More Corrupt Than A Florida Election.

Just a little note to those in the running for DailyPundit's Bloody Hungry Contest: I have votes left to use, and know others who are in a similarly opportunistic electoral position. And I am by no means above bribery...

Just so ya know...

The Greatest Of Holidays

Yes, Halloween is indeed my most favorite of holidays. I love everything about it. The candy, the parties, the costumes, the trick-or-treating. It’s all so delightfully Pagan: dark and predatory forces co-existing with children’s games. There’s a William Blake poem in there somewhere…

What other holiday could bring Jeebus and his arch nemesis Lucifer together for a smoke and a cold one while a random pale guy with a pierced tongue dances behind them?

Well, OK, that’s not the Christian Mesiah. It's me back when I was a dirty long-hair. And the suave Prince of Darkness is in fact Cornflake, and not Satan. The white cloud of energy emanating from my head is real though, and not our stoned friend sticking his finger in front of the lens. You see, I had the power of THE LORD coursing through my veins!

This was from a couple of years ago, and what a night it was. With no party of our own, we crashed about a half-dozen random gatherings, with hilarious results. By the end of the night, we had a small army of drunken revelers following us to whatever our next party was. If the party host gave us any shit, I’d just say, “Let us in! The lord demands it!” And then my followers would begin chanting. I mean, what could the hosts say? It’s the lord we’re talking about!

Ah, sacrilegious good times.

Man I love Halloween.

Speaking Of MSNBC...

Tonight, with MSNBC’s Hardball* broadcasting from Penn State, Chris Matthews was talking to Rudy Giuliani about the upcoming war on Iraq.

As Matthews has been doing whenever this topic comes up on the Hardball college shows, he turned to the audience, and asked, “how many of you in the audience would support a war on Iraq?”

About 60% of the audience claps politely. This was far higher than any other time he asked it at other schools (except when they were at the Citadel). Is Penn somehow less pinko?

“And how many of you oppose it?”

The other 40% loudly made their presence known.

“Ok, of those who supported the war, how many of you are actually planning to join the military and fight?”

This was the Matthews moneyshot. About a dozen or so young men stood up. Matthews seemed surprised the number was even that high. Of course, what followed was the standard “Chickenhawk” accusation applied to the rest of the pro-war men in the audience. Implied in this little poll, was that the rich kids going to these elite colleges would support a war, as long as it’s only the poor folks’ kids who were gonna go off and get killed in it. Apparently, I had just learned, the bile-like rhetorical scent of class-warfare travels efficiently through coax cable.

Now, as a healthy young man who recently graduated from university, supports military action against the Hussein regime, and never joined the armed forces, Matthews' finger is pointing directly at me. The charge is either cowardice, or reckless disregard for other people’s lives.

Never mind that this little poll would probably look the same if you moved it to an economically mixed high-school, rather than the “elite” campuses Hardball is visiting. The simple fact of the matter is that, when considering the military as a possible future career path as a high-schooler (an option I took seriously), I decided the military didn’t need me, and I’d better serve my nation as a source of revenue for the IRS to tax in order to support the armed forces. Besides, I didn’t think they needed any overweight, dorky, long-haired, juvenile alcoholics to deal with.

Aside from the brief urge to sign up immediately following 9-11, I stand by my high-school decision. I’d make a lousy soldier. However, if I ever thought I was really needed in the armed forces, I would join immediately. I love my country, and know that sometimes young men like myself must go off to foreign lands to protect it. But, so far, I haven’t been asked to do anything more than shop.

If there was anything near a draft going on, I’d sign-up in a heartbeat. But there isn’t, and there isn’t going to be anytime soon. Standard Libertarian dogma says the draft is inherently wrong, and perhaps this is true, but it is sometimes very necessary for the national survival. If a World War II type situation developed tomorrow, a draft would be necessary. The draft is never coming back, though, because nuclear weapons make large ground armies obsolete.

