The government got it wrong again. Ethanol produced from corn, or any other substance, is not the answer to the world fuel shortage and the high prices the shortage generates. An MSNBC article and a Fox News column fill in the details. Using corn for fuel is not expected to alleviate the fuel shortage, but it has and is expected to continue to cause a world food shortage. Some even say that we should start hoarding nonperishable foods.

This is a prime example of what can happen when the government interferes in the market. Without the government ethanol mandates and subsidies the diversion of corn from food to fuel would not have proceeded at the current pace and we wouldn’t be facing a food crisis.

On the other side of the coin the federal and state governments are shutting off cheaper sources of fuel and other energy. They are restricting the exploration and development of new oil supplies and are restricting the building of new nuclear power plants. They won’t allow us to tap the massive supply of oil in the lower Gulf of Mexico because some Florida beach might get a few dark spots. All the presidential candidates have said they won’t allow the extraction of the huge oil reserves from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge because it might upset a few animals.

What good is a pristine stretch of beach in Florida if you can’t afford to drive there to enjoy it? How much food can you grow on a white sand beach? The Florida tourism economy is likely to be hurt as much by high fuel prices as spoiled beaches. Do you think the ANWR animals might choose to learn to live with a few oil wells and pipelines rather than be slaughtered for food?

We should be reducing government interference in energy, food and other markets instead of calling for more controls. National and world markets are too complex for a few officials to be able to manage them effectively. Consider the orange juice market. The Juice Authority sets the price of a gallon of OJ at X dollars. The JA then has to (1) issue a specification for the quality of OJ to prevent its producers from watering it down, (2) establish an inspection agency to see that the specification is met, (3) set prices for the oranges and other supplies that are needed to produce the OJ, (4) set prices for the seed, fertilizer and equipment needed by the orange growers, (5) set prices for the supplies needed by the orange growers’ suppliers, and on and on down the chain.

So, setting the price of OJ means that the price of steel must also be set, because it is needed to build the equipment used by the orange growers. The price of fuel must be set, because it is used in large quantities by the orange growers and the truckers that haul the oranges to the OJ producer’s plant. If all these and other prices aren’t set correctly the OJ production process will break down and no more OJ will be produced — unless Congress also gives the JA the additional power to force the OJ producer and all the suppliers to continue the process at a loss. Then we have socialism in all its faded glory. And this is what Barack Obama wants to give us if he becomes President.

According to Walter Williams, the state nannies in California are preparing to control your thermostats for you:

The California Energy Commission has recently proposed amendments to its standards for energy efficiency. These standards include a requirement that any new or modified heating or air conditioning system must include a programmable communicating thermostat (PCT) whose settings can be remotely controlled by government authorities. A thermostat czar, sitting in Sacramento, would be empowered to remotely reduce the heating or cooling of your house during what he deems as an “emergency event.”

Building more nuclear power plants would negate the need for such an intrusive measure. But that’s not what governments want. They want greater need for their meddling.

Get ready for the next huge scam — like that of ethanol — to be perpetrated on the American people. Why do I know it’s a scam? Because it has to be forced on us by an Act of Congress. Congress forced ethanol on us and now they are about to force CFLs on us. If CFLs or ethanol are as great as they are claimed to be why wouldn’t the free market usher them into universal usage? The truth is that they aren’t as great as the claims.

USA Today reports on a bill now being pushed through the Senate that President Bush has said he will sign. It sets a timetable for phasing in energy savings in light bulbs. Comparing fluorescent and incandescent bulb energy costs, it says that a fluorescent bulb “saves about $5 a year in electricity costs, paying for itself in as little as four months.”

Although they don’t say so, apparently that claim is based on burning the bulbs constantly for a year. Otherwise it doesn’t make any sense. Its obvious that a bulb that’s only on for two hours a year is not going to save $5 a year in power costs. The lights in my boathouse are turned on about once a month and only stay on about 10 minutes each time. The lights in my detached garage aren’t on much longer. But Congress is going to force me to pay four times as much for these bulbs in order to save maybe about two cents a year in energy costs.

I tried CFLs and found two deficiencies so far. They don’t last as long as claimed and they don’t work too well outdoors on cold nights. And there’s the disposal issue. We aren’t supposed to just throw them in the trash because they contain mercury. Does this mean we have to get another recycle basket and have another big truck lumbering down our street each week?

How long before Congress tells us what color to paint our walls? After all, a room with white walls doesn’t need as much light wattage as the same room with darker walls.

Update: A commenter has pointed out that new problems with CFLs have surfaced. Some people with certain skin sensitivities have found that fluorescent light exacerbates the condition. And it has been found that the CFLs can cause migraines and increase the risk of seizures in people with epilepsy. See the comments for a link to a BBC article.

