Foreign Affairs - How Biofuels Could Starve the Poor - C. Ford Runge and Benjamin SenauerIn 1974, as the United States was reeling from the oil embargo imposed by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Congress took the first of many legislative steps to promote ethanol made from corn as an alternative fuel. On April 18, 1977, amid mounting calls for energy independence, President Jimmy Carter donned his cardigan sweater and appeared on television to tell Americans that balancing energy demands with available domestic resources would be an effort the "moral equivalent of war." The gradual phaseout of lead in the 1970s and 1980s provided an additional boost to the fledgling ethanol industry. (Lead, a toxic substance, is a performance enhancer when added to gasoline, and it was partly replaced by ethanol.) A series of tax breaks and subsidies also helped. In spite of these measures, with each passing year the United States became more dependent on imported petroleum, and ethanol remained marginal at best
Monday December 04th 2006, 8:16 pm “Robert Gates, the former CIA director and Texas A&M University president, is expected to easily win nomination as President Bush’s next defense secretary following a hearing today that is likely to focus on strategies in Iraq,” reports Express-News. Easy nomination, no matter the guy is a criminal, not to mention a blood-thirsty warmongering psychopath. Gates was at the core of the so-called Iran-Contra affair, but then it is business as usual in Washington, as the Bush administration is packed like a sardine tin with Iran-Contra criminals. Lawrence E. Walsh, the independent counsel in the Iran-Contra investigation, knew Gates was lying about his collaboration with fellow criminal, now respected Fox News talking head, Oliver North, the guy who wanted to suspend the Constitution and throw demonstrators in gulags under Rex-84. In 1984, as understudy and protégé of then CIA director-ghoul, William Casey, Gates wanted to bomb the dickens out of Nica
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