A professional volunteer military, however, like the one we have now, is vastly superior to any conscript army. Our fighting men have chosen to be in the military, with all the risk that involves. Military personnel are paid far less than they would be in private sector, and they do it because they want to defend the nation. Any serious weaknesses in our current military stem more from material, transport, and funding issues, rather than manpower shortages.

All that being said, the American military is still subservient to the civilian government. Generals don’t decide whether or not the nation goes to war, the congress does. Of course, ignoring the advice of your generals is idiotic, but the nation’s strategic goals must always be decided by the politicians. And I expect those politicians to use the military to defend the nation’s security, which is what getting rid of Saddam is all about. Whether those politicians have combat experience is irrelevant, in my mind, to the strategic concerns involved with the decision to go to war.

It doesn’t take combat experience to know that life is precious, and that the decisions made regarding military action will put those we send at grave risk. But there is a macabre moral calculus involved in the process. How many soldiers might die if we invade Iraq? How many civilians might die (both Americans and foreigners) if Saddam acquires more effective WMD. This simple equation should be at the core of any decision regarding Iraq. I believe the risks to our troops are far outweighed by the potential for millions of civilian caualities should Saddam use his soon to be developed WMDs, or if said weapons get into the hands of Al Qaeda-like organizations. This is why I favor taking Saddam out before it’s too late.

Do I want the young men in uniform to go die for me (or anyone else for that matter)? Absolutely not. I’d much prefer an outcome where Saddam is done in by his own people, Mussolini style. But if that doesn’t happen, the military has its job, and a peaceful outcome is far more likely to occur if we show we’re willing to attack. You’re not going to be hearing servicemen bitching and moaning about going into combat, because that’s what the majority of them signed up to do. They will do what’s needed, and they’ll do it without complaint.

As for Matthews’ insinuation that us “chickenhawks” are foisting our war on the sons and daughters of the working man, I can only reply by saying: Chrissy baby, the 60’s were three decades ago. The military is no longer the drugged out, poor conscript-filled force you grew up with. Our conventional armed forces today are all-volunteer, and without a doubt the best-trained and most effective (i.e. deadly) force man has ever seen. The people who will be fighting this war for us are exactly the kind of men who need to be there: determined, disciplined, and well-trained, with the most advanced equipment in the world. As much as I want to put a bullet in a certain Iraqi dictator’s head, I’d just get in these good people’s way.

*Despite tonight’s ranting, I do like Chris Matthews and Hardball. It’s one of the few debate type shows on cable TV I can stomach.

Are You as Good as You've Always Said You Are?

I know this doesn't fit in with the high quality of discussion that the viewers of this blog may demand, but I found this via instapundit, so it's got the Reynold's seal of approval.

So, if you've always claimed to be able to tell the difference between the good vs. the plastic: go prove it.

(Of course, I really had to post this because I got 19 out of 20 and needed to brag...) By the way, anything less than a perfect score from the Captain will be a grave disapointment.

One of MSNBC's Few Quality Assets

For all the fans of female newscasters who pass through these parts (you know who you are), my referrer logs point me to the new Natalie Morales fan site. This should especially please someone I know...

Natalie is leaps and bounds ahead of those cheap FOX whores. The main difference, gentlemen, is class. Her and my beloved Norah O’Donnell (where the hell is her fan-site folks!?!) are two rare points of light in the increasingly irrelevant, assclown-run MSNBC network.

All The Justification For Flash to Exist, In One Malevalent Dose

You ever had one of those days? You know, when you’re just filled with a righteous, violent, and powerful anger, and you've got no legal way to vent it? Perhaps someone cut you off while you were driving to work, or said something so stupid it hurts your brain. Or maybe you just read a news item that in some way involved France.

Yes friends, I know of this fierce rage which grips you from time to time, as I too feel it. Fortunately, I’ve found WRATH, a nifty little Flash game where you play God, smiting the idiot peons of the Earth (discovered via Memepool). A few minutes of sending lightning bolts and Angels of Death to dispatch the unwashed masses, and I’m left with a smile on my face, and a cheery disposition. Slight satisfaction, with no resulting jail-time. Sweet.

