Sadly, No!

The truth is, we’re basically screwed in the short term and we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Why? Because we as a nation have:

• Invested woefully small amounts in improving our rail and public transportation infrastructure – if you’ve ever stayed in Las Vegas, you know how well this has worked out.

• Remained dependent on oil and coal instead of looking toward wind, solar and even nuclear power as good solutions where appropriate.

• Done jack-squat to improve gas-mileage standards in our cars.

• Allowed oil companies to write our national energy policies.

• Decided for some bizarre reason that invading and destabilizing a major oil-producing country in the Middle East would somehow create magical oil ponies that would last forever and ever.

All of these stupid-ass decisions mean that our demand for oil and gasoline is highly inelastic in the short term – that is, we can’t reduce our consumption when prices skyrocket because no alternatives exist and we need it to get to work. The solution, of course, will come when we develop alternative fuels and admit to ourselves that destroying a national wildlife refuge just to get less than two years’ worth of new oil is not a sound solution. In the meantime, though, we’re just going to have to deal with the pain (and as someone who has a pretty long commute every morning, I know what the hell I’m talking about).

Also, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note at this point that none of this stuff is nearly as important as Barack Obama’s bowling score.

UPDATE: As justbrent notes in the comments, the sliding value of the dollar is also obviously a huge part of why we’re paying so much more for gas now than we did at the start of the decade. Also, rising demand from China and India means that prices are highly unlikely to go down at all in the future.

So we have to get off oil as soon as possible. It’ll obviously take some time, but having semi-sane political leadership will be a plus.

UPDATE II: From the Department of Grudgingly Acknowledging Credit Where It’s Due, I think the Mustache gets it right here:

It is great to see that we finally have some national unity on energy policy. Unfortunately, the unifying idea is so ridiculous, so unworthy of the people aspiring to lead our nation, it takes your breath away. Hillary Clinton has decided to line up with John McCain in pushing to suspend the federal excise tax on gasoline, 18.4 cents a gallon, for this summer’s travel season. This is not an energy policy. This is money laundering: we borrow money from China and ship it to Saudi Arabia and take a little cut for ourselves as it goes through our gas tanks. What a way to build our country.

When the summer is over, we will have increased our debt to China, increased our transfer of wealth to Saudi Arabia and increased our contribution to global warming for our kids to inherit.

The one flaw in this piece is that he seems to imply that “both sides” of the debate have been messing up our energy policy. As Rick Perlstein would say, that’s a “Notso!” The real problem is literally that we have a political coalition of wingnuts who are opposed to doing anything but sending more tax dollars to oil companies. That’s all they support, that’s all they want to ever do. That’s why the oil companies keep writing them big campaign checks.

Tom “Suck On This” Friedman, the pied-piper of globalization and one of the four & twenty Liberal Hawks who should be baked in Iraq’s pie, got pied by a couple of activists while he was telling lies to an audience at Brown University. Awesome. Hilarious. Righteous.

Yggy the Stooge, in a rare flirtation with actual radicalism, sez: “That’s funny.”

Hehindeedydoodleydingledoo.

Above: Bill Kristol getting pied, which was also very funny.

But Dan Drezner will have none of that, thank you very much. Tut-tut. Mournfully and …well, piously, he admonishes that:

This is the kind of thing that accomplishes the following:

A) It makes some people who dislike Friedman very happy;

B) It makes people who agree with Friedman like him even more;

C) It makes people who have ambiguous (or no) feelings towards Friedman feel much more sympathetic towards him.

Now let’s ignore the fact that like Friedman, Drezner was also an Iraq War enthusiast and so has excellent reason to fear the altogether inadequate but still somehow satisfying flying pastry of cosmic justice (alas, the Judgement at Nuremburg moment that Drezner and Friedman have so richly earned will only come in the afterlife). Let’s, instead, dwell on his Very Serious points.

