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This was on Marketplace this morning. LISA NAPOLI: Today in Ghana, the U.N. Secretary General talked about the effect biofuels are having on food prices around the world and how they could set back world anti-poverty efforts. Fortune magazine's Allan Sloan says lots of people once thought biofuels were going to save the planet. ALLAN SLOAN: I think of it as that movie "I Am Legend," where it starts out with a vaccine to cure cancer, then at the end wipes out most of the planet and turns almost everyone who's left into a flesh-eating zombie. Not quite what they bargained for. And the thing with ethanol and biofuel is that was supposed to be a way to cure the United States', what President Bush called our addiction to oil without anyone having to sacrifice anything. You know you're not raising taxes; you're not driving smaller cars; you're not being more efficient. And, of course, it turns out it's taking so much of the world's crops that it's run up the cost of food all over the world and has not succeeded in any visible way, at least in the United States, at holding down the price of oil. NAPOLI: So, it's kind like taking a pill for a diet or using a machine that's supposedly going to tone you without your having to work. What would have been a better alternative? SLOAN: Well in hindsight, what my children would call a big honking gas tax where you would have put a fairly substantial tax on gasoline and then, because a lot of people really can't afford that, you flow it back to them in the form of an income tax credit. And that way we'd be paying the tax to ourselves instead of paying what is now the largest transfer of wealth from one society to another. And many of the oil producers are not exactly friends of the United States. So, we're helping fund the worldwide campaign against us, and I think we would have been a lot better off with a gas tax. NAPOLI: What do we do now that we've become more dependent on this ethanol? How do we turn back and change directions again? Is it possible even? SLOAN: It's definitely possible. Is it going to happen? It probably wouldn't happen. The idea of ethanol is not a bad idea if you made it out of garbage, something that's already there that you don't have to grow. The idea of growing things to make them into ethanol, it didn't seem to make any sense when I heard about it, except it made political sense. And again, it's not only President Bush, it's also the Democrats, because you didn't see them lining up and saying, "You know, we'd rather have a gas tax." That's Fortune magazine's Allan Sloan. And in Los Angeles, I'm Lisa Napoli. Enjoy the day I think that this year is going to be the start of some real changes in driving habits. The increase has been uncomfortable up to this point. I think that $3.50-$4.00/gal is going to make things unbearable for many. Commutes are costing more, food costs are up by about a third. And on the way home I'm hearing a story about an increased number of people utilizing the food banks. Something's going to have to change.

Good job. Now the poor guy gets the money, which probably would have been his anyway if the rich guy hadn't shut down the factory and shipped it to China. And the rich guy gets to report the loss on his taxes which may be just enough to knock his liability down below zero percent. And if his accountant is any good, he'll get him a government subsidy to not only replace the wallet and the cash (including potential earnings on that money) but also an all expense paid trip on a government plane so that he can shop for the replacement. But not to worry. This is all possible of course because of the rider on the omnibus spending bill under the title of "interim relief stimulus for freedom, patriotism, honor and fairness". And make sure that next time make sure you at least keep a sawbuck for yourself. You can't cruise very far on a fin these days.

I think I recall reading somewhere that the person who drew up the partition never even visited the region. edited to add: My mistake. Radcliffe did travel to the region. He was given five weeks and few resources to come up with the partition. The UN was kept out of it in order to speed things along.

"Can't hurt to try" indeed. At least people are talking, with some notable exceptions of course. Also, if Hamas had killed a Reuters reporter do you think that the incident might have its own article? http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7358188.stm

Just to piss you off even more, let's see how those responsible are dealing with it. http://www.whitehouse.gov/vicepresident/photoessays/outdoors/06.html

I get nervous on the first jump after a few weeks off. I find that checking your gear about 10-50 times on the way to altitude helps And I've found that when I do it that it often spreads around the plane. It looks like a skydiving Macarena.

Isn't that the truth. When I was a kid we had to get up and walk all the way across the room to change the channel on the television. And none of those button things either. You had to turn a KNOB. Sometimes two! And we LIKED IT!

It's not so much the inability to understand the call center guy. It's more along the lines of realizing the domestic outsourcing, foreign insourcing, and subsequent foreign insource/outsource pattern of business that's not only leading to a frustrating phone call, but also to the economic downfall of the American middle class.

Dude, don't ruin it for us. No offense John but the mental image of you in that dress.....well, I'd rather not talk about it.

Nope. I used to watch The Weather Channel, but canceled my cable subscription some time ago. I understand. Good for you. This was a good one though. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmJoyuUJj2Q And, of course, the skydiving episode was fun.

.... but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?

Glad to know that I do what's "best". Not even "Mythbusters"? C'mon man.......fess up. Of course I'll admit that I was disappointed that they couldn't think their way out of the treadmill runway question. Looked like fun though.

