Freedom From Fast Food

Two months ago we heard Obama say roughly the same thing, "we can't eat what we want..." Now, L.A. blocks fast-food outlets from opening in poor areas.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - The Los Angeles City Council has approved a one-year moratorium on new fast-food restaurants in a low-income area of the city.

The moratorium unanimously approved Tuesday is a bid to attract restaurants that offer healthier food choices to residents in a 32-square-mile area of South Los Angeles.

Councilwoman Jan Perry says residents at five public meetings expressed concern with the proliferation of fast-food outlets in the community plagued by above-average rates of obesity.

Nearly three-quarters of the restaurants in South L.A. are fast-food outlets. That's a higher percentage than other parts of the city but the restaurant industry says the moratorium won't help bring in alternatives.

Ineffectual bums. Somehow getting restaurants that serve arugula will end crime, decrease drug use and bring back jobs? Maybe forcing restaurants out of poor people's neighborhoods is not a good idea? Like ethanol mandates, this is a plan full of unintended consequences and another dodge by worthless politicians who have no clue what they are doing. Big government advocates always speak of freedom from rather than freedom to - and this is a classic example.

Ethanol Mandate Update

More from the files of good intentions and unintended consequences.

Here is the chart for corn since the ethanol blending madate went into effect.

LINK TO CHART

The 2005 energy bill mandated that 4 billion gal­lons of renewable fuel (mostly corn-based ethanol) must be added to the gasoline supply in 2006. That amount rises to 4.7 billion gallons for 2007 and 7.5 billion in 2012. These targets represent a large per­centage increase in ethanol use but are still only a small fraction of the 140 billion gallons of gasoline that the U.S. currently uses every year.

Heritage Foundation

G-8 Energy Ministers: Hatch a plan to make it worse

So the G-8 got together and invited Russia, China, and India to talk about world energy demands, production and the soaring prices of the last 6 years. Their conclusion? We need SPECTRE Industries to build us 45 trillion dollars worth of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) units to suck carbon dioxide out of the air. The IEA (International Energy Agency - part of the UN) has determined that even though they can't quantify any cause and effect, it's time to move forward with the plan to make energy and the cost of living a lot more expensive. No one could foresee any unintended consequences with that idea....

Reuters sums up the G-8 energy ministers problem:

Caught between mounting popular discontent at home and the need to invest billions in greener energy to cut world carbon emissions, the G8 ministers offered few new ideas for heads of state to consider at their summit next month.

Not a single mention in the article about nuclear power. Not a single mention that the restrictive EU and US energy development policies that prevents additional energy development. And not a single mention of the huge run up in energy use by China and India. But hey, we have this great plan to make things worse!

The little guy is going to get crushed as these bureaucrats play with these energy markets over the next decade.

And here's the winner for the take home message.

"...but oil prices have carried on rising as investors rush into commodities as a hedge against the dollar's fall and inflation."

"In the end, some ministers conceded they were powerless to fight the flow of financial capital."

Capital is flowing into energy markets because these morons are making it a no-lose proposition - not as a "hedge" to the US dollar. With this logic, the run up in food prices could be seen as a hedge against the end of the Atkins diet instead of the horrible decision to force corn into our gas tanks.

So, they can't do anything positive, but can make things worse? Sounds like a typical UN meeting.