly concerned.
In April, the Federal Trade Commission, which enforces the federal law that governs debt collection practices, reported that it received 66,627 complaints against third-party debt collectors last year - more than against any other industry, and nearly six times the number in 1999.

The agencies often buy the debt from more established companies for pennies on the dollar and seek to collect even if the debt has been paid or was never valid to begin with. Sometimes, consumers pay up simply because they are worn down by threats from the companies and fear damage to their credit rating.

One New York City victim, Judith Guillet, complained and filed a police report in 2003 after receiving a Chase credit card bill for $2,300, including five charges from Amoco gasoline stations in the Bronx. She has never owned a car or had a driver's license.

The bank agreed that the charges were not valid, but the debt case hung on because the bank turned it over to a collection agency. Last November, that agency obtained a court order allowing it to freeze Guillet's bank account even though it could not demonstrate that the debt was valid.

"I felt helpless," said Guillet, 57, a nurse who is retired on full disability. "I couldn't pay my rent, buy food or pay my electricity bills

Russian regulators have forced more than 60 radio stations to stop broadcasting news reports produced by Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, according to radio managers and Russian officials

  American Football season is starting soon        

AMERIRESOURCE TECHS (OTC BB:AMRE.OB) Delayed quote data

Last Trade: 0.026 Trade Time: 3:59PM ET Change: 0.012 (80.56%) Prev Close: 0.014

MEXICO CITY - The ruling party's Felipe Calderon won the official count in Mexico's disputed presidential race Thursday, a come-from-behind victory for the stiff technocrat. But his leftist rival refused to concede and said he'd fight the results in court.

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. - A woman who tried to extort money from the Cracker Barrel restaurant chain by putting a dead mouse in a bowl of soup was sentenced to a year in jail.

Carla Patterson, 38, and her 22-year-old son, Ricky Patterson, sought $500,000 from the chain after claiming they found the rodent in the vegetable soup the woman ordered at a Newport News restaurant on Mother's Day weekend in 2004.

A jury convicted the Pattersons of conspiracy to commit extortion in April. The Pattersons maintained their innocence, but evidence included tests showed the mouse had not been cooked and had not drowned but instead died of a fractured skull.

Carla Patterson wept Wednesday as a judge imposed the jail sentence and a $2,500 fine. Defense lawyer Michael Woods said Patterson plans to appeal.

Averaging 6 hours and 42 minutes a night, white women slept longest -- but not as long as the seven hours they claimed to sleep on weeknights. They also got to sleep fastest (in about 13 minutes), spent the most time in bed (nearly eight hours), and slept most efficiently (85.7% of their time in bed).

Black men slept least: only 5 hours and 6 minutes a night. That was even less than the six hours they said they got on weeknights. They also took longest to fall asleep (about 36 minutes), spent the least time in bed (about seven hours), and slept least efficiently (73.2% of their time in bed).

These gender and racial differences persisted even when the researchers took various factors, such as income and employment, into account. However, lower income was associated with taking longer to get to sleep and lower sleep efficiency.

" .

Kenneth Lay is Dead

( I hope his soul rotten in hell where he belongs)

After giving me the news of Saddam getting arrested ,, here is my wife with Another great news

Honey : Kenneth Lay is Dead ( I hope his soul rotten in hell where he belongs)

News of Lay's death has been met largely with catcalls and mockery, which

may suggest that he's ultimately getting what he deserved. If there is a fate worse than dying and having no one care, it must be dying and having millions of people be pretty happy about it. Such, we must believe, is the fate of Kenneth Lay. He had all of the hustings of greatness, but threw them away in the quest for more, destroying the livelihoods of thousands in the process. It's not so much tragic as pathetic.Thus the conflict that we -- and perhaps most people -- feel today. A man is dead. But he's a man who hurt a lot of people, and whom most despised.

