There’s a war on. Gas prices are rising. The means the war is bad, you see. The fact that the common sense wisdom of how wise or useful or necessary wars are is contingent on the price of crude oil is embarrassing and insulting. Instead of judging on if the costs of the war itself, the lives lost, the territory damaged, the global leadership lost, we judge it based on one metric: the world’s everlasting thirst for one natural resource. Wars should have aims. I almost never think a war’s aims (even if they are in fact...
Continue reading...oil
New York Times Columnist Line of the Day – 19 May 2010
If you’re one of the four-or-so frequent readers of this here blog, chances are you also occasionally check out the New York Times op-ed page. You may even know the names: Thomas “Friedman Ain’t Free” Friedman, Gail “The Colander” Collins, Nicholas “The Dark Crystal” Kristof, &c. Well, I’ve decided to devote a daily feature to these folks, by daily pointing out one line that is either awesome, funny, insightful, intelligent, ridiculous, or utterly divorced from reality. I hope you enjoy. Today’s is from Tawmy “Friedman’s Just Another Word For Nothing Left To Lose” Friedman, who, in his...
Continue reading...Tracking the oil spill
The New York Times has a pretty incredible animation showing the spread of the oil spill from 22 April to 9 May. Also, in crazy-time news, engineers are trying to determine if they can plug the leak with…garbage. Last week, we posted a video from Al Jazeera explaining how the spill happened.
Continue reading...Drill, Barry, drill?
Well, it’s happened again. Started writing something, then came across something better written arguing the same thing I was going to argue. I was going to write about how Obama’s decision to drill is a pragmatic one that takes both sides of the argument into account but satisfies neither (much like many of his decisions and policies). But, heck with it. Today’s New York Times editorial, “Drill, but Not Everywhere,” says it pretty darned well: For years, the debate over offshore drilling for gas and oil has been a war of sound bites between the “drill now,...
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