WCCO has a particularly inane bit video about E85 that I just want to through up my hands and yell “What the Fuck?” about. Essentially the things that you “need to know”, as their flashy banner calls it, is that the ethanol companies and corn growers are getting a big boost from the push to use E85 and, though extremely badly presented, the percentage of ethanol included in regular unleaded in Minnesota. The particular points are that the ethanol producers are getting a pretty decent tax subsidy and that the corn growers are the ones putting out the ad.

[sarcasm]Wow. I totally never thought the government ever gave money to private companies.[/sarcasm]

What is particularly galling about the presentation is that this subsidy for a reasonable energy program is being presented alongside the subsidy that we will all be paying for the new Twins baseball stadium! What I got out of the comparison is that the government must be fools for spending 80% of what we are paying for the stadium to try and push a relatively environmentally friendly and more-provably economically helpful enterprise than to give a bunch of millionaires somewhere to run around every day. What total bullshit!