With regard to agriculture, our country's agriculture policy needs a complete top to bottom review and revision, but anyone who thinks that factory farming is going to go away to be replaced by small local farms supplying the local food chain with organic produce in some sort of neo-Jeffersonian ideal is sorely misguided (and has not gone out and priced a tractor or combine recently). Our (local) population is sustained by mass quantities of grain and meat, and it's not all going to come from the Rio Grande Valley. Any significant change in agriculture policy is going to succeed only if undertaken by someone the farm lobby trusts (witness Jim Hightower's short tenure as Ag Commissioner in Texas).

As for the management of federal lands, a western Democrat has is more likely to be able to successfully limit energy exploration (and roll back grazing) than someone with whom the left would be more enthusiastic. Salazar should be given an opportunity to roll back the depredation our public lands suffered under Bush-Cheney.

Personnel is not always policy (as the R's would have one believe) and I suspect that for the first time in a long time the Decider will actually be someone with the knowledge and managerial skills (witness the campaign) to make decisions that advance a progressive agenda in a positive manner, including an agriculture and federal lands policy that is part and parcel of an energy policy that moves us toward energy independence and sustainability is what progressives need to push for. There's no reason why Vilsack and Salazar cannot be an important part of that.

High fructose corn syrup has the same number of calories as sugar and is handled similarly by the body.

The American Medical Association in June 2008 helped put to rest misunderstandings about this sweetener and obesity, stating that “high fructose syrup does not appear to contribute to obesity more than other caloric sweeteners.”

Even former critics of high fructose corn syrup dispel long-held myths and distance themselves from earlier speculation about the sweetener’s link to obesity as the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition releases its 2008 Vol. 88 supplement's comprehensive scientific review.
Many confuse pure “fructose” with “high fructose corn syrup,” a sweetener that never contains fructose alone, but always in combination with a roughly equivalent amount of a second sugar (glucose). Recent studies that have examined pure fructose – often at abnormally high levels – have been inappropriately applied to high fructose corn syrup and have caused significant consumer confusion.
In 1983, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration formally listed high fructose corn syrup as safe for use in food and reaffirmed that decision in 1996.

Consumers can see the latest research and learn more about high fructose corn syrup at http://www.HFCSfacts.com and http://www.SweetSurprise.com.

Audrae Erickson
President
Corn Refiners Association

I was tremendously dismayed by Vilsack's selection. It's consistent with what the President-elect has done so far — mainly picked middle of the road folks rather than “activists” — I hope my worries are not founded.

Food — its security, production and quality — is THE national issue. It supercedes “terrorism” and any other bugaboo out there including “the economy.” It affects absolutely everything and as a nation we're simply not paying enough attention to it.