Al Gore Admits Ethanol Bill Was An Error

Energy: Former Vice President Al Gore admitted Monday that his pivotal 1994 Senate vote for ethanol subsidies was bad policy but good politics. That says a lot about the reality of environmentalism in government.
As the ethanol tax credit comes up for renewal in Congress on Dec. 31, it's worth noting it only came about because the vice president cast the decisive 51st vote in favor of it in 1994.
At the time, he packaged it as a big move to preserve the environment in a market-friendly, sustainable manner, and for years defended his vote because it was supposedly good for us.
"The more we can make this home-grown fuel a successful, widely-used product, the better-off our farmers and our environment will be," he recounted in 1998.
Now the real story emerges. On Monday he matter-of-factly told a bankers group in Greece it was actually about helping himself.
"One of the reasons I made that mistake is that I paid particular attention to the farmers in my home state of Tennessee, and I had a certain fondness for the farmers in the state of Iowa because I was about to run for president," the former vice president said.

See the original article for the estimates of what this has cost taxpayers and people who depend on corn for nourishment.

Phosphates in Detergents

Well, I've had it with the eco-terrorists.  As of July there are enough states that outlaw phosphates in detergents that all national brands of detergent have switched to phosphate-free (<0.5%) formulations. And the feds have proposed that the ban become nationwide.  In other words, dish washing detergent is now useless.  There are other solutions in the clothes washer, like pre-wash sprays and borax, that mitigate the problem. But dish washers are no longer functional. Glassware comes out with lip prints on the rims. I'm not talking about lipstick, though I doubt that comes off either.  It doesn't even remove dried saliva!  And stainless steel flatware comes out stained.

New York has gone so far as to ban phosphorus in lawn fertilizer by 2012!  No more flowers or healthy root systems.  13-0-13 doesn't seem to cut it.

This is ludicrous. It won't work, simply because there is no ban on trisodium phosphate (TSP.)  But beware, I have seen a product in hardware stores with the brand name TSP that contains no phosphates! 

So you can add your own TSP (~$3.50 a pound) and use the cheapest store-brand detergent as a bonus.  It should work better than anything else you can buy. I hope those who chose to add their own phosphates do it wisely. TSP is 20% phosphorus by weight. No more than 9% phosphorus, please.  If my math is correct, that means no more than one part TSP to two parts phosphorous-free detergent.  But check the label on your TSP and adjust accordingly.  Not all real trisodium phosphate products are 100% trisodium phosphate.

Update 18 November:

After some experimentation, I discovered that the film on my dishes was primarily CaCO3 - hard-water deposits.  The older detergents seemed to have kept it at bay. I tried white vinegar in the wash water, but it didn't do much. I finally resorted to Lime Away, a gel containing HCl.  Hand washing with it cleaned up my dishes, glassware, and flatware nicely.  Next I bought some Seventh Generation dishwasher cleaner to remove the old calcium deposits and finally some Lemi-Shine and Savogran TSP.  The Savogram is not completely soluble.  It tends to leave a powder on the dishes if used in the main wash, but it takes very little of it. My final solution was Lemmi-Shine in the soap dispenser and one-quarter TSP and three-quarters cheap dishwasher detergent in the pre-wash cup.  I'm also using Cascade Rinse Aid in the rinse dispenser, but I'm not sure it's contributing much.

Sparkling clean dishes. I may also experiment with borax and baking soda.