Round of 16	Quarter-finals	Semi-finals	Final	Semi-finals	Quarter-finals	Round of 16

The Celebrity 100

1. Tom Cruise
2. Rolling Stones
3. Oprah Winfrey
4. U2
5. Tiger Woods
6. Steven Spielberg
7. Howard Stern
8. 50 Cent
9. Cast of The Sopranos
10. Dan Brown
11. Bruce Springsteen
12. Donald Trump
13. Muhammad Ali
14. Paul McCartney
15. George Lucas
16. Elton John
17. David Letterman
18. Phil Mickelson
19. J.K. Rowling
20. Brad Pitt
21. Peter Jackson
22. Dr. Phil McGraw
23. Jay Leno
24. Celine Dion
25. Kobe Bryant
26. Michael Jordan
27. Johnny Depp
28. Jerry Seinfeld
29. Simon Cowell
30. Michael Schumacher
31. Tom Hanks
32. Rush Limbaugh
33. Denzel Washington
34. Cast of Desperate
Housewives
35. Jennifer Aniston
35. Angelina Jolie
37. The Olsen Twins
38. Nicole Kidman
39. The Eagles
40. Rod Stewart
41. Shaquille O'Neal
42. Jerry Bruckheimer
43. David Beckham
44. Jessica Simpson
45. Andrew Lloyd Webber
46. LeBron James
47. Neil Diamond
48. Alex Rodriguez
49. Will Smith
50. Dick Wolf
51. Dave Matthews Band
52. Tom Brady
53. Ronaldinho
54. Jodie Foster
55. Ray Romano
56. Paris Hilton
57. Adam Sandler
58. Derek Jeter
59. Jennifer Lopez
60. Rick Warren
61. Scarlett Johansson
62. Katie Couric
63. Maria Sharapova
64. Valentino Rossi
65. Halle Berry
66. James Patterson
67. Leonardo DiCaprio
68. Kiefer Sutherland
69. Jim Carrey
70. Cameron Diaz
71. Gisele Bundchen
72. Renee Zellweger
73. Carson Palmer
74. Michelle Wie
75. Reese Witherspoon
76. Bill O'Reilly
77. Kate Moss
78. Diane Sawyer
79. Sean (Diddy) Combs
80. John Grisham
81. Rachael Ray
82. Dave Chappelle
83. Larry the Cable Guy
84. Tyra Banks
85. George Lopez
86. Regis Philbin
87. Serena Williams
88. Ryan Seacrest
89. Wolfgang Puck
90. Venus Williams
91. Annika Sorenstam
92. Matthew Broderick/
Nathan Lane
93. Mel Brooks
94. Emeril Lagasse
95. Nicole Richie
96. Heidi Klum
97. Mario Batali
98. Eric Idle/
Mike Nichols
99. Adriana Lima
100. Ty Pennington

 

 

Do you like the taste of juicy organic apples from Washington?  They're not bad, but they could taste sweeter if each one didn't involve a cup of gasoline. 

In your quest to eat healthier food and do better by the environment, you might want to place more value on local food products than on organic foods.

It might seem sacrilegious to pooh-pooh organic food—that is, food grown in pooh-pooh as opposed to synthesized fertilizers and pesticides.  But as revealed in the June issue of Sierra magazine, the environmental price for organic foods is sometimes hidden.

Simply put, one must consider transportation costs.  Apples grown in the state of Washington are trucked, on average, more than 1,700 miles.  That adds up to a cup of gasoline used to ship each apple.  California grapes require up to 4 cups of gasoline per bunch when shipped across the country.  And so on.

These calculations were originally published in 2004 in a book chapter in "Environment Development and Sustainability 6," by David Pimentel of Cornell University and his colleagues.

Go local

Also, mass-produced foods, either grown by organic or conventional methods, are usually picked well before ripening to prevent rotting during shipping.  They are less tasty and contain fewer vitamins and minerals compared to local varieties.  In fact, this summer is a good time to visit a local farmers' market and talk to the sellers about these issues.

I'm not anti-organic.  I need to state that up front considering the angry email I received after I suggested that visiting untrained, unlicensed naturopaths practicing medicine based on medieval superstition could harm your health.  I am, after all, reading Sierra, the pro-environmental magazine of the Sierra Club. 

I merely hope to point out that blindly buying organically can be foolhardy.

