Treason and Starvation

The Beer: Saison is kegged, the Pike Tandem Clone is nearly ready for the secondary.

The Bicycle: Too cold to go out, too wet to play ball, so we sat in the house, we did nothing at all. (with appropriate thanks to Dr. Seuss)

The VRWC: More insanity from the Obama Administration.

This one, in another time would be called "treason".

"If a non-nuclear weapons state is in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty and its obligations, the U.S. pledges not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against it," Gates said. If, however, such a state were to use chemical or biological weapons against the U.S. or its allies, "it would face the prospect of a devastating conventional," or non-nuclear, military response.

I have a fundamental disagreement over the policy itself, but more troubling is the willingness to broadcast US defense strategy to the world. There are plenty of countries wishing us harm who are in "compliance". The only thing keeping them from doing so is the prospect of nuclear annihilation. Does the President expect that suddenly they will be all warm and fuzzy with us because we won't obliterate them if attacked? I also believe this broadcasts to our nuclear-armed enemies and, more importantly countries like Iran and NoKo that the US is weak and does not have the political will to "press the button". I also believe that to be true. This administration will not use nuclear weapons under any circumstances and we are currently "sitting ducks". This is a madness much greater than MAD. By the way, we have also abandoned anti-ballistic defense.

The second part of this is equally mad, but not from a foreign enemy. EPA believes we need more ethanol in our tanks. 50% more, in fact. Instead of 10%ethanol in auto fuel, EPA Head (My name's not 'baby', it's Lisa, Ms.) Jackson wants 15% ethanol in your car. This idea is ludicrous and dangerous. It is ludicrous in that ethanol does nothing to improve gas mileage or air quality.

Ethanol's environmental credentials are further weakened by its inefficiency as a fuel. Higher ethanol concentration will reduce the gas mileage of America's cars across the board by 5.3 percent.

As the article states, remember MTBE?

The dangerous side of this is that ethanol is corn-based. This means more acreage will be converted to corn for ethanol and less will be available to provide food for humans and animals (where's PETA on this?). Expect food prices to jump the same way they did two summers ago and fuel will be up over $3.50 per gallon. Also expect "Big Oil" and (alleged) AGW to take the blame.