My life is simple. When I get hungry, I go to the store and buy something that looks good. When I feel the ground through my shoes I go to the sale rack at the Vans store. I even bought a pair that matched my freefly pants. Dumb luck yet fashionable! But when I REALLY need to know what to buy, I go to the photo/video forum and see what DSE is drooling over. Then I buy last years model because buying the new stuff cuts too deeply into my jump ticket fund. Oh yea, I buy stuff for the kids too. Fortunately they don't watch commercials either. Actually it's pretty funny. My three and a half year old will scream bloody murder if a commercial comes on and he can't find the remote so he can fast forward to the rest of the program.

This reminds me of the case from a couple of years ago, when the UDV church got into trouble for importing hoasca tea (which contains DMT, a Schedule I drug) into the US. They argued that it was used for religious purposes and that to confiscate their tea violated their rights to religious freedom. The case ended up at the Supreme Court, and the Court decided that the UDV could continue using their tea. I am sort of wondering if the FLDS case will end up at the Supreme Court. What exactly does "religious freedom" give people the right to do? If I start my own religion, can I ignore certain aspects of the law and get away with it if I say that it is necessary for practicing my religion? That's an interesting question. I'm guessing that the difference might be related to the identity of the victim of the infraction/crime. If it's a crime against yourself then that's one thing. If it's a crime against another person then that's where the line is drawn. I guessing, but you make a good point. It seems that the judges get to decide if the crime is victimless.

Commercials? What are those? Man oh man, do I love the DVR. I can't even remember the last time that I watched live tv. Television can make you stooopid enough without having to deal with commercials. But thanks for the heads up on the Home Depot ad. Good to know that my investment in a company which makes diabetes monitoring devices has a strong future.

Hm, if single issues ruin your world you are in for one miserable existance That was only one issue, hence the term "alone". But dealing with that "single issue", how many aspects of your life are affected by that "single issue"? Nearly all of them? You might as well be telling a fish to get over his miserable water centric existence.

That's a tough one to answer for a number of reasons. I do think that it's in our national interest for promote a healthy and well educated society so I don't have a problem with the idea of our Federal government being involved. I think that a single payer system would probably work most efficiently. The problem with that though is that the government typically does a lousy job of running things efficiently. But if you leave it to the market then profit becomes more important that the quality of health care. Then of course you have the marriage of the market and our government and you get what we have today, which is an inefficient private sector operation that is hitched to the tit to the Federal government with the goal of maximizing profits, often at the expense of the health and wealth of the taxpayer. But to address the question somewhat, the activity in question was criminal. My first instinct would be to put the burden on those responsible first, and then look to the taxpayer in a last effort to provide the necessary care. That's not unlike how I feel about "sick" too-big-to-fail corporations. I think that those who caused the illness should be held accountable first. Then, after the golden parachutes are collected, the tax money can be used to keep the "patient" from causing damage to our society. I'm still working this one out. Complete government control doesn't work. Complete market control doesn't work. Like most things, the answer lies somewhere in the middle.

At least one of the problems you mentioned has a solution. I switched to Mac last November. Vista made me do it. I'll admit, that won't solve all your problems but it makes one big one go away. I don't want to sound like one of those smug Mac users but I will give you an example. I had a physical hard drive failure. The Macbook is still under warranty so they stuck a new HD in for free. It comes pre-loaded with the OS. I turn it on, click through three or four questions, hook up my external drive and 30 minutes later the machine is restored to precisely the configuration I had before the physical failure. Freakin' amazing. No blue screens. No dozen or so re-boots. No digging through the internet for drivers. I didn't even have to touch one disk. None of that crap that I'm used to. The only problem was that I used that time to grab a glass of wine and sit with my wife while we watched that stupid crap on TV that you were talking about.

I think you're on to something. We could call it "crapitalism".

I'm pretty sure that the LDS do not condone incest, so why should they pick up the tab? I honestly don't know that they should but it seems a better argument than putting it on the taxpayer. Maybe it's some notion I have about silent complicity, along the lines of the Catholic church and sex abuse accountability. Just thinking out loud. Don't know if it's right.

Yea, but I get all confused when the parents and the kids are the same people. I guess you could look on the bright side. When you invite your husband, father, brother and uncle over to dinner you may only need a table for two. Ok, now that's just icky.

I'm probably being too simplistic but why not have these folks pick up the tab?

No kidding? People in Iowa are happy with the state of the Nation? Maybe I'm out of touch but I assumed that the price of diesel alone in your neck of the woods might make a few of your neighbors less than euphoric.

Fair enough. My only issue is that I don't think he needs to make an explanation in the first place. Unless he wants to explain the reason for the pressures put on the workers who he was referring to. As a sidebar, attitudes that I consider "condescending" or "elitist" would include: a) not knowing that the price of gas was high b) saying "So!" when it's pointed out that your war policies have a disapproval rating of over 80% c) looking at displaced, poverty stricken disaster victims and stating "this is working very well for them".

He seems like a Presidential candidate who has a tendency to know what's going on and talks straight about it. That alone shows that he is indeed the candidate of change that he claims to be. I'm starting to like him even more. Are you telling me that you prefer him to be more PC, shoveling empty praise instead of acknowledging the "hard truths" that the noise machine has been demanding for years?