Consider that unless you are eating rocks, all food is organic.  Technically, organic refers to anything with a chain of hydrogen and carbon atoms.  All living organisms are organic.  So is gasoline.  So is dry-cleaning fluid, which I now see advertised as "organic" by unscrupulous merchants capitalizing on the public perception that "organic" equals "safe."

What's in a word

The word "organic" has come to mean plant-based food grown without synthetic fertilizers, as well as animals fed organic food during the few months to few years they were alive.  It doesn't inherently mean healthy or fair. 

Organic manure could contain lead and cadmium, naturally.  Organic junk foods can be just as unhealthy as conventional junk food, albeit with organic fat and sugar.  The organic label says nothing about the rights of Central American workers growing organic bananas in squalid conditions, nor is it concerned with the similarly disgusting conditions in which organic meat, eggs and dairy products are often manufactured. 

After all, organic is big business these days—nearly $14 billion in 2005, according to the Organic Trade Association—and big business is often business as usual.

Not so with local farming. 

Local almost always means small-scale and thus more environmentally benign, fresher, healthier and cruelty-free.  Talk to the farmer at the farmers' market.  He might use a little pesticide but likely not much because the food product is well-suited to the environment.

Less gas

The apples I buy at a farmers' market in Baltimore are grown less than 50 miles away, and each apple "consumes" less than a teaspoon of gas on its journey to the market.  Unlike the strangely happy cow on a carton of Horizon organic milk, the cows producing the (non-organic but hormone-free) milk sold locally walk freely and feed on grass and hay; they're not pen-raised and fed organic grains they cannot digest, as can be the case with some organic milks.

With support of local farms, fewer farms get turned into asphalt-covered shopping malls and housing complexes, which in turn means fewer natural wetlands, forests and deserts are turned into mass-commercial farms.  Supporting local farms, organic or not, also fights our perverse global food market in which $20 million in U.S.-grown lettuce is exported to Mexico while $20 million Mexican-grown lettuce is imported to the United States each year, as reported in the May-June issue of Mother Jones.

Some of the food at my farmers' market is organic; other food is not.  I don't worry so much, as long as it is local.  I can trust the food because I'm buying it from the person who produced it.

---

.

Their are evil men in all religions

Not all Catholics are bad and not all Muslims are bad

A company needs money to grow and expand -- to purchase new machinery, land or even repay its loans.

To do that, one of the options it has is to ask the public for money.

It comes out with a public or new issue. The company offers shares and the public buys those shares. These shares are listed on the Stock Exchange.

People who invest in the company get rewarded (as dividends) by the company, or sell the shares as the share price rises.

  To get in on an IPO, you must contact your brokerage firm and request

 shares. Unfortunately, some brokerage firms have restrictions over which

 customers can take part in IPOs, but it is worth a shot to try if you like a company that is going public.

 

Dozens of factories that turn corn into the gasoline substitute ethanol are sprouting up across the nation, from Tennessee to Kansas, and California, often in places hundreds of miles away from where corn is grown.

Once considered the green dream of the environmentally sensitive, ethanol has become the province of agricultural giants that have long pressed for its use as fuel, as well as newcomers seeking to cash in on a bonanza.

The modern-day gold rush is driven by a number of factors: generous government subsidies, surging demand for ethanol as a gasoline supplement, a potent blend of farm-state politics and the prospect of generating more than a 100 percent profit in less than two years.

The rush is taking place despite concerns that large-scale diversion of agricultural resources to fuel could result in price increases for food for people and livestock, as well as the transformation of vast preserved areas into farmland.

Even in the small town of Hereford, in the middle of the Texas Panhandle's cattle country and hundreds of miles from the agricultural heartland, two companies are rushing to build plants to turn corn into fuel.

As a result, Hereford has become a flashpoint in the ethanol boom that is helping to reshape part of rural America's economic base.

Despite continuing doubts about whether the fuel provides a genuine energy saving, at least 39 new ethanol plants are expected to be completed over the next 9 to 12 months, projects that will push the United States past Brazil as the world's largest ethanol producer.