Ted Johnson Is My Hero

Max Cannon's Red Meat reminds me why Halloween is my most favorite of all holidays...

Propaganda for Your Amusement

Bitchpundit absolutely kicks ass. Her link’s been up on the blogroll for a little while now, since I mentioned her to the Captain, but I just wanted to give a point in her direction. Her writing is scathing, and her propaganda pictures are freaking fantastic. She even splits her time by writing about science stuff, which warms my dorky little scientific heart.

The Donnas Do Seattle: Concert Review

A few years ago, while in one of my legendary gin-fueled collegiate stupors, I stumbled across the video for The Donna's Skintight single. It had everything a drunken young man could want: chicks, cars, hostess snack foods, and killer riffs. I was hooked. From the brain-dead Ramones-esque punk rock of their debut to the more retro-70s hard-rock sounds of their subsequent albums, The Donnas provide simple, kick-ass Rock to the masses.

To support their latest effort, Spend The Night, the Donnas have been touring, and I caught their latest visit to Seattle. The show was an all-ages event, so I was able to bring my 16 year old kid sister, an ardent Donnas aficionado to her very first concert. The price was right at $12 ($16 after the TicketMaster price-rapeing), and there were two opening bands: The Campfire Girls, and Your Enemies Friends.

As an aside, you know that creepy old guy you always saw at your favorite show when you were a youngin', you know, the guy who was way too old to be there? Well, at this show, that guy was me; an old man at 24. The crowd was overwhelmingly of the under-18 variety (no surprise at an all ages show) and female. The Donnas's teen badgirl shtik seemed to strike a chord with the kiddies.

After waiting in a long, teenaged line, freezing in the fierce fall Seattle weather, for almost two hours to get in (the show was delayed, and they wouldn't let anyone in until the first band was set up), The Campfire Girls opened up. TCG, a band that achieved a small following in the early-mid 90's, recently regrouped after a lengthy hiatus. I found their grungy-emoish sound listenable, but unremarkable.

The show's second act, Your Enemies Friends, were something completely different. A five piece group, recently transplanted to Seattle from LA, they sounded like New Wave that had died, spent a few years in heavy-metal hell, and then risen from the dead as a punk-rock zombie. It really was something different, with speed-metal riffs, punkish songs, and a synthesized organ providing melody. The band's stage presence was impressive, and, in general, they rocked my balls off. I hope to hear more from these guys in the future.

When the opening acts were finished up, the four Donnas, Donna A (Brett Anderson - vocals), Donna F (Maya Ford - bass), Donna R (Allison Robertson - guitar), and Donna C (Torry Castellano - drums), took the stage. They mostly performed songs off of their new album, and a few from Turn 21 and Get Skintight, thrown in for good measure.

I‘d expected more of an act to jive with the vapid, reckless, teenage characters they'd created in their songs, but there wasn't much of that. Which is good, because, underneath the shtik they've been marketed with, these women are one talented group. I was particularly impressed with Allison Robertson's guitar chops. She owns her instrument, and can shoot out some amazing high-speed solos with the greatest of ease, while slipping in and out of killer rythym sections. For having only one guitarist in the group, they sound big, loud, and powerful.

Also, surprising to me, was the skill and energy of Torry Castellano's drumming. A good drummer is vital to any band that wants to rock out at a high-level, and The Donnas make the cut. She becomes a large furious blur of long hair and drumsticks behind the rest of the band. Most impressive. Maya Ford's bass is also solid live.

The only problem with the performance was the mike levels at the venue, which left Anderson's vocals too low for the overwhelming sounds coming from her bandmates. But that is small complaint, as their set was excellent, their stage presence entertaining, and the overall rockout-level high.

The Donnas are about a third through their current US tour, and if you don't suck, you're bound to enjoy their show immensily.

----------------------------------
Also posted to BlogCritics.Org.

More Seattle Goodness

Michael Gersh is another Seattle area blogger who's got what we like to call "Mad Skillz". Well worth a read.

