Do we really have food to burn, Senator Johanns?

Food to Burn?

Is Nebraska Senator Mike Johanns becoming an alcoholic? Perhaps he has been hitting the ethanol corn liquor a bit too much, along with his daffy colleague Senator Ben Nelson. Now he has come out in favor in watering down our gasoline with even more ethanol.

Alcohol is a lousy fuel. It is inefficient to produce and a comparatively weak energy source. No one would even consider running an internal combustion engine with alcohol unless it was subsidized and mandated by the government. Worse yet, using corn and other crops to make a trendy diluent for good old powerful gasoline results in higher feed costs to animal agriculturists. We see this as increased meat prices.

Bottom line: we don't have food to burn. Take off those fashionable Washington DC style blinders, Mike. Let us drill for oil and build more refineries here in the USA. Let the livestock eat the grain. Let the consumers decide what they want to put in their gas tanks. Let us eat reasonably priced meat.

What have you got against freedom of choice and cheap gasoline, Mike?
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Let the Senator know what you think. Click to email Senator Johanns.

Ethanol: the fuel of suckers

Click for more on Barack Obama's ethanol interests

The corporate agriculture ethanol hucksters and their mentally challenged suckers supporters are gathered in Omaha this week to further their self-enriching schemes. Read how Nebraska corn liquor is necessary for National Security at Love Global Warming, the old feeder's clean, green ecology blog.
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Addendum: Reason TV has an excellent little video addressing the problems associated with the huge government (read: taxpayer) subsidies the ethanol industry requires. It is titled Silly Senator, Corn is for Food, but is really a serious analysis. The Reason.tv blurb about the video:

Ethanol advocates claim that the biofuel is a cheap, renewable energy source that reduces pollution and our dependence on foreign oil. It sounds too good to be true—and it is.

Ethanol, especially the corn-based variety, is bad for taxpayers, bad for consumers, bad for the environment, and horrible for the world's poor. In fact, even environmentalists are critical of ethanol subsidies these days. The ethanol craze has distorted markets and increased the price of food worldwide. The only people who still support ethanol subsidies are the ethanol producers—and politicians from both sides of the aisle. Together, they make sure the subsidies keep coming.

In a recent interview about the current food crisis, Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa) said, "If part of our problem is that the Chinese are going to eat meat and you've got to have corn and soybeans to feed the Chinese their meat, then why isn't it just as legitimate for the Chinese to go back and eat rice as it is for us to change our policy on corn to ethanol?"

Let them eat rice? So that American taxpayers can continue to pay people to turn corn into fuel?

Silly senator, corn is for food.

I got the link from a brand new blog: The Founding Bloggers. Hat tip: Gateway Pundit.
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Update: This ought to make Republicans gag. The GOP will invite anyone into their new, all-inclusive Big Tent.

Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson jabs Iran

Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson, reporting from beleaguered Sderot, Israel, accuses Iran of causing trouble in the region. Not a stretch, since Iran has been supplying the terror rockets the Palestinians have been shooting at Israel. Our man managed to touch an Iranian nerve.

Ben has been at loose ends lately, unable to work up any genuine enthusiasm for Barack Obama's stretch-to-fit platform. Seems Senator Nelson has gone back to what he does best, being a maverick Democrat.

Now if he can just quit flogging ethanol. The damage is already done. Ethanol hasn't helped our energy costs and has wrought havoc on food prices.