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Above: The Mercury Theatre period

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Came across this old Christopher Hitchens interview while looking for something else. It’s funny how accurately he pegged the neocons whom he would eventually join:

LAMB: In this piece in [Harper’s] in 1990, “How [Neo]-conservatives Perish,” you talk about “key words and phrases uttered with the proper sneer[: dis]-information, dupe, ripe fruit, choke point, fellow traveler, fifth columnist, Chamberlain’s umbrella, captive nation, peace through strength, moral equivalence.” What are you getting at here?

HITCHENS: Do you remember what it was like? Don’t you remember what a hooligan atmosphere there was in American intellectual life for a long time because of the Cold War? Anyone who had any doubts that this war was worth fighting and worth the risk of a nuclear exchange was accused of being a dupe or a secret sympathizer or a fan of Neville Chamberlain’s umbrella or all these other things. People were constantly being crushed and coerced and derided and driven out of the argument. I wanted to put that down before people forget it.

LAMB: “All these people were ostensibly there,” meaning a conference of [neo]-conservatives.” to take personal credits for the final collapse of communism. Why, then, do they look and sound so lost and deflated, like a herd of ants in search of a climax.”

HITCHENS: No, it’s a herd of antis in search of a climax.

LAMB: Excuse me, my eyes are bad.

HITCHENS: I was convinced that partly because they’d lost their ability to be able to bully and blackmail the opposition and accuse it of treachery and sympathy for the other side that that was one of the reasons that the right wing is nostalgic for the Cold War, that it’s lost its free pass as being the patriots where everyone else is disloyal. It’s not the whole thing. They’ve also lost a lot of their subsidies, which, I think, makes them squeal even louder. These people used to have very fat foundations supporting any project of theirs, however mediocre or, “crackpot,” Now they don’t have that anymore. We’re also beginning to count the cost of the Cold War to the United States, which is pretty enormous, to say nothing of the damage that it did to other countries around the world.

Above: The Paul Masson jug wine period

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Let’s briefly note Brian Lamb’s ability to ruin a great line. Also, observe that Hitchens knew exactly what he was getting into when he flirted with the neocons over the Lewinsky scandal and the Bosnian War, then consummated his relationship with them (to the point of publicly prostrating himself like a eunuch beneath Paul Wolfowitz’s dais) on the subject of the War on Terra in general, and the Iraq War in particular. These issues are interesting and amusing in a hah-hah-pathetic way, but beside my real point…

…which is about the nature of neoconservatism. Unlike traditional conservatives, the neocons aren’t stupid. But like traditional conservatives, they are evil — only much more so. As such, neocons know precisely what kind of political climate they need in order to flourish, and will go great lengths to manipulate the environment accordingly. They need a “long war,” and will ceaselessly agitate for one in times of peace, or inflame and enlarge one that’s already existing. Hitchens’s observation nicely dovetails with what Francis Fukuyama said about Bill Kristol:

I think that for some neoconservatives… In a sense, they wanted to have an enemy. The end of the Cold War was a tough time because they didn’t know who the enemy ought to be. I think in the case of Bill Kristol and The Weekly Standard there was actually a deliberate search for an enemy because I think that they felt that the Republican Party didn’t do as well if foreign policy wasn’t a big issue.

The late 1990s was the, you know, the period of the stock market bubble and Monica Lewinsky and they didn’t really have an issue in all of that, I thought, that they thought was particularly important or had much traction with the voters and with the public. I think they initially picked on China as their target — and I always thought right from the beginning that was a big mistake because, first of all, foreign policy shouldn’t be driven by the needs of the Republican Party and domestic politics and secondly, I just don’t think that China is particularly useful to think of as an enemy comparable to the former Soviet Union. So in that sense, September the 11th was a big godsend because we were attacked and didn’t have to invent an enemy at that point. But I think that, just that general tendency to think of the world as extremely dangerous and full of big threats is something they try to carry forward.

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1. It is possible, while preparing to go to the opera, to accidentally strap on a concealed holster and a firearm, provoking the reaction “Oops!”.

