Harry Shearer's War

August 15, 2005,
     Before I even get started, I will qualify my remarks this week by reminding you 1.) I'm a registered Democrat, and 2.) I'm not "pro-war."

     So yesterday afternoon while working outside, I was listening to Harry Shearer's Le Show on National Public Radio. Le Show is a patchwork of skits and news commentary by the actor/comedian who played one of the rockers in This Is Spinal Tap, and who has since shown up in several Christopher Guest mockumentaries such as A Mighty Wind.

     So Shearer was on the radio and I'm not crazy about his show because he puts across a self-congratulatory air of moral superiority that, after a while, gets on my nerves. Yesterday, he was twanging on the Iraq War again and especially on the notion that the public was swindled into entering it on the phony pretext of "weapons of mass destruction( WMDs)," with the implication that he was a superior person for having figured this out.

     Anyone who reads this blog regularly knows that I regard the standard WMD argument as fatuous ("turned out there was nothing there, so we shouldn't have gone in and looked"). But this blog isn't about the WMD argument per se. It's about Harry Shearer's snotty assumption that our exertions in the Middle East -- however poorly or well we are managing them -- are only undertaken for the vanity and greed of George Bush & Co.

    Because as Shearer was twanging on about WMDs and Iraq and how deplorable the whole thing is, I started wondering about Shearer's real life in Los Angeles, and imagining him driving from his house in one of the better sections of the city to the studio where he does the show, or Shearer motoring across town to Melrose Avenue for sushi, or Shearer tooling up into the canyons above Hollywood to have drinks with friends, or Shearer transporting a child, perhaps, twenty miles down the freeway to a soccer game. And I was wondering what kind of car Shearer drove, and I couldn't help imagining it was probably not a cheap car, and perhaps not a little tiny car, and if Shearer was married or lived with somebody, then his wife / partner undoubtedly had a car, too -- because that's how life is lived in Los Angeles, despite some of their strides in public transit. And as I imagined Harry Shearer driving around Los Angeles in an expensive car deploring this terrible war in Iraq, I couldn't shake the feeling that Shearer was getting, so to speak, a free ride.

     Which gets back to the war per se. Because if anyone asked me to define what the war is about -- and people have asked -- I would say the war is a desperate attempt by the US to stabilize the region of the world where two-thirds of the remaining global oil supply exists in order for Americans like Harry Shearer to continue enjoying a lifestyle of extreme car dependency. Now, this war may be an exercise in futility and ineptitude by the people running it, while it includes acts of valor or brutality by the soldiers engaged in it, and certainly produces a lot of personal tragedy for the soldiers and the Iraqi people.

     But I have trouble imagining what Harry Shearer thinks the Middle East would be like now if the US had not overthrown Saddam Hussein and was not struggling to maintain this police station there in the hot center of things. Does he imagine it would be a tranquil scene, like the picture on a pack of Camel cigarettes? If Shearer couldn't get as much gas as he wanted on a given day -- even if he could pay high prices -- to fill up his Infiniti, or Beemer, or Benzie, or Toyota Landcruiser, or whatever he drives, would he be feeling quite so superior about the war? Has Harry Shearer seen any of his children join the army and go to Iraq to preserve his entitlement to drive all over Los Angeles in a spiffy car? Has Harry Shearer made any sacrifices so that he is less oil-dependent than he was before there was a war in Iraq?

     Harry Shearer with his attitude of moral superiority reminds me of my neighbor here in Saratoga Springs, the lady with the "War Is NOT the Answer" bumper sticker on her Ford Expedition. For people who want to keep on enjoying an easy motoring utopia, war is the answer.

     This, of course, is the predicament of the Democrats, my own party. They have no interest in modifying the nation's suicidal suburban sprawl lifestyle either, only in the easy pretenses of political correctness. Instead of twanging on WMDs and the depravity of the war in Iraq, I'd like to hear someone like Harry Shearer (or John Kerry, or Nancy Pelosi, or Harry Reid) stand up and pitch for restoring the US passenger rail system. I'd like to hear some of these assholes propose some meaningful changes that Americans can make in behavior so we won't be so desperate to engage in military contests over the oil we need to drive for sushi in Los Angeles.

Comments

[Sipsey]

I've commented to friends that if the Bush administration had stood up before the war and said "We have to have Middle East oil. We can't afford to have a destabilized region. So, we're going in", I wouldn't have liked it, but I could have accepted it because it would have been the truth. It's the lying that digusts me.

