John Mellencamp was on Real Time with Bill Maher this weekend, and the subject of global warming came up, and we find out that factory farming is the prime culprit.

So Mellencamp says Farm Aid is all about helping the family farmer against the big, bad corporate factory farm.

Here's the thing...if a larger, more organized business entity can deliver a better product, cheaper and more efficiently, that's called "progress", isn't it?

There's a reason we have Wal-Marts, and the number of Mom-and-Pop stores have decreased drastically. Should we have "Mom-and-Pop Aid" to maintain the way of life where two old people run a store with poor inventory and higher prices?

Or how about blacksmiths or coopers or cobblers? Are we really sad as a society that not very many people make a living hand-crafting shoes?

Family-owned farms aren't going to be able to compete with larger operations that are able to do things more efficiently. And that's just fine. We shouldn't artificially prop up a pre-industrial way of doing business just out of nostalgia. It's dumb. We're going to have less food, and guess what? More decentralized, geographically dispersed farms are harder to regulate.

So please, John Mellencamp, there are plenty of good causes to have a concert for...pick a better one.