I've made a new section on the 'ol blogroll to reflect these fellow Washingtonians that I'm discovering.

And if you, my beloved readers, know of any other Seattle-based bloggers who are also not assmonkeys, please let me know.

Such A Wonderful Feeling...

The Project From Hell^TM has finally shipped. Plus I get tomorrow off (sweet). I plan to spend the next several days looking down the business end of various bottles...

UPDATE

At Seed's request, the weekend Beer-o-meter(updated 2:00 am 10-27-02):

          

The Elections Are Coming. Oh, Freaking Joy...

Jim Miller, again giving a concise summary from the local Seattle media that makes me seem as uninformed as a common Slashdot poster, has a nice wrap-up of the entirety of “Baghdad” Jim McDermott comments on Bush, and the media reactions to it.

McDermott is slime, and he's going to get reelected in a landslide. I love this city, I really do...

And Here I Was Feeling Lonely

It turns out I’m not the only non-pinko blogger based out of the Seattle area. Jim Miller’s stuff is well written, and his analysis is interesting. He even goes through the same ISP as me.

He’s all over the Washington state connections with the DC area sniper, which, since I can’t stand to watch the abysmal local news anchors, I find quite useful. So go check him out.

Are These The Only Goddamn Choices?

So here I am, flipping through my local voters pamphlet, as I tend to do this time of year, when what should I notice but the page for Washington State U.S. Representative - District 7. Yes friends, this is Jim "Bomb Texas Not Baghdad" McDermott's seat (the McDermott website), and the district I live in. Of course, this traitorous piece of filth doesn't mention his little trip to Iraq on his pamphlet entry. In fact, this looks like the exact same statement he crapped out last election, without a single mention of war terrorism, or anything else of relevance to the last two years. But he does mention his support for socialized health care, which is great.

So we can scan down the page for a viable alternative, right? Well there are alternatives... sort of.

The Republican candidate is named Carol Thorne Cassady (the Cassady site), and her political views can be summed up in a single phrase: Dubya Groupie. A homemaker and teacher, she seems nice enough, but doesn't have a single thought in her pleasant little GOP head that wasn't puked out of some conservative radio guy's stinking piehole. Plus, linking yourself at the hip to Bush in a district where he is almost universally despised is not what I'd call a winning strategy. Once again, it's obvious the Republicans see no hope in the majestic 7th. No real surprise there.

Now before I reveal the name and party affiliation of the third contender, I'd like to give you a few choice bits of his statement in the voter guide, and you can take a guess:

It's time for us to solve our nation's problems independent of the two party system. As long as Congress remains in the hands of Democrats and Republicans, corporate greed will continue to destroy the economy and environment, and lead to a police state at home, and imperial warfare against the rest of the world...

...42 years ago, Eisenhower warned us that we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex. Instead, the problem is now compounded by the corporate media and the corrupt educational establishment. Only with new leadership can we hope to solve our problems, and enjoy the fruits of the ongoing scientific revolution. I have been part of that revolution myself, spending much of my life developing alternative energy sources to avoid burning fossil fuels, which are polluting the air we breathe, burning up billions of dollars and leading us to war in the Middle East. Rapidly moving to a solar-wind powered economy, using hydrogen as fuel, would provide tens of millions of good jobs, and would solve all of these problems...

...We need to eliminate the IRS and instead tax activities which burden society, like burning oil.

Can you guess which party he represents? If you guessed the loopy Greens, you are a rational person with a decent grasp of reality. But you are also very, very wrong. Another democrat, perhaps? Nope. Technocrat? Nuh-uh.

Stan Lippmann is the author of this statement, and he is the official 7th district candidate for the Washington State Libertarian party. That's right. Official. Fucking. Candidate. Libertarian. Party.

