Pa(b)st, you continue to amaze and entertain with your 'grain' of truth posts, however misguided they may be.
The truth here is that ethyl alcohol from corn was not a sinister idea, but it was an incredibly stupid idea considering that one of justifications was our dependence on foreign energy.
(Wait a minute! Perhaps, You and I are both wrong. It was indeed sinister considering that ethyl alcohol from corn was known all along to yield a negligible to negative energy balance. The calculations were simply ignored, just as your buddy neocons ignored the intelligence reports on Iraq that ran counter to their mindset. Using a process with negligible to negative btu balance to produce ethyl alcohol makes no sense whatsoever if the goal is to reduce our dependence on imported energy. To ignore that fact is indeed sinister.)
Cuba, which is close enough to build an undersea pipeline, produces prodigous amounts of sugar cane, which yields a very nice positive energy balance when used to produce ethyl alcohol. We could establish a win-win trade relationship with Cuba by importing ethanol in exchange for US produced exports, and help both of our economies.
To those who think mass transport will never catch on in the US, let me say that $5/gallon gas will go a long way toward proving them wrong. Too bad we let our private rail system go to hell and gave up thousands of miles of rail right-of-way. It is vastly more energy efficient to move goods and people by rail than it is by automobile or airplane.
As a capitalist i am forced to admit that on occasion capitalism sucks.