Yep, the nanny state is on the job; it saved me from myself today. I ventured out with reckless abandon (at least I learned later that it was with reckless abandon) this morning on a trip to the local Lowe’s Home Improvement store to purchase a couple of doors for the new garage I’m building. But that’s not the reckless part; the reckless part was that I intended to purchase and install doors with those nice sunset style windows across the top. But that is not going to happen. The Lowe’s clerk informed me that the state doesn’t allow them to sell garage doors with windows, and the state doesn’t allow me to install them. Silly me. I thought that how I decorated my garage doors would be pretty much up to me and my wife.

Why am I not allowed to have windows in my garage doors? Because I live in a designated 130-140 mph hurricane wind zone. I live about 25 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico in Northwest Florida. Some bureaucrat has decided that it’s too dangerous for me to have the windows. Never mind that in my 67 year lifetime there have never been hurricane winds of more than about 110 mph where I live. Never mind that my garage is not even attached to my house. Never mind that no one is going to seek refuge in my garage during a hurricane. Never mind that well over half the garage doors in my town have windows. Never mind that it is alright with the state if I don’t even put doors on my garage. Never mind that it is alright with the state if people build carports with no walls. Never mind that it is alright with the state if I climb to the top of a tall tree to ride out a hurricane. Somehow the state has decided that it is just too risky for me to have that attractive row of windows across the top of my garage doors.

I tried to figure out the lobbying angle with this prohibition. Most building restrictions result from some trade group or company lobbying the legislature or the bureaucrats for rulings that will benefit them. But it’s not clear how that would play here; garage doors without windows cost less than doors with windows. I suppose it could be the insurance industry wanting to avoid some window replacement costs.

Fox News reports:

An 8-year-old boy expecting to catch a plane home is denied entry for appearing on a terrorist no-fly list, reported MyFoxKansasCity.com.

Bryan Moore was set to catch his first plane trip when he arrived at an airport in Cortez, Colorado to fly home after visiting his sister, said the report.

“They almost got me scheduled in and then the lady just bowed her head and said, ‘We can’t get you on this plane, you’re a terrorist,’” Moore said.

…

“It’s not really fair that I couldn’t get home because another man in the world was a terrorist,” Moore said.

Great Lake Airlines eventually cleared up the situation, but the plane had already left, making him wait another day to come home.

It seems that the soon-to-be third grader has more common sense than anyone at the Transportation Security Administration or Great Lake Airlines. How can an airline official not quickly conclude that the Bryan Moore on the no-fly list must be a different Bryan Moore than the 8-year-old Bryan Moore trying to board an airplane? Does Great Lake Airlines use robots as gate keepers?

Why would the TSA even put the name Bryan Moore on a no-fly list without further identification? There must be hundreds of people named Bryan Moore in this country. There is at least one in my small town. In fact, he lives just down the road from me. Perhaps I should keep my eye on him.

I suspect that the reason the TSA puts any name on the no-fly list is to cover their asses; if someone named Bryan Moore blows up an airplane they can say that we were warned. They can’t possibly believe that it will deter a determined terrorist. Almost all terrorism incidents are perpetrated by young (but usually not 8-year-old) middle eastern men. Not many of them are named Bryan Moore. Middle eastern people seem to change their names with the weather anyway; when you read about some middle eastern suspect he usually has several aliases.

To be effective, and to prevent stupid inconveniences, a no-fly list has to contain more about the person than just a name. The approximate age of the person is a no-brainer. Lacking a photograph a physical description would be helpful: dark hair, swarthy complexion, angry eyes — in other words, looks like a terrorist. If the TSA doesn’t have more information about a person than just a name, the name shouldn’t be on the list.

Steven Milloy asks that question in a column at FoxNews.com. He quotes studies that found the number of deaths per year attributable to the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards range from 1,300 to 3,900. The CAFE standards force auto manufacturers to build lighter cars and trucks in order to achieve the required lower mileage rates. The lighter cars and trucks result in higher numbers of fatalities and injuries from accidents.

The fatality rate from the CAFE standards is higher than the fatality rate among the American military in the Iraq war. Do you see any liberals lining up to protest President Bush’s proposal to increase the CAFE gasoline mileage requirements? Liberals apparently don’t mind if large numbers of Americans die for a cause as long as it is their cause.

In following the Alabama Free Militia thing I noticed that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms is apparently now called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.  How long will it take for it to become the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, Explosives, Crossbows, Bows, Arrows, Knives, Clubs and Sharp Sticks?

Senator Mel Martinez vows to fight a proposal to drill for oil and natural gas off Florida’s coast. Here is his press release:

March 13, 2007 – Washington, DC – U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-FL) today issued the following statement in response to the announcement of a new effort to open oil and natural gas drilling off of Florida’s coastline. Senators Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Larry Craig (R-ID) have announced legislation to open offshore drilling as close as 45 miles to Florida’s coast, including Cuban waters for U.S. competition.

