There are two "must-reads" today...Tom Friedman in the NYT on oil, and the lead WSJ editorial on farm subsidies.

Friedman, as usual, is right on target and delivers compelling arguments...since I'm pretty sure this link will work, I will say no more on that topic.

But since I don't think I can link to the WSJ editorial, I and I don't have time to deliver my own full rant on the "bribes for votes in farm states," oops, I mean farm subsidies, I will paste in or paraphrase some of the most compelling parts of the WSJ editorial:

--The house has approved a $286 billion farm bill, and a $291 billion version is in the senate.

--Since 2005, the price for a bushel of the following commodities has increased by the following amounts:

Corn--70.4%
Cotton--20.7%
Soybeans--79.1%
Wheat--94.7%

--Even Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), the Chair of the Senate Agriculture committee recently said that farm subsidies are "hard to justify when we have record prices and incomes."

--The whole farm subsidy thing does not endear us to our friends around the world--last month, the WTO ruled that US cotton subsidies violate trade agreements.

The whole farm subsidy thing makes me sick; especially that a great deal of the subsidy money goes to large agribusiness conglomerates and not small family farmers (who do struggle occasionally, but if they are struggling now, they really shouldn't be in the business).

I heard a farm industry lobbyist on NPR recently saying that farmers deserve subsidies because farming is really affected by weather. But guess what...that's true for a very large number of industries in the US who DON'T get a $291 billion farm bill. The time to end the farm bill madness is now, but it won't happen when farm state votes are so critical in national elections and guys like Tom Harkin chair the Ag Committee...Harkin (and all farm state republicans on the committee) knows it's political suicide to slash farming subsidies, so it just won't happen.