The Speculist

FuturePundit Randall Parker outlines Brazil's successful ethanol program, which has now replaced an impressive 40% of the gasoline consumed in the country. Unfortunately, he goes completely off the rails when he gets on the subject of trade barriers that prevent Brazilian ethanol from being imported into the US:

I feel compelled to digress again into trade politics but only because I have a really great idea for Brazil. My advice to the Brazilians: Stop letting any of your models come to the US and pose in Victoria's Secret catalogs until the US government agrees to let in Brazilian sugar and sugar cane ethanol. American citizens might tolerate having to pay more for Breyers than Dreyers in order to get sugar rather than corn syrup as ice cream flavoring. But American men will only find the backbone they need to stand up to the corn farmers and ADM when they find out that the farmers are preventing them from looking at Gisele Bündchen, Michelle Alves, Shirley Mallmann, Isabeli Fontana, Fernanda Tavares, and Ana Beatriz Barros.

Whoah, whoah, whoah...slow down there, son. Take a breath. Let's not do anything rash, okay? I mean, come on.

It's just ethanol.

Where is your sense of proportion?

UPDATE: I replicated Randall's links without checking on whether they were completely work / kid safe. I think they're pretty much okay. I mean, anybody who doesn't approve of that Gisele Bündchen photo must just hate art or horses or something.

UPDATE II: Looks like they swap those photos out every now and then, so never mind about the horses.