2. My Glock 22 police .40-caliber semi-auto must be atypical of the line, because from this drawing, they are approximately the size of a shrimp fork.

3. Carrying a gun is an old habit from her single days that dies hard for Sam, even though she and Zed have been married for two years.

4. The ideal location for a concealed weapon is on one’s upper thigh, where you would have to either hike up your skirt or take off your pants to get to it.

5. Chris Muir sure does like drawing half-dressed women.

6. He still seems incapable of delivering a punchline that makes any sense whatsoever, though.

(With apologies to Theodor Geisel.)

Do you ever sit and ponder
Why your wife is leaving you?
Why she doesn’t sew and launder
Like she used to mostly do?

Is it just a passing phase?
Has she simply gone insane?
Does the woman have tri-ath-a-leets
On her tiny, wee pea brain?

That’s what I thunk, I’m here to say
I thunk it just like you
But I thunk it wrong and I thunk it gay
And you thunk it gay-wrong, too!

For if you listen hard on a windy day
And tie your brain all in a circle
You may just, maybe, might just may
Hear the wisdom of the Zirkle.

I’m here to say that in this way
I’ve heard the Zirkle’s tale
If you’d care to hear what I heard-say
I’m here to make that sale!

‘Pull up a chair,’ he did begin
‘Have some soup and sit a spell
‘It’s enough to turn you outside-in
‘This tale I’m going to tell.

‘I’ll tell it quick, I’ll tell it plain,’
Said the Zirkle with a frown
Pausing only oh-so briefly
To briefly hump the ground.

‘Your wife, well, she’s a goner
‘She’s gone and floop’d the coop
‘She’s left you for the pleasures
‘Of the porno floop-de-loop!’

It hit me like an old red brick
Could this Zirkle’s words be real?
‘Of course,’ he yelled, ‘don’t be so thick!
‘Get used to your new deal!

‘No more late night Yahtzee!
‘No more wholesome games of Clue!
‘You can’t role-play Bedroom Nazi
‘When you’re missing your She-Jew!’

‘But how,’ I asked, as the Zirkle fumed
And fussed in his Zirkle way
And opened up his Zirkle mouth
To have his Zirkle say:

‘She put something ‘tween her legs, see
‘To meet some whorish need
‘To tickle her own eggs, she
‘Don’t need your blanchy seed!

‘It’s called, they say, a dee-vorce aid
‘Jews ship ’em by the wagon
‘Next thing you know, your wife’s in bed
‘With the Tyrant King Porn Dragon!

‘This Dragon, he’s the King of Porn
‘Part Tyrant and part King
‘With his Porny, Kingy, Tyrant horn
That’s far bigger than your thing!

‘He satisfies her in the bed
‘With his Tyrant Dragon Porn
‘He satisfies her on a sled
‘And while she’s eating corn!

‘Next thing you know, you’re on your own
‘Betrayed to the Jew Porn Male
‘(The Black Man also played a part
‘But that’s a different tale.)

‘It’s happening most everywhere
‘Swept the nation as it ‘twere
‘Running off with Jews is all the rage
‘From Bryn Mawr to Big Sur.

‘Stan’s wife, she left him for a Jew
‘And Jim Fipkin’s and Joe Fop’s
‘Not to mention their rich cousin,
‘Archduke Arthur Blipkin-Blop’s!

‘Yesterday, Pete found his gal
‘Muff-deep in Dragon heaven
‘Today, Pete saw her going down
‘On a hook-nosed Jew named Levin!

‘So listen up, young white men!’
Screamed the Zirkle, turning blue
‘The Tyrant Porn King Dragon
‘Is the Right Hand of the Jew!’

With that the Zirkle disappeared
To chase the Porno King
But just before he vanished
He uttered one last thing:

‘Stop sobbing on your pillows
‘In your mansions, at your ranches!
‘It’s time to get your act together,
‘You ad-dic-tion prone blanches!’