The new plants will add 1.4 billion gallons a year, a 30 percent increase over current production of 4.6 billion gallons, according to Dan Basse, president of AgResources, an economic forecasting firm in Chicago. By 2008, analysts predict, ethanol output could reach 8 billion gallons a year.

For all its allure, though, there are hidden risks to the boom. Even as struggling local communities herald the expansion of this ethanol-industrial complex and politicians promote its use as a way to decrease America's energy dependence on foreign oil, the ethanol phenomenon is creating some unexpected jitters in crucial corners of farm country.

A few agricultural economists and food industry executives are quietly worrying that ethanol, at its current pace of development, could strain food supplies, raise costs for the livestock industry and force the use of marginal farmland in the search for ever more acres to plant corn.

"This is a bit like a gold rush," warned Warren R. Staley, the chief executive of Cargill, the multinational agricultural company based in Minnesota. "There are unintended consequences of this euphoria to expand ethanol production at this pace that people are not considering."

Mr. Staley has his own reasons to worry, because Cargill has a stake in keeping the price of corn low enough to supply its vast interests in processed food and livestock.

But many energy experts are also questioning the benefits of ethanol to the nation's fuel supply. While it is a renewable, domestically produced fuel that reduces gasoline pollution, large amounts of oil or natural gas go into making ethanol from corn, leaving its net contribution to reducing the use of fossil fuels much in doubt.

As one of the hottest investments around, however, few in farm country want to hear any complaints these days about the risks associated with ethanol. Archer Daniels Midland, the politically connected agricultural processing company in Decatur, Ill., and the industry leader that has been a longstanding champion of transforming corn into a fuel blend, has enjoyed a doubling in its stock price and profits in the last year.

One ethanol producer has already sold shares to the public and two more are planning to do so. And the get-rich-quick atmosphere has drawn in a range of investors, including small farm cooperatives, hedge funds and even Bill Gates.

For all the interest in ethanol, however, it is doubtful whether it can serve as the energy savior President Bush has identified. He has called for biofuels — which account for just 3 percent of total gasoline usage — to replace roughly 1.6 million barrels a day of oil imported from the Persian Gulf.

New Jobs, New Life

To fill that gap with corn-based ethanol alone, agricultural experts say that production would have to rise to more than 50 billion gallons a year; at least half the nation's farmland would need to be used to grow corn for fuel. But that isn't stopping out-of-the-way towns looking for ways to pump life into local economies wracked by population loss, farm consolidation and low prices from treating the rush into ethanol as a godsend.

"These projects are bringing 100 new jobs to our town," said Don Cumpton, Hereford's director of economic development and a former football coach at the high school. "It's not as if Dell computer's going to be setting up shop here. We'd be nuts to turn something like this down."

That the United States is using corn, among the more expensive crops to grow and harvest, to help meet the country's fuel needs is a testament to the politics underlying ethanol's 30-year rise to prominence. Brazilian farmers produce ethanol from sugar at a cost roughly 30 percent less.

But in America's farm belt, politicians have backed the ethanol movement as a way to promote the use of corn, the nation's most plentiful and heavily subsidized crop. Those generous government subsidies have kept corn prices artificially low — at about $2 a bushel — and encouraged flat-out production by farmers, leading to large surpluses symbolized by golden corn piles towering next to grain silos in Iowa and Illinois.

While farmers are seeing little of the huge profits ethanol refiners like Archer Daniels Midland are banking, many farmers are investing in ethanol plants through cooperatives or simply benefiting from the rising demand for corn. With Iowa home to the nation's first presidential caucuses every four years, just about every candidate who visits the state pays obeisance to ethanol.

"There is zero daylight" between Democrats and Republicans in the region, said Ken Cook, president of Environmental Working Group, a nonprofit research policy group in Washington, and a veteran observer of agricultural politics. "All incumbents and challengers in Midwestern farm country are by definition ethanolics."

The ethanol explosion began in the 1970's and 1980's, when ADM's chief executive, Dwayne O. Andreas, was a generous campaign contributor and well-known figure in the halls of Congress who helped push the idea of transforming corn into fuel.