Senator Martinez said:  “This is bad policy. It attacks Florida’s protections, it violates the embargo with Cuba, and it would put drilling rigs in the Gulf military training area. This proposal goes back on everything the Congress dealt with last year – everything we did to create a long-term buffer for Florida. I will fight this proposal every step of the way.”

The bad policy is Martinez’s ‘not in my back yard’ policy. Florida uses oil and natural gas so why shouldn’t it bear it’s share of the burden of producing it? There’s a lot of talk about becoming less dependent on oil from the middle-eastern countries but very little action.

How many people want an embargo with Cuba to stand in the way of less expensive fuel? Does Martinez think that relations with Cuba are more important than the availability of energy?

The “Gulf military training area” is not a critical issue. The military can continue most of the training and testing exercises in the presence of oil rigs and move the others farther into the Gulf. Anyway, the Air Force wants to move much of the testing now done at Eglin AFB to California.

Most of those who oppose off-shore drilling say that it will spoil the beautiful coastline. They talk about the chance of oil spills and the ugly, polluting industry that supports the drilling and processes the oil and gas from the off-shore wells. They want you to believe that all the tourists that now visit Florida will immediately leave and never return if we allow the oil and gas industry to come in. This is just a smokescreen for their real agenda: thwarting all new industrialization in general and energy production in particular. I say ‘energy production in particular’ because it supports other industries.

Florida also discourages on-shore drilling. An exploration company is planning to drill a well here in Northwest Florida about 25 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico. A company representative told me that they have encountered a lot of roadblocks in the state permitting process. He said that process has become one of the major expenses in exploring for new oil and gas fields in Florida.

(Full disclosure: I have a very small financial interest in the proposed inland well. My only interest in the off-shore drilling is to keep oil and gas available at the lowest possible prices.)

Yesterday I wrote about how majority rule might not always be in our best interest. Today I have a real-life example here in my local area. Twenty-five years ago South Walton County was lightly developed, even along the shore of the Gulf of Mexico. That was about the time that Janet Reeves and Dave Hillgenberg opened their businesses on US Highway 98. Reeves operates a gift shop and Hillgenberg operates a glass and mirror service.

Fast-forward to today and you find a thriving retirement and tourist community of hotels, resorts, restaurants, condominiums, vacation homes and supporting businesses — most of them along US Highway 98. Since South Walton had ‘progressed’ from mostly pine forests and sand to an upscale community where many of the homes are priced in the millions, the majority of the new residents decided that businesses should abide by certain standards of appearance. This majority also decided that these standards of appearance would be retroactive — that no exceptions would be made for small businesses like those of Reeves and Hillgenberg. Never mind that the new standards would place a serious burden on their bottom line.

One could argue that the intent of such standards is just that: to drive businesses that don’t measure up out of business. The tax structure already achieves that end — intentional or not. As property values increase, property taxes increase, and at some point some types of low volume businesses are unable to generate a profit. The proprietors are then forced to sell to a more profitable business. And they can’t always depend on getting what their property is really worth. For example, it might be a very small piece of property sandwiched between two much larger properties. If neither of the adjoining businesses want it, who else is going to buy it?

Anyway, back to Janet and Dave. They sued the county arguing that the “scenic corridor guidelines designed to give the area a uniform look” should not apply to them. They lost. A federal judge said neither Reeves nor Hillgenberg had enough evidence to make their case. The judge apparently believes that their businesses can be sacrificed in order to give the area a uniform look. Since when is a ‘uniform look’ a valid public interest?

Yes, Reeves and Hillgenberg probably could have made the required changes in the appearance of their businesses for the money they spent on the suit, but I applaud them for not doing so. What will this country be like in fifty years if everyone caves to the tyranny of the majority? How long before Starbucks wants your house?

Last night on The O’Reilly Factor Bill was discussing the problems the airlines are having with luggage delivery. New security restrictions are causing more passengers to check their luggage instead of carrying it with them in the cabin. This has caused the airlines to lose so much luggage that some travelers are shipping their luggage through Fedex rather than risk it with the airlines. Bill’s solution: More government regulation of the airlines!

He said that the airlines are focusing on the most lucrative routes and are, therefore, neglecting most of the less lucrative routes. If I were a shareholder in an airline I would certainly hope that is what they’re doing. The airlines are businesses, not social services.

I agree with O’Reilly on most of his positions but on some he is just out there. Perhaps he takes an occasional sip of that Kool-Aid that he likes to talk about. How he could think that the government could manage air travel more efficiently than the free market is beyond me. Cheap air travel is not a right. If people want to travel the less lucrative routes and have their luggage delivered on time they will just have to pay more.

O’Reilly’s belief that ‘Big Oil’ is an elaborate conspiracy to keep gasoline prices high is another one of his strange ideas. He wants the government to regulate the oil industry. How about the news media Bill? Do you want the government to regulate that? Do you think we would get more reliable opinions from you if you were government regulated?