Above: Larry Niven, in traditional SIGMA ceremonial headgear

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Well, it looks like Dafydd ab Hugh and Orson Scott Card have competition for the title of Most Obnoxious Right-Wing Sci-Fi Melvin:

Now a fixture at Department of Homeland Security science and technology conferences, SIGMA is a loosely affiliated group of science fiction writers who are offering pro bono advice to anyone in government who want their thoughts on how to protect the nation.

The fact that my tax dollars are going to buy juice and cookies for these schmendricks makes me feel all warm inside.

The group has the ear of Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Jay Cohen, head of the science and technology directorate, who has said he likes their unconventional thinking.

“There’s no idea so asinine that this administration won’t give it serious consideration,” said Cohen, just before his meeting with Gene Ray of Timecube.

Members of the group recently offered a rambling, sometimes strident string of ideas at a panel discussion promoting the group at the DHS science and technology conference.

Rambling, you say? Strident? Could you provide an example?

Among the group’s approximately 24 members is Larry Niven, the bestselling and award-winning author of such books as “Ringworld”. Niven said a good way to help hospitals stem financial losses is to spread rumors in Spanish within the Latino community that emergency rooms are killing patients in order to harvest their organs for transplants.

I…uh…well! That’s, uh, that’s rambling and strident all right!

“The problem [of hospitals going broke] is hugely exaggerated by illegal aliens who aren’t going to pay for anything anyway,” Niven said.

“Plus,” he added, “If we don’t give them any medical care, they’ll die, which means they won’t be mooching off of our tax dollars anymore!”

“I know it may not be possible to use this solution, but it does work,” Niven replied.

“I’ve conducted certain…experiments,” Niven muttered darkly. He then excused himself to deliver a presentation on how we should tell Negroes that there’s a valuable prize waiting for them at the bottom of an elevator shaft.

Above: Like the war-cheerleaders on FP‘s list, is
concentrated evil, a failure, and deemed
“the superior intellect.” LOLerz!!

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It’s been obvious, ever since war-loving Theodore Roosevelt won the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize, that folks in the geopolitics business are comedy geniuses, and it’s in this laff-riot tradition that the jokesters at Foreign Policy have come up with their list of the 100 top “public intellectuals.”

Now, before I point out the punchline, let me show you how to appreciate their sense of fun. See, they are subtle. No simple inclusion of George Bush or Doug Feith on the FP list; no, that would be too easy. Instead, and like any good comic, they set up the straight man by listing a few completely sensible choices: Habermas, Eco, Lovelock, and Žižek are examples. (No, I’m not basing all this on whom I particularly agree with; for instance, from what I’ve read of Steven Pinker’s, which is admittedly little, I think it sucks, but understand why he’d be legitimately chosen for the list.) They even put Chomsky on there — a beautiful touch, that; better to give the illusion of even-handedness and good faith. Why, you might think dreamily, this most reasonable list alludes to better days, back when Pauling and Russell and Montagu and the Trillings might have gathered at some party and discussed issues of cosmic import. Then the sensible reverie ends, sardonic hilarity inherits its assets and takes up business at the old stand. Many of the “intellectuals” are actually something between “stupid” and “clueless fucktard stupid.” Get a load of this (I’ve inserted links to provide proper context to the terse yet grandiose FP bios):

Anne Applebaum, United States

Journalist, historian

A regular columnist for the Washington Post, Applebaum is a veteran journalist and author of Gulag: A History, a Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Soviet prison system.

Niall Ferguson, Britain

Historian

The Laurence A. Tisch professor of history at Harvard University and a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, Ferguson is a prolific author best known for The Pity of War, his counterintuitive take on the British role in World War I.

Thomas Friedman, United States

Journalist, columnist

Friedman—New York Times foreign affairs commentator, three–time Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist, and author of The World Is Flat and From Beirut to Jerusalem—is one of the world’s most popular and influential syndicated columnists.