Ethanol can be produced from a number of agricultural feed stocks, including corn and sugar cane, and someday, wheat and straw. But given the glut in corn, the early strategy of Mr. Andreas was to drum up interest in ethanol on the state level among corn farmers and persuade Washington to provide generous tax incentives. But in 1990, when Congress mandated the use of a supplement in gasoline to help limit emissions, ADM lost out to the oil industry, which won the right to use the cheaper methyl tertiary butyl ether, or MTBE, derived from natural gas, to fill the 10 percent fuel requirement.

Past Scandal

Adding to its woes, ADM was marred by scandal in 1996 when several company executives, including one of the sons of Mr. Andreas, were convicted of conspiracy to fix lysine markets. The company was fined $100 million. Since then, ADM's direct political clout in Washington may have waned a bit but it still pursues its policy preferences through a series of trade organizations, notably the Renewable Fuels Association.

Some 14 months ago the company hired Shannon Herzfeld, a leading lobbyist for the pharmaceutical industry. But she is not a registered lobbyist for ADM and said in an interview that the company was maintaining its long-held policy that it does not lobby Congress directly.

"Nobody is deferential to ADM," contended Ms. Herzfeld, who says she spends little time on Capitol Hill.

But ADM has not lost interest in promoting ethanol among farm organizations, politicians and the news media. It is by far the biggest beneficiary of more than $2 billion in government subsidies the ethanol industry receives each year, via a 51-cent-a-gallon tax credit given to refiners and blenders that mix ethanol into their gasoline. ADM will earn an estimated $1.3 billion from ethanol alone in the 2007 fiscal year, up from $556 million this year, said David Driscoll, a food manufacturing analyst at Citigroup.

[And the company may be concerned by the recent statement by Energy Secretary Samuel W. Bodman, who suggested that if prices remain high, lawmakers should consider ending the ethanol subsidy when it expires in 2010. "The question needs to be thought about," he said on Friday.]

ADM has huge production facilities that dwarf those of its competitors. With seven big plants, the company controls 1.1 billion gallons of ethanol production, or about 24 percent of the country's capacity. ADM can make more than four times what VeraSun, ADM's closest ethanol rival, can produce.

Last year, spurred by soaring energy prices, the ethanol lobby broke through in its long campaign to win acceptance outside the corn belt, inserting a provision in the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that calls for the use of 5 billion gallons a year of ethanol by 2007, growing to at least 7.5 billion gallons in 2012. The industry is now expected to produce about 6 billion gallons next year.

The phased removal of MTBE from gasoline, a result of concerns that the chemical contaminates groundwater and can lead to potential health problems, hastened the changeover. Now, government officials are also pushing for increasing use of an 85-percent ethanol blend, called E85, which requires automakers to modify their engines and fuel injection systems.

In the ultimate nod to ADM's successful efforts, Mr. Bodman announced the new initiatives in February at the company's headquarters in Illinois.

"It's been 30 years since we got a call from the White House asking for the agriculture industry, ADM in particular, to take a serious look at the possibilities of building facilities to produce alternative sources of energy for our fuel supply in the United States," said G. Allen Andreas, ADM's chairman and Dwayne Andreas' nephew.

Now, ADM is betting even more of its future on ethanol, embracing a shift from food processing to energy production as its focus. In April, it hired Patricia A. Woertz, a former executive from the oil giant Chevron, as the company's new chief executive.

While ADM has pushed ethanol, rivals like Cargill have been more skeptical. To Mr. Staley, ethanol is overpromoted as a solution to the nation's energy challenges, and the growth in production, if unchecked, has the potential to ravage America's livestock industry and harm the nation's reliability as an exporter of corn and its byproducts.

Threat to Food Production

"Unless we have huge increases in productivity, we will have a huge problem with food production," Mr. Staley said. "And the world will have to make choices."

Last year corn production topped 11 billion bushels — second only to 2004's record harvest. But many analysts doubt whether the scientists and farmers can keep up with the ethanol merchants.

"By the middle of 2007, there will be a food fight between the livestock industry and this biofuels or ethanol industry," Mr. Basse, the economic forecaster, said. "As the corn price reaches up above $3 a bushel, the livestock industry will be forced to raise prices or reduce their herds. At that point the U.S. consumer will start to see rising food prices or food inflation."