There's more great stuff if you visit his election site (which was apparently designed by a dim three-year-old with a malodorous version of Frontpage '97, and is filled with bizarre images and numerous blatant typos). He not only believes that hydrogen power can relieve us of our dependence on fossil fuels (it can't of course, but I won't go into that here), but he thinks a European style socialized medical system is great (him and the big McD must be pals). Oh, and he thinks that rogue elements of the US government were responsible for 9-11. In other words, he is a crank, with what sounds like delusion fantasies. Great choice guys…

As you can see, Baghdad Jim is not really opposed in Seattle, and will bring another term of shame and disgrace to my city. I guess I'll vote for this Republican version of Maureen Dowd, but only because she is the lesser of three evils, and I'm sick of writing in Homer Simpson on the ballot.

Oh, and I'm done with the Libertarian party. I once thought of myself as a proud Libertarian, but no longer. The party that put this Special Olympics reject on the ballot for one of the highest offices in the state deserves its current obscurity. I've never seen a LP candidate, local or national, who wasn't a complete assmonkey, but I kept thinking, one day, somebody would come along and bring new life to the party. Harry Browne has to die eventually. But I was wrong. I see now this guy is the Libertarian party: a fine example of what it means to be morally, intellectually, and politically bankrupt. Harry Browne lives eternal.

I despise everyone remotely connected with this filth, and I'm now hoping the organized LP will just quietly disappear.

You Are The Wind Beneath My Wings

Maddox is great.

To quote our good friend Seed, "This guy is my Hero."

He boldly attacks damnable children's art, offers sound parenting advice, and even fondly remembers one of the greatest video games ever, Contra III. You can't trust a man who didn't like that game...

Soon to Return

Well, the project from hell seems to be wrapping up, so your old pal Mojo should be coming back out of hiding in the next few days. So much to rant about..

A Conservative Daydream

Via HappyFunPundit,
Goldblatt’s written a pithy little piece on Dowd, including what he defines as ‘the Dowd rule:’ "no one who thinks George W. Bush is stupid is as smart as George W. Bush." The article is definitely worth a quick read.

On an interesting aside, Goldblatt mentions the possibility of Condoleeza Rice running for president in 2008. I’ve thought for years that the best way for a minority or a woman to take the presidency would be as a Republican; voters from both sides of the American political spectrum would actually have a vested interest in the same candidate.

This is mostly just my little fantasy at this point, but, man, I just can’t get over how wonderful it would be to see Rice run in ’08. One of my biggest curiosities about this scenario revolves around Leftist reaction. How would a ‘good liberal’ vote? Watching lefties tie themselves in knots over whether to vote PC, or whether to vote socialist just would make me feel sooo warm and happy. I was already excited about the prospect of Powell running in ’08, but Condi would be even better. She’s black! She’s a woman! She’s intelligent! She’s a good public speaker! She’s running for president! She’s Republican?!!
What a Dem nightmare.

The First Day Of The Rest Of Your Death

24 years ago today, at around 9:00 AM PDT, I was pried (a c-section baby) out into the world kicking and screaming. I believe this is why I hate mornings, even now.

I’m a bit ambivalent about the day. After you’ve reached 21 isn’t it all just a steady decline? I mean, once you can legally drink, what the hell’s the point of keeping track? I am, however, feeling old. I think it’s time to do my yearly beard growing ritual. Yes, the beard may be necessary.

On the plus side, once my John Wayne religion gets going, I’m sure the masses of my followers will demand October 16 as a national holiday. And everyone wants another holiday, right? Make your plans accordingly.

A Nice Sunny Sunday Afternoon... In Hell

The kid sister is coming along nicely. She's got her blog up, has started college early, and has even found time to learn a little flash.

Here, she brings us a vision of hell in the near future, as only she can. You'll never guess who's there.

Yup, coming along nicely...

More MSNBC Retardation

So, ratings for Ashley Banfield's show have been slipping. No real surprise there, since when she's not under constant threat of being publicly shot by Iraqi goon squads or Taliban religious police, there's not really a reason to watch. Her show getting cut should be no great surprise to anyone with half a functioning brain cell.

But what, you ask, are they going to replace it with? You're gonna love this. They're replacing Banfield with the magazine show MSNBC Investigates, otherwise known as "boring weekend time filler that no one ever watches". So, they're going to swap a boring, low-rated, show with an even more boring, and lower rated, show. These MSNBC execs are freaking geniuses.

