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The death of a man in Doddridge County has sparked a police investigation and troopers want you to be safe. A man in his 60's died this week at Ruby Memorial Hospital, supposedly after drinking poisoned moonshine he got in the county. Troopers say the unidentified man drank from a bottle of moonshine he got from a friend on Saturday night. He was flown to Ruby Memorial Hospital after what was believed to be stroke symptoms. He died at the hospital Tuesday. After testing and investigations, it was determined that the tainted moonshine shut down the man's internal organs. Troopers...

Evidence for Oldest Popcorn in South America Discovered Remy Melina, LiveScience Staff Writer Date: 20 January 2012 Time: 10:50 AM ET They may not have had television sets, but ancient Peruvians did share one part of our movie-watching culture: popcorn. Researchers have found evidence that societies living along the coast of Peru were eating the air-filled snack about 1,000 years earlier than previously estimated — even predating the use of ceramic pottery. Corn husks, stalks, cobs and tassels (pollen-producing flowers on corn) dating from 6,700 to 3,000 years ago were unearthed at Paredones and Huaca Prieta, two sites on Peru's...

Energy Policy: Congress let the corn-based fuel's tax credits expire when it adjourned, but continuing mandates for its use means pump prices will go even higher and the money saved will be spent elsewhere. Subsidies for ethanol expired over the weekend, ironically just days before the Iowa caucuses. In their 33 years of existence, ethanol subsidies, the original poster child for crony capitalism, with an estimated cost of at least $45 billion and an annual price tag in recent years of $6 billion, have been a political sacred cow, letting farm state politicians bring home the bacon in exchange for...

The Iowa corn growers association released a report card today, rating Republican primary candidates on their support of "corn grower's legislative priorities." Candidates who oppose subsidies, like Representative Ron Paul and Herman Cain got "D." grades (Only their criticism of the EPA spared them "F"s. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich got the highest grade. He and President Obama were praised for their support of economically disastrous policies like ethanol subsidies.

Want to know something almost as scary as an Obama re-election?Many news sources have reported over the past couple of months how Monsanto Co., the world's biggest vegetable seed-maker, will begin selling biotech, or genetically engineered, sweet corn this fall for U.S. consumers.There are at least three alarming aspects to this particular veggie-gene mutation and its distribution.First, if you wonder why the sweet corn's genes are being triple-altered, wonder no more. Bloomberg reported that "the sweet corn seeds are engineered to kill insects living above and below ground and to tolerate applications of the company's Roundup herbicide, Consuelo Madere, Monsanto...

[snip] So the United States now imports ethanol from Brazil to meet the federal mandate for ethanol use, and yet those imports are subject to a 54-cents-per-gallon tariff to protect the U.S. domestic ethanol industry. Ethanol is also imported from Canada, which is not subject to a tariff, and owing to trade agreements and foreign policy considerations, the United States is committed to importing ethanol from all Caribbean Basin countries, with special set-asides for El Salvador and Costa Rica. Remember: Despite all this import and export activity, ethanol policy was justified on grounds of U.S. energy independence. Yet, just as...

News Release - National Academies: Ethanol Worsens Greenhouse Gases Published October 4, 2011 Washington, D.C. -- A new report by the National Academy of Sciences has found that corn ethanol production increases greenhouse gas emissions and damages soil, air, water and wildlife habitat. As well it says advanced biofuels such as cellulosic ethanol are unlikely to prove practical substitutes for either corn ethanol or fossil fuels. “This report highlights the severe damage to the environment from corn-based ethanol,” said Sheila Karpf, EWG’s legislative and policy analyst. “It underscores just how misguided U.S. biofuels policy has become. It catalogs the environmentally...

A Massachusetts family got the Halloween scare of a lifetime by getting lost inside a dark and creepy Salem-area corn maze and had to call 911 for rescue. Danvers police say they got a call of distress from a mother of two about 6:32 p.m. Monday. The woman alerted the 911 operator of their situation in the Connors Farm in Danvers, a short distance from Salem... He said a Danvers police with a tracking dog quickly plunged into the depths of the maze with a farm manager to search for the disoriented dad, mom and two young kids. Within a...