If that occurs, the battleground is likely to shift to some 35 million acres of land set aside under a 1985 program for conservation and to help prevent overproduction. Farmers are paid an annual subsidy averaging $48 an acre not to raise crops on the land. But the profit lure of ethanol could be great enough to push the acreage, much of it considered marginal, back into production.

Mr. Staley fears that could distract farmers from the traditional primary goal of agriculture, raising food for people and animals. "We have to look at the hierarchy of value for agricultural land use," he said in a May speech in Washington. "Food first, then feed" for livestock, "and last fuel."

And even Cargill is hedging its bets. It recently announced plans to nearly double its American ethanol capacity to 220 million gallons a year. Meanwhile, the flood of ethanol plant announcements is making the American livestock industry nervous about corn production. "I think we can keep up, assuming we get normal weather," said Greg Doud, the chief economist at the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. "But what happens when Mother Nature crosses us up and we get a bad corn year?"

Beyond improving corn yields, the greatest hope for ethanol lies with refining technology that can produce the fuel from more efficient renewable resources, like a form of fuel called cellulosic ethanol from straw, switchgrass or even agricultural waste. While still years away, cellulosic ethanol could help overcome the concerns inherent in relying almost exclusively on corn to make ethanol and make the advance toward E85 that much quicker.

"The cost of the alternative — of staying addicted to oil and filling our atmosphere with greenhouse gases, and keeping other countries beholden to high gasoline prices — is unacceptable," said Nathanael Greene, senior policy analyst at the Natural Resources Defense Council in New York. "We have to struggle through the challenges of growing and producing biofuels in the right way."

But the current incentives to make ethanol from corn are too attractive for producers and investors to worry about the future. With oil prices at $70 a barrel sharply lifting the prices paid for ethanol, the average processing plant is earning a net profit of more than $5 a bushel on the corn it is buying for about $2 a bushel, Mr. Basse said. And that is before the 51-cent-a-gallon tax credit given to refiners and blenders that incorporate ethanol into their gasoline.

"It is truly yellow gold," Mr. Basse said.

North Korea is now estimated to have enough plutonium for a handful of nuclear warheads, which could be mounted on Taepodong missiles. Some say a Taepodong might be able to reach Alaska, Hawaii, or even the West Coast.

Well, just let them try. It was precisely against this threat that the Pentagon has

invested $43 billion over the past five years, and 11 ground-based interceptors are now based in Alaska and California. Bring 'em on.

 تصويرهاي روشن آينده را به چشم ترسيم كرده ايم

پيداست راه چه روشن!

آنجاست قله چه نزديك!

در انتظار طعمه هاي مردد نشسته اند 

مرداب پشت سر 

بيراهه در كنار.

اين بار مي جهيم 

از دره هاي دهشت و جنگ و جنون و رنج 

تا قله هاي روشن فرداي علم و كار 

 

 بچه سوسک با مامانش از چاهک حموم ميان بيرون . بچه می‌پرسه مامان اين آبيه چيه ؟ سوسکه ميگه آسمونه مامان ! ميگه اين سبزا چيه ؟ ميگه درخته مامان . ميگه اين قرمزها زردها بنفش‌ها چين ؟ ميگه گل هستند مادر . بچه سوسک ميگه اينجا چه قشنگه نمی‌شه همين جا بمونيم . سوسکه ميگه نه مادر آخه پس وطنمون چی مي‌شه

Ali reza & Gholamreza are one of best Persian friends that I have had the honor

of knowing for so many years , I appreciate thie integrity , honesty

and prestige ، would recommend their automobile

services to anyone that needs a good reliable used cars

, too bad that there are not so many like them

around. It’s very hard to find a mechanic shop that would fix

your car & then refuse to accept the fee for doing so

I have one thing to say TO ALIREZA & GHOLAM REZA

THANK YOU ... THANK YOU , THANK YOU

Alireza , you need to click on neveshtehayeh pishin

( kordad , ordibehesht ) in order to load the previous pages.

Massoud