All hail, Al Gore!!

Here's the kind of news that will have you shaking your head:

Anyone who opposes ethanol subsidies, as these columns have for decades, comes to appreciate the wisdom of St. Jude. But now that a modern-day patron saint—St. Al of Green—has come out against the fuel made from corn and your tax dollars, maybe this isn't such a lost cause.

Welcome to the college of converts, Mr. Vice President. "It is not a good policy to have these massive subsidies for first-generation ethanol," Al Gore told a gathering of clean energy financiers in Greece this week. The benefits of ethanol are "trivial," he added, but "It's hard once such a program is put in place to deal with the lobbies that keep it going."

No kidding, and Mr. Gore said he knows from experience: "One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for President."

Mr. Gore's mea culpa underscores the degree to which ethanol has become a purely political machine: It serves no purpose other than re-electing incumbents and transferring wealth to farm states and ethanol producers. Nothing proves this better than the coincident trajectories of ethanol and Mr. Gore's career.

Oh, how nice. Mr. Gore now sees the light while the American taxpayer gets to foot the bill for years to come for another environmental pipe dream gone sour. Somehow I doubt that this new revelation by Gore will spur Greens to be a little more skeptical about adopting and advocating every earth saving idea that comes down the pike. Environmentalism is a religion that does not tolerate free thought or dissent.

Hot Air From Al Gore

Mr. Scaremonger is at it again. This time he's spewing more of his usual apocalyptic diatribe in Copenhagen. Mr. Gore outrageously claimed that a recent study predicted that the North Pole could be completely free of ice by sometime in the next decade. Unfortunately for Mr. Gore, the author of the study rejected Mr. Gore's wild conclusion.

The Global Warming Mafia Strong-arms Against Dissent

What many who are skeptical of Al Gore's "Global Warming" hysteria have been complaining about turns out to have some teeth: The scientific consensus that climate change advocates tout has been achieved unethically by silencing dissent.

Your Tax Dollars Are Paying for Finnish Cars!!

Thank you, Al Gore:

WASHINGTON -- A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529 million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.

The awards to Fisker and Tesla have prompted concern from companies that have had their bids for loans rejected, and criticism from groups that question why vehicles aimed at the wealthiest customers are getting loans subsidized by taxpayers.

"This is not for average Americans," said Leslie Paige, a spokeswoman for Citizens Against Government Waste, an anti-tax group in Washington. "This is for people to put something in their driveway that is a conversation piece. It's status symbol thing."

Sweet! Be a Democratic contributor and get to stick your hand in the taxpayer trough! So now my taxes (and yours, dear reader) are going to benefit some Finnish eco-car company because Al Gore has convinced enough lemmings that the global apocalypse is nigh. Arrrggh!

But this also highlights some of the folly of having government, through tax payer funds, attempt to pick winners and losers in a market. In this case it's electric cars. Invariably, taxpayer dollars are going to go where taxpayers probably would not have wanted it to end up--in the hands of foreign capitalists trying to make a buck on our dime.

I still can't get over Al Gore, though. That fat cat is sitting pretty. He probably rubs his Nobel every night before he goes to sleep.

Global Warming?

Note to Al Gore: You Can Stop Now - Mission Accomplished.

"Al Gore is our savior!"

Al Gore called for congress not to overturn a federal ban on offshore drilling recently. If congress had any collective wit about them, they should immediately dismiss his comments as the rantings of an unrealistic lunatic.

Mr. Gore seems to be living in a parallel universe where the average American can afford to chuck over $4 and more for a gallon of gasoline for lord knows how long--I guess until the miracle of “alternative energy” comes along full bore in 10, 15 years or more? Mr. Gore is a multi-millionaire with nary a worry about the effects of paying higher prices for energy. If ushering the era of a carbonless economy means bankrupting middle class Americans, then so be it: To indirectly suggest that Americans must sacrifice in order to usher in his radical vision of the new era--the “green” nirvana--strikes me as callous arrogance. Mr Gore suffers from a misplaced messianic complex.