The article also mentions this little tidbit:

Maybe not so coincidentally, Jeffrey Immelt, the chairman of General Electric, co-parent (with Microsoft) of MSNBC, expressed concern over the cable channel in a Friday interview on Fox News' "Your World With Neil Cavuto."

"MSNBC's ratings are not where we'd like them to be, and we're gonna take some actions to try and get 'em up there," Immelt said. "The standard right now is Fox, and I want to be as interesting and edgy" as the Fox News Channel."

Of course, America is just screaming for another network where the "news" consists of vapid blonds and mindless partisans apeing party idealogues. Yeah, two of those is definately not enough. And those experiments with "edgy" shows like Alan Keyes and Phil Donahue have worked so well for you guys! Let's fire Chris Matthews and Tim Russert while we're at it, and replace them with the God Squad. Or maybe a donkey pissing in a field for an hour a night. Yeah! Ratings gold, that is.

Sweet Jebus in Valhalla, I despise these people...

The Glorious Land Of Beer and Meat Pies

Thinking about the recent massacre in Bali reminded me of a lunch me and Cornflake had with his step-Grandfather, a little before Cornflake moved down to San Diego. His gramps is one cool dude. He was a transport pilot in the South Pacific during WWII, and has a million stories to tell.

His war stories are great. Neither of my grandfathers are living, so I have to get my old-man war stories were I can. And this guy's a goldmine. Among tales of dangerous flights, idiot superiors, and a lot of dead Japanese, he eventually started talking about Australians.

“Yeah, those Aussie bastards were crazy. Dangerous, stubborn assholes, all of ‘em.”

“So, you didn’t like them,” I asked, surprised, always having thought highly of our prison-spawned cousins.

“Well, I liked ‘em well enough to marry one of of ‘em,” he said with a wide smile.

He then regaled us with stories of his leaves in Sydney; of delicious steak, cheap beer, and beautiful women. They were the kind of stories that only come out of crazy war-time days, when you never know what will happen tomorrow. He spoke fondly of the nation and its people.

“The Aussies,” he said, “are the only people in the world who are truly our friends. The French and Germans don’t give a damn about us. The Brits are split between hating us and loving us. But the Australians, they’re just like us. They understand us. And when things get rough, they’re the only ones who we can really depend on.”

I’ve only known a few Australians in my day, but I’ve liked almost every one of them. The Australians were with us in the World War II, fighting Hitler and Tojo’s fascists, in Korea and Vietnam fighting against the oppressive totalitarianism of Communism. Now they stand with us defending the free world from the Islamofascists and their allies. They’ve suffered their first large wound from our common enemy, but I doubt it will be the last. However, in the end, we will both stand triumphant, as we have in the past.

The Bali blast may prove to be proportionally more devastating (in terms of citizens killed to population ratio) to Australia than 9-11 was to us, but they don’t need sympathy. The Aussies are tough. They will deal with this, and they will get their justice, hopefully with a little American help.

No. Instead of sympathy, Australia gets something more important from me: my respect and admiration. That’s all there really is to say.

Eagle-riffic!

What is Your Native American Totem?
brought to you by Quizilla
via Andrea Harris

Oh, yeah. Me and the eagle, we be mates (as Crocodile Dundee might say. we still have much to learn from his folksy wisdom).

And please, could we get back to using the term American Indian already? As someone who's got a bit of native coffee in my cracker cream, I find the artificially created Native American not only cold and synthetic (and unspecific), but somewhat patronizing. Are we really offending anybody by using American Indian?

The Handyman's Helper

Duct Tape: What can't it do?

An Earlier Release Date

This should please our beloved Emily, no?

Me, I despise that DiCaprio fellow, but whatever...

