By Darren Smith, Weekend Contributor

Did Congress’ France disparagement campaign of renaming French Fries to Freedom Fries cause a butterfly effect that manifested sixteen years later? Apparently possibly.

The U.S. Department of Energy posted on May 28th an announcement of approving additional exports of domestically produced Liquid Natural Gas at the 10th Clean Energy Ministerial in Vancouver, BC. To spice up perhaps a rather bland news announcement, U.S. Under Secretary of Energy Mark W. Menezes decided to import some ill-considered political pontificating by renaming LNG as “Freedom Gas”.

Liberty and Freedom encompass many enlightened notions. But as a gas, that’s a new one for me.