Gore now agrees about corn ethanol:

Giving yet another speech on foreign soil (Athens this time) critical of the US, Al Gore came clean on corn ethanol.  I’ll give him credit for admitting it, though to do so takes a lot of gall and now requires a rebuke by as many as possible.  Al Gore now agrees it is a mistake to pursue corn ethanol.  He even admits he supported it for political reasons related to his run for Presidency and his need to lock up Iowa and his home state of Tennessee.  For those of us who have opposed US subsidies for corn farmers to produce ethanol from the get go, it’s enough to bring a smile to your face it if weren’t such a good example of poor policy and a waste of billions of tax payer dollars.  Why has Gore changed his mind?  He has come to recognize the energy outputs are not justified by the energy inputs, and he has come to realize it isn’t a good idea to use our food supply for our fuel supply.  He admits inflationary pressure on food prices is in good part related to the move towards corn based ethanol.  41 percent of the US corn crop will go to production of ethanol.  I’ve always said, if Iowa weren’t the first state on the Presidential election calendar we wouldn’t have corn ethanol.  We should recognize the mistake, and bring an end to federal subsidies for corn based ethanol. 

Durham, NC officially accepting Mexican Consular ID cards as valid:

Oh no!  Another American city run by Democrats caves in.  There are a handful of valid issues to be concerned about related to the survival of the American Republic.  This is one of them.  Without well defined and defended citizenship, with the requisite benefits which accrue to citizens, there would be no America.  Citizenship has been watered down deliberately since the passage of the Immigration Reform Act of 1965, and the rise of multiculturalism as an organizing principle for a society.  Many cities across America have agreed to allow Mexican Consular ID’s to be acceptable when Mexican nationals come into contact with American civil authorities and agencies.  Mexican Consular offices dot the American landscape from coast-to-coast.  For now the trend is dominated by the Mexicans.  It won’t long remain that way unless we do something to stop it soon.  Non-citizens given the rights as citizens is not a recipe for national unity.  The implication of this spreading policy is that all the worlds people are US citizens in waiting.  In waiting until they decide to come here and avail themselves of the privileges of US citizenship without having done anything to earn it.

Airport screening:

You’ve heard about the new screening measures at our nations airports?  Submit to being viewed basically naked by a machine manned by an unseen stranger, or be touched and felt by a stranger.  I just can’t decide.  Where do we go from here?  What is going to happen if the next terrorist bomber attempts a mid air explosion by hiding the explosive in their rectum?  The US government has gone way out of bounds when it comes to airport security.  What motivates this move?  Political correctness.  A complete unwillingness to utilize profiling techniques has ruined air travel in America, and for those who must fly by air or who are willing to, they give up significant degrees of their own personal freedom and privacy.  Are we sure what we are doing now is making air travel safer?

GM IPO:

It’s hard not to admit that GM’s emergence from bankruptcy and the reception of their IPO was well done and well received.  For now anyway, time will tell.  Be that as it may, for those who were fond of the “Government Motors” moniker, and refused to buy GM shares or products because the US government took a stake, what will they do now that more than one foreign government, including China, has taken a stake in GM?  Is it OK for foreign governments to own GM?  What of foreign governments that own or subsidize their auto sector, should those cars be bought by Americans?  I’m guessing the hypocrisy here is a bit thick.  We should always be willing to buy domestic over foreign, even if the US government is involved.  Industrial policy (gov’t subsidy/assistance) related to the private sector, long practiced by Germany, France, Japan, S. Korea, China, Singapore, Brazil, is something the US has and can benefit from.

Deficit commission trial balloon:

President Obama’s deficit commission released a preliminary report last week, kind of like a trial balloon, for how to balance the budget and reduce our national debt.  How typically political from a political group.  A few things caught everyone’s attention; raising the retirement age painfully slowly, eliminating the home mortgage deduction, big cuts in defense.  The commission will go back to work having gauged the response from policy makers and the public, make the necessary tweaks, and release their report in late December.  There is one problem:  the recommendations don’t match the problem.  This plan doesn’t attempt to reverse a trend and bring balance, but rather to simply stem the bleeding.  This is not sufficient.  This commission, formed to do that which those we elect to Congress should be doing on their own, will be yet another commission motivated by political theatre requirements rather than real outcomes.