Ethanol production has driven up the prices of corn-fed livestock, such as beef, chicken and dairy products, and products made from corn, such as cereals. As a result of higher demand for corn, other grain prices, such as soybean and wheat, have risen dramatically. The fact that the U.S. is the world's largest grain producer and exporter means that the ethanol-induced higher grain prices will have a worldwide impact on food prices.

It's easy to understand how the public, looking for cheaper gasoline, can be taken in by the call for increased ethanol usage. But politicians, corn farmers and ethanol producers know they are running a cruel hoax on the American consumer. They are in it for the money. The top leader in the ethanol hoax is Archer Daniels Midland (ADM), the country's largest producer of ethanol. Ethanol producers and the farm lobby have pressured farm state congressmen into believing that it would be political suicide if they didn't support subsidized ethanol production. That's the stick. Campaign contributions play the role of the carrot.

Hate crimes "are different" from other crimes: That was the argument for hate-crimes laws that Al Gore made during the 2000 campaign, and it is the argument that we are going to hear again this week, as Congress takes up federal legislation on the subject. Crimes motivated by hostility to the victim’s race, gender, religion, or sexual orientation are said to be different chiefly because they, supposedly, instill fear in entire communities and generate social division.

Even if this generalization is true -- and it is not obvious that it is -- it should not end our thought about hate. There is no evidence that adding hate-crimes laws on top of regular criminal laws does anything to deter these acts. Nor is there any evidence that federal action is needed. Most states already have hate-crimes laws; the federal government has a hate-crimes law that applies to victims who were engaged in federally protected activities, such as holding rallies.

The proposed legislation would allow the federal government to investigate and prosecute hate crimes, whether or not federally protected activities were involved, and to assist local law enforcement in fighting them. But there is no evidence that local law enforcement has a special need for federal resources to help it combat hate crimes. 

Mr. Bush doesn't intend all the catastrophic consequences of his simple decision to offer legislation to regulate carbon emission. But then, by this point he should be quite familiar with the concept of unintended consequences. And he needs to recognize that he cannot pass "sensible "legislation. (I have serious doubts that any legislation on this topic could be sensible.)

All he can do is set the stage for next year's legislation, by giving away the rhetorical store and weakening the already modest backbone of Republican legislators. The liberal world order will not let go of their global-warming assault on free economies until hell freezes over -- by which point, obviously, the global-warming theory will be visibly disproven.

These narrowly-defined excise taxes -- which are always supposed to fund some new government initiative aimed at solving the problems created by the thing being taxed -- aggravate me a great deal because they never work.  Much like "sin" taxes levied on booze and tobacco, rarely do they result in a reduction in the use of the product or service being taxed.  And if they do that usually only prompts government bureaucrats to demand new sources of revenue to continue funding whatever initiative it is they started with the original tax’s revenues. 

The Bush administration's Homeland Security regime, a massive anti-terrorism overkill that continues to burden Americans with excess regulation (and Canadians with border paralysis), may not be cost effective, but it appears to be the model for the U.S. government's assault on the financial markets.

In the wake of 9/11, George W. Bush had the U.S. government consolidate scores of agencies into one big Department of Homeland Security. The result, by most accounts, has been a dysfunctional operation that, among other things, created an expensive bureaucracy that may or may not have been instrumental in securing U.S. borders. The indirect economic costs -- in lost border trade and efficiency -- would far exceed the direct billions spent screening trade and travel.

If it didn't work well the first time, let's try it again. Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson plans to bring the same thinking to police financial markets as Homeland Security brought to policing terrorism. Hit the problem with massive regulatory intervention, consolidate scores of existing agencies, and build a new, costly and more interventionist regime.