Should we use ethanol for fuel? Certainly. Should we use corn to make that ethanol? Certainly not. Sure, we want to get over our need for foreign oil. Sure, we want to find a renewable fuel for our vehicles. Sure, ethanol could work just fine. But don’t make it from corn. Here’s what I’m talking about. The president and a bunch of powerful people in Congress have been working over recent years to hold up corn-based ethanol as the answer to our future energy-supply needs. When he talks about it, the president says corn-based ethanol is our only hope of...

High energy prices and bad weather -- including blistering hot temperatures, flooding in some places and drought in others -- hurt this year’s agricultural output. But farmers agree that a major problem is the soaring price of corn, which is used directly in products like cereal, and indirectly as livestock feed. Corn is nearly twice as expensive now as it was last summer -- even though US farmers planted the second-largest crop since World War II. Why? Well, 40 percent of the crop goes to produce 12.6 billion gallons of ethanol to meet the government’s renewable fuel standards. In other...

Why Food For Fuel Is A Terrible Idea By Jonathan Chen Benzinga Staff Writer September 02, 2011 12:17 PM Pretty soon, corn will be more valuable than a barrel of oil. There is an article on Bloomberg Government from last month that still holds true today. (Gasp! Something written more than 30 seconds ago still holds true?) It is a sad fact that the U.S. is using corn almost as much as Saudi oil as fuel in this country. The "food for fuel" idea has been around for a long time, and it has been seen as a bailout of...

Hedge Higher Food Prices By Investing In Corn Commodities / Agricultural Commodities Aug 25, 2011 - 06:55 AM By: Money Morning David Zeiler writes: A smaller-than-expected U.S. fall harvest, combined with strong demand, has sown the seeds of higher corn market prices. That will inflate your grocery bill, but it's also an investing opportunity that should persist into next year according to some experts. The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) recently reduced its forecast for the fall corn crop to 12.9 billion bushels from 13.5 billion based on damage from spring flooding and summer drought in several key corn-producing...

China's struggle to meet the growing demands of its middle class is fueling a sudden surge in demand for corn, sending vast ripples across the U.S. farm belt and potentially upending the grain's trade flows around the world. China's need for corn—which forms the basis of sweeteners, starch and alcohol as well as feed for livestock—was on stark display in July when the nation ordered 21 million bushels of U.S. corn in one hit, more than the U.S. government thought the country would buy in a year. The purchase surprised the market and came as an intense July heat wave...

U.S. corn planted area for all purposes in 2011 is estimated at 92.3 million acres, up 5% from 2010 and the second-highest planted acreage since 1944, behind only the 93.5 million acres planted in 2007...(snip) USDA numbers have sent corn futures, which were previously working on the prediction that inclement weather had limited corn farmers to 90.7 million acres of planting, dropping significantly.

Robert Rapier invests a lot of effort in an attempt to discover what is going on with USDA reports of improving ethanol EROEI. The USDA is obviously being hammered by congress to make their giveaways to corn growers look less stupid. My bottom line is this: 1. USDA is obviously under pressure to fiddle their accounting to make subsidized corn ethanol look as good as possible.2. Some of the tricks are just laughable, like subtracting byproducts from the inputs to form a new “input” definition that obviously inflates the “return” = output/”input”. Wouldn’t it be nice if our investment returns...

Pixar Animation mastermind John Lasseter says the company has no environmental agenda, but with "Cars 2," the blockbuster outfit does tap into today's eco-mindedness with a plot driven by oil vs. a cleaner alternative. Debuting in U.S. theaters Friday, "Cars 2" sends race car Lightning McQueen (voiced by Owen Wilson) on a World Grand Prix circuit whose organizer fuels the vehicles with a green alternative called Allinol, prompting the bad guys to try to discredit the new power supply that threatens traditional gasoline.

