We just started Hurricane season so stock piling is a no brainer for us, but maybe getting extra extra wouldn't be a bad idea.

Looks like fire and brim-smoke to me, see for yourself- http://www.searchlawrence.com/_bp_sp...e_camera_feeds

Click on the "Skandi Neptune ROV 1"

Watch for a few minutes at least. I only had to watch for about a minute before I saw obvious flames. Gotta wonder how much actual 'oil' is coming out.....

In the plains states, there has been a vastly large amount of rainfall, keeping the farmers out of the fields. This will affect the production of spring wheat, corn, oats, barley, beans, peas, etc., virtually everything except winter wheat - which gets planted in the fall. Now if the rain continues for much longer, then you will have "bad" crops - once the crops that did get planted reach about 4-6 weeks of growth, you actually need heat for it to mature the grain head properly.

I didn't see any obvious flame. I did see a blue light reflecting from something - maybe another ROV???? 'Course, if its live, what I saw was different from what you saw.

Are you not able to import food stuffs as required?

Australia is the driest continent on earth, our farmers do it harder than probably any first world farmers, most of Australia is in drought, we suffer cyclones etc...we don't have any profound need to stockpile food. What can't the US do like every other country does & import what it needs if domestic supplies can't provide?

Another idea on how to plug the leak.



http://i88.photobucket.com/albums/k1...s/rsthwrhw.jpg

Have you seen how much Americans actually eat though? :whistle:

I was thinking more like:

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3074/...42bc7def83.jpg

:gasp: :wink:

I dont have the numbers, but the vast majority of what is produced is set for export. I'd almost guarantee that you guys also import a large amount from the U.S. Sometimes the feds will end up releasing some amount from the reserve stockpile (somewhere there is this huge facility that has billions of bushels of grain - held there in case of emergency).
Personally, I dont think there will be an actual shortage - but the middlemen (the companies that buy and resell the grains) are going to come out and say that due to the shortage, prices are going to rise. The govt will release some of the stockpile, while at the same time, we pay more at the grocery store, the middle guys make more money, and the farmers end up applying for gov't assistance, again.

One of the other effects of the moisture is the protein level of the grains. When its really wet, the protein levels are way low, thus resulting in a very low price to the farmers. I dont know what the effect of low protein grain is to the producers of food products. Two years ago my dad had almost a perfect year - very high yeilds (he dry land farms) but they had late rains, and the proteins dropped to about 1-2%. He ended up just barely breaking even 'cause he only got about a dollar per bushel.

<object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Gq65E7rmO_k&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Gq65E7rmO_k&amp;hl=en_US&amp;fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>

They are NOT GOING TO FIX THIS