But French has been doing equally good service down in the basse cuisine as well.

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Basse predicts the ethanol makers that were coining money last year are on track to start losing money by the end of this year.

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AgResource's Basse estimates the blending demand for ethanol at 10 billion gallons, 7% of the 150 billion gallons of blended fuel burned each year.

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Burn it off by pounding the cobblestoned streets of Vieux-Lille (the old town), perhaps with a sinful stop-off at macaroon-maker Patrick Hermand on rue Basse.

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"Everybody thought they could become the new Saudi oil barons of Champaign, Illinois, " says Daniel Basse, president of AgResource, a Chicago agricultural research and forecasting outfit.

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Mount Soufriere, Basse-Terre's volcano, last erupted in the 1970s.

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