Reports from the WTO and USDA show that corn supplies are influenced by biofuel subsidies and mandates. The biofuels industry is being blamed for record food prices and high price volatility. Earlier this month a report from the World Trade Organization and other international agencies recommended that governments cut support for biofuels to ease that volatility. On the heels of that report, the U.S. Department of Agriculture issued its corn forecast; it suggested that corn supplies will be very tight this year because bad weather has limited planting and because the share of corn going to ethanol is increasing. After...

Last week, the Senate finally overcame the entrenched and powerful ethanol special interest group to eliminate $6 billion in annual taxpayer subsidies. This historic vote just might signal that a new era of fiscal responsibility is possible and give hope to a worried nation that Washington can confront national problems. After the first, early Allied success during WWII, Winston Churchill famously declared that "This is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end--But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning". Could the Senate vote on killing of one of the most expensive and irresponsible taxpayer...

Subsidies for ethanol are being put to the test again in the Senate Thursday, as budget cutters try to demonstrate a growing appetite in Congress to end special interest tax breaks to help reduce government borrowing. The Senate is scheduled to vote on two measures that would end subsidies for producing ethanol, a renewable, liquid fuel additive that comes mainly from corn in the U.S. One measure would repeal a $5 billion annual tax credit that provides 45 cents a gallon to oil refiners who mix ethanol with gasoline. The Senate rejected an identical measure Tuesday, 40-59, though some senators...

Senate Democrats are making hay today with yesterdays' vote by a majority of Senate Republicans to repeal the tax credit for ethanol in defiance of Grover Norquist's "Taxpayer Protection Pledge." Here's the e-mail blast from Chuck Schumer and Bob Menendez, with a conference call coming: "In Watershed Moment, 34 Senate Republicans Broke With Right Wing Ideology Yesterday -- Vote Means Tax Expenditures Now Fair Game To Reduce Deficit...Schumer, Menendez to Call Yesterday’s Vote 'Sea Change' That Will Boost Movement to Finally End Wasteful Oil and Gas Subsidies." They are correct. The vote breaks GOP orthodoxy that for decades has pretended...

Subsidies: How is it that the party loudly proclaiming how the government shouldn't "pick winners and losers" could only manage to get 34 senators to oppose one of the most egregious examples of federal industrial policy? On Tuesday, the Senate rejected an amendment sponsored by Tom Coburn, R-Okla., to end the $6 billion in tax subsidies plus the import tariffs that have given rise to Big Ethanol. The measure got just 40 votes, six of them from Democrats. The picture doesn't get much better at the GOP presidential candidate level, where for every critic of the subsidy there's a Newt...

WASHINGTON – The Senate refused to kill a $5 billion annual subsidy for ethanol on Tuesday, backing continued government aid for a Farm Belt-based industry over deficit reduction in an era of record red ink. The 40-59 vote, far short of the 60 needed to advance the measure, reflected regional as well as partisan differences, a split among Republicans — and anything but the final word on the issue. "We continue to spend money that we don't have on things that we don't need," said Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., a prominent deficit hawk who led the effort to eliminate the...

By mandating 40% of our corn crop be dedicated to ethanol, we've created domestic shortages that may turn the U.S. into a net importer of corn and destroy our dominance in one more area of the world economy. [...] We are now reaping the unintended consequences of those decisions. Accepting as fact that American farmers are the most productive in the world, and also accepting as fact that the agriculture sector is one of the few sectors of the economy which is performing well, we’re still faced with a problem. Coming off the third-highest corn harvest in U.S. history in...

FREDERICK, MD - One local industry that is peaking during this down economy is field corn. According to the Maryland Office of Economic Development, the price of a bushel of the cash crop is the highest its ever been. Eddie Mercer's 4,500 acre farm has been his livelihood for nearly 45 years and he says he has never seen the price of corn reach this level. "This is the ultimate high," says Eddie Mercer, President and Owner of Eddie Mercer Agri-Services Inc. "The most time we've ever sold corn is maybe in the $5, but never in the $8 range."...

