Unfortunately, dear Haemet readers, you’re stuck with me as a guest-blogger until Tieki  unearths herself from a pile of books, which is sometime in the middle of June. 

For your gastronomical pleasure: Chicago has ended its ban on foie gras.

The House passed a $300 farm bill by a veto-proof margin.  President Bush has promised to veto it, preferring taxpayers not to pay for both pork and wheat.  For those keeping track at home, the farm bill is more than double the annual cost of the Iraq War… and these crops haven’t established rape rooms, put kids in jail, or made mass graves.  Note that Nancy Pelosi has implicitly acknowledged that biofuels (specifically, corn-based ethanol) are a disaster:

 She said the measure would help lower food prices and contribute to making the United States less dependent on foreign oil by providing a tax credit for refineries that produce a new generation of biofuels made from grasses, wood and other non-corn sources.

Is anyone seriously saying that, in the days of $4/gallon gasoline, you need an economic incentive to produce fuel? 

Moving right along: India blames the United States for rising food prices.  As a point of logic, the United States may be responsible for a lot of things, but it hasn’t changed much in the past few years (except for the aforementioned biofuel debacle); therefore, anything that has changed is not the responsibility of Americans.  A quick complaint:

[Pradeep S. Mehta] added, archly, that the money spent in the United States on liposuction to get rid of fat from excess consumption could be funneled to feed famine victims.

Possibly… if those who spent their own money on liposuction would instead send it to Africa.  This is not “American” money that the United States Government may dispose of as it pleases, nor is it money that is rightfully the property of the neediest in the world.  It is the property of the people who earned it, who may dispose of it as they please.  Without the ability to spend their money as they wish - frivolously or wisely - people will not have an incentive to earn money.