Still Alive. Well, Still Breathing At Least

So tired... I've been working a 2PM-4AM shift for the past week, and I haven't had a day off in over two weeks. I'll finally be able to take Sunday off, but just barely. My blog withdrawal is horrific. I've barely been able to check Google News once a day fer chrissakes. I'm staying alive through delivery curry, caffeine, and smokes. I recommend you avoid such unpleasantness if at all possible.

Oh well, this is my Karmic punishment for all the 30-hour weeks I had during the summer, where I could drink and blog as much as I like. My referrers say there's still 15 or so of y'all who are still checking the site now and again. Thanks, and they'll be more soon. The worst is over. It's the home stretch now.

At least I hope it is...

Updated Blogroll

As I've been working 12-14 hour days for the past 7 days, and will probably be doing the same for the next week, my brain is far too fritzed-out to post anything of value (that is, if what I usually post can be said to have any value). But in the mean time, I've added a few new links to the ol' blogroll. No surprises or unique ones here, just daily reads I'm tired of looking for on other pages. I think I'll make some more additions, but I must head off to sleep for another day in the salt mines...

I'm Hooked On A Feeling

More proof that the Germans are completely freaking insane (link via memepool).

As for everyone's favorite German, Ralf Goergens, well, he has his own special reasons for being insane (Damnit boy, start that blog already!). But I must ask, Ralfie-baby, what is it with the cult of Hasselhoff in der Deutschland? Is it like Jerry Lewis for the French? I'm fascinated in a car-crash sorta way...

The Oil War, And Why I’m For It

So the Anti-War crowd’s main chant against the coming war against Saddam Hussein’s regime is that the whole thing is a scheme by the Bushies to get control of that sweet-sweet pot of Iraqi oil. Although this is a simplistic view of the situation, I can’t deny there is some truth to it. Oil is vital not only to our national security and economy, but to the very survival of billions of people, and we are right to fight for it.

Oil is what runs our modern civilization. Even more important than the convenience of cars to get us from our various destinations, is the gas-powered transport network that gets us our cheap and nutritious food, heats our homes, and allows the vital goods and services that make a sanitary and healthy life possible. Trucks, trains, planes, and ships all depend on petroleum-based fuels to operate. Without these transport methods, not only would food be much scarcer in the developed world, but famines would run rampant throughout the developing world, which, in many areas, is far from any kind of local agricultural sustainability.

I am one of the least oil dependent persons in America. I don’t drive a car. I ride electrically powered buses, and my apartment is heated by electricity generated from hydroelectric dams in the Cascade Mountains. But still my life is in so many ways dependent on oil. The food I consume for nourishment is shipped to my local grocery store from around the world via energy intensive shipping methods. The emergency vehicles that would take me to a hospital in an emergency are all powered by oil products. Many of the products which I depend upon to make my living (the plastics in my computer for instance) are byproducts of the oil industry. The corporations that greedily consume so much oil are the ones paying the taxes supporting this city, state, and nation’s infrastructure, and without oil they would have no way to go about their business and would go bankrupt (thus no taxes to support that infrastructure I use). In these and many other ways, my very life is linked with the oil economy.

The alternatives to the current system are few and unimpressive. Hydrogen and electric power are both heralded by eco-friendly folks as viable alternatives to oil, but neither are sources of energy. Hydrogen, for fuel cells and other power uses, requires energy in order to be extracted from other sources, and of course electricity must be generated. For either of these solutions to work, we currently have a few sources of real energy to work with:

• Coal, which is cheap and readably available, but nasty on the environment
• Natural gas, which is relatively clean burning, but linked at the hip to the petroleum industry
• Solar, which will never be very efficient, and if used as extensively as we need it, would probably alter world weather patterns with the solar energy it removed from the environment
• Hydro, which is great, but kills fish, and is already almost maxed out
• Wind, which is a joke
• Geothermal, which only works in a few volcanically active places
• Nuclear, which is clean, efficient, but disastrous in the case of accidents. Plus we don’t have a lot of fuel for it.