Anyone looking forward to corn on the cob slathered with butter this summer may find that it has become an expensive part of their diet. Or it not be available at all.

Obesity and diabetes rates continue to rise despite decline in consumption of sweetenersWASHINGTON – A comprehensive review of research focusing on the debate between High Fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS) and other sweeteners presented today finds there is no evidence of any significant variation in the way the human body metabolizes HFCS as opposed to standard table sugar, or any difference in impact on risk factors for chronic disease. James M. Rippe, MD, founder and director of the Rippe Lifestyle Institute and professor of biomedical sciences at the University of Central Florida, presented a summary of recent research entitled -- "High...

Why Corn Is Suddenly The Hottest Commodity In The World Joe Weisenthal May 18, 2011, 4:30 PM In case you don't watch such things, the price of corn has been soaring of late. It's the hottest commodity around. Here's a chart: What's behind the gigantic move? Basically, weather and the fact that corn plantings for the year are WAY slower than estimated, and way behind historical pace. As this chart from Morgan Stanley shows, the amount of available stocks to use has hit a record low. And here you can see how behind corn planting is this year. Image: Morgan...

With drought threatening food production in the EU, US and China, analysts at Renaissance Capital believe the next 8-10 weeks will be crucial to prices in 2011 and 2012. “The food price threat for 2011-2012 is very significant, but may disappear in August. It depends entirely on the weather over May to July,” said Renaissance Capital’s Charles Robertson. “If we do not get the right mix of rain and sun in the coming 8-10 weeks, then later this year we will see record price levels for the most important cereal in the world today – corn,” he said. If this...

My father, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, has been in politics as long as I can remember. And as long as I can remember, media coverage about him has contained misstatements of facts. The vast majority are simple mistakes that are easily corrected, understood and rewoven into an ongoing storyline. But one of them seems to have taken on a life of its own, and simple corrections have not sufficed to set the record straight. Why does this happen? I can't be sure, but I suspect that the narrative created by these untruths proves to be so much...

(snip) What triggered the upswing? In part: ethanol. President George W. Bush "came forward with—what do you call?—the edict that we were going to mandate 36 billion gallons of alternative fuels" by 2022, of which corn-based ethanol is "a substantial part." Companies that blend ethanol into fuel get a $5 billion annual tax credit, and there's a tariff to keep foreign producers out of the U.S. market. Now 40% of the corn crop is "directed to ethanol, which equals the amount that's going into livestock food," Mr. Pope calculates. (snip) Food price inflation isn't a problem confined to America's shores....

CHICAGO (Reuters) – The U.S. Midwest will be cool and wet for at least the next 10 days, preventing farmers from planting corn through most of April, a forecaster said on Tuesday. Up to an inch of rain fell in northern Iowa, eastern Nebraska and southeastern South Dakota since early Monday while the eastern Corn Belt received 0.25 to 0.75 inch of rain. "The Midwest is not going to do well under this type of weather," said forecaster Joel Burgio with Telvent DTN weather service. Farmers will be sidelined, waiting for soils to dry and warm up before they can...

Full disclosure; I’m not a fan of Trump’s. By any stretch of the imagination. I was aghast when CPAC gave him a speaking slot. I felt it demeaned the entire conference. Now we’re confronted with a full blown Trump phenomenon. In the last week, he’s leading in the polls, he spoke to a Tea party rally in Florida, and, oh yeah…..he’s said that if we’re not smart enough to nominate him, then he’ll most likely run as an independent. And too bad if that means that Obama wins another term; it’ll be OUR fault, not his. Trump appeals to a...

