Awareness of the problem with biofuels is spreading, but Sean Carroll speaks more to this geek than Paul Krugman or the editors of Time:

Funny thing about energy: it’s conserved! .... We bring you this reminder because a knowledge of basic physics can occasionally be helpful when formulating public policy.

In particular, biofuels (such as ethanol) and hydrogen are not actually sources of energy — given the vagaries of thermodynamics, it costs more energy to create them than we can get by actually using them, as there will inevitably be some waste heat and entropy produced.

From Energy Doesn’t Grow on Trees.

Today's snowstorm (this is Minnesota) meant that I was an hour late getting home. Also cold and wet. I immediately had to load some dead computer stuff (4 computers, 1 monitor, and 1 scanner) into the car for recycling tomorrow. Then I had to type up, edit, and submit the minutes of colgaffneyis last Board meeting--the next one is Tuesday. I finished that just after 8PM. Next I had to do taxes. I had done most of the work last week so I was able to finish a little after 9. And I think it is finished. The returns (one for us and one for J) have been submitted electronically and I have saved backup copies of the files (I work in systems administration--paranoia is my profession). The only possible issue is that a return might be rejected by either the IRS or Minnesota. This is unlikely. TurboTax is quite good and our tax life is not that interesting. Just sometimes painful.