Cheap fusion power would be swell, if anybody could ever get it to work, but, in reality,
this motley collection of technologies is all we’ve got to work with. And using any of these sources in any higher levels than they’re used now would be insanely expensive, take decades to complete, and produce little net gain in available energy. It’d be great if this wasn’t the case, but it is. Den Beste has recently gone over these and other alternatives in his usually giant brained thoroughness, if you wish to go into the issue further.

What I’m getting at here is that the petroleum-based world is what we’ve got. Anything else just isn’t viable for maintaining current population levels. If all the world’s oil fields dried up tomorrow, humanity would certainly survive, and maybe technological civilization could continue, but there would be many fewer of us, and most of us who were still around would be more worried about our subsistence farming effort rather than reading blogs and wondering if that email spam we got about Britney Spears and the donkey was for real or not.

As transports stop running, The Children™ of the developing world will die by the billions as those sweet, delectable American (and Canadian, Australian, Ukrainian, etc...) grain supplies cannot cross the oceans. We’d also have our problems. Instead of resisting Vivid Video pay per view movies as our greatest daily struggle, we’d have a real life Mad-Max world to deal with. And, yes, I believe that violent, mohawked, post-apocalyptic psychopath is indeed looking at you lustfully. *wink* *kiss-kiss*

Now that I’ve established why oil is a vital part of everyone’s life, I need to bring it together with why I believe an oil war in Iraq is not only justifiable, but vital. The world could certainly live without Iraqi oil. For the most part, we have been for the past ten years. No, a real reason for removing the Bathist regime in Iraq is the threat it poses to the rest of Persian Gulf oil production. That’s the very reason we have troops stationed in Saudi Arabia and other nearby countries in the first place. Once Saddam gets his cherished Nukes, which he’ll have sooner or later, he can dictate terms to the rest of the region, and to us.

The Europeans (and the Japanese) have far more to lose from a powerful Saddam, as they get the majority of their oil from the Persian Gulf region (10% of US oil imports are from the gulf, compared to 30% of Europe’s and 80% of Japan’s imports. We get most of our imports from Latin America). Yet they seem eager to appease Hussein’s regional ambitions. When Iraq gets its arsenal of nukes, it can stop regional oil production at a whim, and can devastate Europe’s entire economy. We’ve seen how Europe dealt with economic crises in the last century (Communism, Facism, French surrenderism, all that good stuff), and we must not allow a similar (or possibly far worse) situation to repeat itself due to energy shortages.

European stability is a compelling case in itself for removing Saddam and placing a saner regime in his sted. For me though, the most important argument for regime change is the liberation of the Iraqi people. America has at least a century’s worth of tradition of coming to the defense of oppressed or threatened people in their time of need. Saddam has spent the last several decades turning Iraq into his own private, well armed, hell-hole. No people have suffered more from Hussein’s vile rule than his own people. American policy should not be simply the removal of the current Bathist regime to be replaced by a new, US-friendly, dictatorship.

Like all people, the Iraqis wish to live comfortably and provide a future for their children. Iraqi oil wealth will be critical for developing a democratic and free Iraq that can provide those simple human needs to its people. That nation’s great potential wealth, freed from Hussein’s control, will create jobs, and hope, for its struggling people. As a relatively secular and educated nation, Iraq has a unique opportunity to shine in a region mired in despotism and cultural failure. But it can’t do anything productive while Hussein is still in control.

As an added bonus, and, perhaps more important for our direct security needs, a free Iraq will compete against the xenophobic Wahabism of the Saudis for the minds of Arabs, and show the mullah-oppressed masses in Iran another way. However, there is no hope for progress in any middle-eastern nation while Saddam can hold much of the world’s energy reserves hostage.

So, yes, in many ways, this war is about oil. But this war is also about the future destiny of countless millions of Arabs, and the security and well-being of billions of other people around the world. To allow this fascist in Baghdad to continue his reign of terror is immoral, and dangerous for the rest of the world. We should have done something about it a decade ago, but we didn’t. Freeing the Iraqis from Saddam’s tyranny is the first step America can take in bringing the rest of the Arab-Muslim world into the twenty-first century, thus making up for past mistakes.