A surge in global food prices has prompted fresh criticism of US subsidies for ethanol, which diverts massive amounts of corn from global food supplies for energy. Senators Tom Coburn, a Republican from Oklahoma, and Ben Cardin, a Maryland Democrat, introduced a measure last month to scrap the tax credit of 45 cents per gallon for ethanol in gasoline. "The ethanol tax credit is bad economic policy, bad energy policy and bad environmental policy. The $6 billion we waste every year on corporate welfare should instead stay in taxpayers' pockets where it can be used to spur innovation, stimulate growth...

Pushing ethanol is either ignorance or intentional damage to the health and well being of the people of the world. It will reduce food supplies and raise the price of transportation and those food supplies.I have heard you should not attribute to malice what simple stupidity or incompetence can explain. I no longer accept that. When the brown stuff in the field oozes up between my toes I know I am barefoot and not paying attention to where I am walking. There is too much brown stuff to attribute to stupidity or incompetence. Here is an ethanol story. Part...

One word (well technically two) can describe what is going on in the electronic pre-market arena right now: inflationary hysteria. Gold is at a new record, wheat is surging, corn is at highest since 2008, crude at a new 30 month high, silver is at $41.10 - a new fresh post Hunt high, beans surging, etc, etc, etc. Essentially everything is bid, following news first reported on Zero Hedge that PIMCO is betting the farm that either inflation is about to go parabolic and force bondholders to dump everything, or that the Fed will have no choice but to pursue...

New legislation would force virtually all cars to run on ethanol The Obama administration and Democrats in Congress are facing resistance from the auto industry about a controversial proposal that would force consumers to use more ethanol in a bid to reduce fossil fuels consumption. I. What's in the Bill? The new bill, The Biofuels Expansion Act of 2011, has a number of provisions, but among its most controversial are efforts to expand government spending on ethanol and force ethanol on consumers. Sponsored by Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa); Tim Johnson (D-South Dakota); Amy Klobuchar (D/"Farmer-Labor Party"- Minnesota); and Al Franken (D/"Farmer-Labor Party"-Minnesota), the bill could massively benefit corn farmers in...

Energy Policy: A GOP senator and a Democratic congressman want to end the poster child for pork-barrel spending. Unfortunately, the road to the White House runs through the cornfields of Iowa. It's easy to lampoon federal spending on turtle tunnels, bridges to nowhere or cowboy poetry readings. It is harder to deal with subsidies and tax credits for things that do real damage to our collective bottom line. Case in point: the tax credit for and mandated use of ethanol, the corn-based additive to gasoline that was supposed to save the earth and gasoline and pave the way to energy...

St. Louis - Rising demand for corn from ethanol producers is pushing U.S. reserves to the lowest point in 15 years, a trend that could lead to higher grain and food prices this year. The Agriculture Department on Friday left its estimate for corn reserves unchanged from the previous month. The reserves are projected to fall to 675 million bushels in late August, when the harvest begins, or roughly 5 percent of all corn consumed in the United States. That would be the lowest surplus level since 1996.The limited supply is chiefly because of increasing demand from ethanol makers, which

Each year, an ever larger portion of the world’s [food] crops ... is being diverted for biofuels as developed countries pass laws mandating greater use of nonfossil fuels ... But with food prices rising sharply in recent months, many experts are calling on countries to scale back their headlong rush into green fuel development ...

Gold hit record highs a second straight day Wednesday and oil soared to fresh 2-1/2 year highs, sparking fears of inflation that could hurt some of the world's most dependable economies.

The National Cattlemen’s Beef Association (NCBA) supports the nation’s commitment to reduce dependence on foreign energy. However, according to Bill Donald, NCBA president and Montana cattleman, it is time for the mature corn-based ethanol industry to compete on a market-based, level playing field with all other end-users of corn. He added that there are multiple proposals in the 112th Congress to end the 45-cent per gallon blending credit for corn-based ethanol. “American taxpayers have spent more than $30 billion subsidizing corn-based ethanol for more than 30-years.That industry should be able to operate on the open market like the rest of...