And that’s not to mention neoliberal hawk Fareed “Socialist and Populist Democracies Don’t Count” Zakaria. And Brad DeLong’s buddy, the gender theorist and scourge of black academics, Lawrence Summers (or Summers’s fellow traveler in “shock therapy,” Yegor Gaidar). And neocon nutbar Robert Kagan. And wingnutien Michael Ignatieff. See, it’s not just that political scientists and pundits are shamelessly over-represented; it’s not even that contributors to Foriegn Policy seem to be “intellectuals” by definition (and thus “earn” inclusion to the list); it’s that “intellectualism,” for the list-makers, seems to often mean, “the capacity to fuck-up hugely and be praised for it.” As Miguel would say, it’s “to funny forever!!!” Even if the joke is ultimately at our expense.

[Via.]

Above: Zirkle

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Also see The Editors and Dave Neiwert.

Behold:

I’m considering discussing divorce aids and my plans for a “Derrenger’s for Dildos” policy to put guns in American women’s hands instead of divorce aids. Presently, when a criminal is arrested for a weapons crime, the prosecutors seek orders to destroy those weapons. What a waste! Put our criminal prisoners to work modifying those guns to be smart-guns that can only be fired when the female owner is holding it so that children don’t hurt themselves and so that criminals can’t use them (unless they use the woman’s hand). When a women turns in her stash of divorce aids, then give her a free gun to defend America when the jihadists follow us home.

I may discuss the historical fact that before there were Nazi doctors, there were divorce aid doctors who used these divorce aids to “treat” “hysterical” women. Is there an etymological connection between hysterical and hysterectomy?

And:

I’ve been getting a flood of e-mails and phone calls, some of which include death threats, about my attempt to raise awareness of how the great porn dragon inspires Jews into pornography and prostitution and then, like the snake he is, turns the public against the Jews. Some have questioned whether there is any link to Jews and porn-prostitution. I guess I’ll have to start showing the evidence:

[multiple links]

Unfortunately, those Web sites are just a small fraction of evidence you can find on a Google search of combinations of “Jews” “pornography” “sex slavery” “Israel” and “prostitution.” Let’s save our Jewish brothers and sisters from this tyrant king porn dragon before we get to another world-wide pogrom after a war with Iran or some other conflict and after the Jews get blamed again. Did I hear it right that Hamas, in their Constitution or in another statment, had the gall to blame the Jews for inciting the revolutions in France and Russia and WWI and WWII?

And:

The hippies gave us Generation X. Gen X, thanks to Clinton, skipped right over XX and spawned Generation XXX. The jihadist will never tolerate what Gen. XXX will sire. That should keep the snarky bloggers in business. Someone has to stimulate this economy.

My emphasis. He’s on to us, but it doesn’t really matter. Keep in mind that we haven’t even started in on his speeches in front of Neo-Nazis. On Hitler’s birthday. With Nazi flags hanging around an enormous portrait of the Der Fuerher. Woot.

I’m reading it right now, and shoot is it good.

I’ll have to finish the whole thing before I write up a review, but the first 200 pages alone are worth paying for. Ye gods, this is terrific stuff. Order your copy right now.

Feel free to join the official Facebook group as well.

“If I close my eyes, it makes
all the bad liberals disappear.”

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K-Lo is in Washington, DC, and apparently has nothing better to do than cruise the bookstores in Georgetown to ferret out evidence of the conspiracy of liberal book store clerks to misfile books in order to demean conservative icons:

Barack Obama’s autobiography makes the “African-American” section in the Barnes & Noble on M Street in Georgetown. Clarence Thomas’s autobiography does not. Wonder how that decision was made.

Sometimes these people are so full of manufactured outrage that it’s a wonder that they can find time to breathe. And when book store slackers become the object of someone’s outrage, well, the next thing you know, that same person will be screaming at a “barista” in Starbucks for making the cappuccinos too liberal.