CORN!! Joe Weisenthal Mar. 31, 2011, 8:09 PM Our CHART OF THE DAY showed the huge surge in corn following the USDA crop report. But that was just the first act. Corn futures were limit up, and couldn't go any higher. Well the market is open again, and corn is exploding higher again. Check out the last day in corn-ville and now the three different levels it's hit today. Image: CME

Americans are noticing higher prices at the grocery store, and it's about to get worse. Food prices at the wholesale level rose last month by the most in 36 years. Cold weather accounted for most of it, forcing stores and restaurants to pay more for green peppers, lettuce and other vegetables, but meat and dairy prices surged, too. The big questions are how long food prices will keep rising and how high they'll go. The impact is already visible. Wendy's, paying higher prices for tomatoes, now puts them on hamburgers only by request. Starbucks and Dunkin' Donuts have raised prices...

To big rounds of applause, three of the world’s richest men — Richard Branson, Ronald W. Burkle and Vinod Khosla — trooped onto a New York ballroom stage with former President Bill Clinton to pledge support for renewable energy projects to combat global warming and create jobs. It was September 2006, and the Clinton Global Initiative, the annual star-studded networking event for philanthropists and investors, had generated commitments to spend billions on ethanol and other alternative fuels. Cast as good works, many were also investments by businessmen hoping for a profit. And sitting in the audience was an influential public...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Former President Bill Clinton on Thursday warned farmers not to use so much corn for ethanol fuel that it leads to higher food prices and riots in poor countries. Clinton told farmers and Agriculture Department employees that he believes producing biofuels such as corn-based ethanol is important for reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil.

The ethanol industry took a shot on Saturday when the U.S. House of Representatives voted to remove funding for the expansion of ethanol in vehicle fuel. The House voted 285-136 on a measure that blocks the Environmental Protection Agency from raising the cap on ethanol from 10 percent to 15 percent. The House also voted 261-185 to remove EPA funding to help pay for the special pumps needed to dispense higher blends of ethanol at gas stations. The measures are part of the House's much larger budget resolution and must survive budget negotiations with the Senate and get a signature...

Rising corn prices push up grocery costs With corn prices on the rise, shoppers will have to pay a little bit more at the store by Cliff Erwin and Lisa Rose, KY3 News 10:22 PM CST, February 10, 2011 SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- We've been watching grocery prices go up for months. Shortages of wheat, coffee, and soybeans have been to blame. Now corn causes concern. Analysts predict a big drop in the corn supply and increased demand. That means consumers will pay the price. "We'll see price increases on quite a few items, not only corn items, but also meat...

Last month, when the conservative Republican Study Committee released its plan for $2.5 trillion in budget cuts over the next ten years, one enormous item of wasteful government spending was conspicuously missing — farm subsidies. Perhaps that reflects the fact that 24 of the RSC’s 165 members sit on the House Agriculture Committee, the notorious overseer of farm-welfare programs. Total direct government farm payments to the districts of those 24 representatives alone costs taxpayers more than $1 billion per year. Numerous other RSC members hail from farm states, and therefore have a vested interest in protecting payments to their constituents....

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack says he welcomes the extension of the energy policy requiring the extension of tax credits and protective tariffs of corn ethanol and is not worried in the long term about the U.S. economy’s capacity to produce corn for food, fuel, feed, and exports because of it.“I’m certainly not worried in the long term about our capacity to produce enough corn to meet our food and feed needs as well as our fuel needs,” Secretary Vilsack said Wednesday in a news conference with Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Energy Secretary Steven Chu held...

According to research from the Chicago Board of Trade, futures markets for corn in March spiked 3.6 percent, or 24.25 cents per bushel. Currently the price of this commodity is hovering around $6.98. The core futures markets of corn, wheat, and soybeans, have jumped 97 percent, 107 percent, and 56 percent respectively. The outlook for international food and grain supplies are looking more uncertain after the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) reported its expectations that corn supply would decrease to lowest level in 15 years, the Wall Street Journal reported. The supply of corn has been depleted for a...