[Carl Barr]

Jim,

Every Monday I wait for your post to come out. I have been researching peak oil and reading numerous books about peak oil for a year and am fascinated by energy politics. Keep up the good work, I work in the power industry (front lines), commissioning power plants, and I will tell you, more and more people are waking up to your ideas that energy does not just come out of the socket in the wall at your house.

[a-train]

jk your argument about driving suv's is backwards. if oil wasn't cheap, people wouldn't be driving them. the gov't fights to keep oil cheap not for harry shearer or suburbanites, but for corporations and those who are making a killing in the current economy.

putting a police station in the middle east only buys a little time, at a very high price.

war is not the answer. just pushes solving underlying problems into the future. always.

[Jussi Hämäläinen]

I'm not an American,so I'll just say that I thought the war seemed like a good idea to me at the time.Had the US Government went in with an actual post-war plan,intent on holding speedy elections and then getting out ASAP,who knows what would've happened?

But really,I wanted to point to you ,in case you haven't read it already,the new Matthew Simmons interview for the Financial Sense Online:

http://www.financialsense.com/transcriptions/Simmons.html

Even for a Peak Oil obsessive like me,there was a lot of new information here.Well worth your time.

[Bob]

The invasion of Iraq, it seems to me, made the situation there in the Middle East worse, and the flow of oil out of it in greater jeopardy. It was a badly planned move.

If Saddam were still in power the oil would still be flowing, our country would not have had to borrow another half trillion to finance an unwinnable war and the myth of our military invincability would still be intact.

As far as searching for WMDs, it's been pretty much proven that the fear and panic about Saddam's imaginary arsenal was generated by the Bush Administration and its allies for the purpose of justifying the war. We haven't forgotten the Downing Street Memo already, have we?

Finally, and this is going to be the greatest heresy of thought in this blog, I have been a little dubious about the peak oil theory. In the late seventies, the CIA, in conjunction with the oil industry, put out a similar scare. Then-President Carter, up to his neck with problems with Iran (which on many levels could be laid to the CIA-Oil nexus), started making a push to separate the US from foreign oil dependency. That was clearly the wrong direction, in the CIA-Oil's opinion.

(I realize using the term "CIA" is simplistic, but am using the term to refer to that core of people in US intelligence who had deep-running ties to the oil industry, and vice versa. For ex, the Dulleses were primary in creating the US-Saudi relationship. GHW Bush is the personification of this relationship.)

The war in Iraq was a business decision by Oil (which transcends nationalism now, and whose only allegiance to the US is for the use of its armed forces).

Alternative means of transportation, alternative sources for energy, energy conservation, these are all absolute necessities to prevent an economic collapse of the US. Global warming is reason enough to start moving away from the carbon-based energy paradigm. The problem is that the US military is not fighting to preserve the American Way of Life, it's fighting to keep oil companies in control of sources of profit.

[Clide Rockwell]

Ipsos-Reid came out with some numbers today that the ever-delusional Toronto Sun printed:

Americans blame the following factors for high gas costs:

- Oil companies that want to make too much profit (30%)

- Foreign countries that dominate oil reserves (22%)

- Politicians (21%)

- Environmentalists (9%)

- People who drive gas-guzzling vehicles (7%)

Source: AP/AOL poll

Canadians cite the following factors for high gas costs:

- Oil and gas companies are working together to gouge consumers and jack up their profits (35%)

- Oil-producing countries in the Middle East are punishing the U.S. and other countries for their involvement in Iraq (25%).

- Growing demand from developing countries like China is forcing up oil and gas demand everywhere (15%)

- We don't have enough infrastructure to refine the oil and keep up with demand (10%)

- We're running out of oil (9%)

[Frank Emesis]

This is a false dilemma. Our choices were not do nothing or fight for "our" oil.
There are many low-cost, low-risk changes that can be made to our oil dependent lifestyles that don't involve war crimes. But you can't expect them to be implemented, championed or even noticed by the oil barons in charge of our government.

[dnagrl]

Jim, they are STILL building Nowhere, apparently:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/15/national/15exurb.html?ei=5094&en=2a364987468e9be3&hp=&ex=1124164800&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print

I read this New York Times piece and thought of your 'Nowhere' series. In the same vein, the new highway bill ought to have deserved a rant all its own. I guess Shearer got under your skin a little more.
The whole country still keeps getting paved over, and at almost $3/gallon gasoline, it sort of surprises me.
The NYT piece actually quantifies that a house must be $12,000 cheaper to be WORTH an additional '15 minutes' commute (in ideal driving conditions) to downtown Tampa. It also characterizes these exurban areas as highly pro-Bush and markedly fearful for their personal safety. How expensive does gasoline need to get to convince people to live closer to where they work? Or are we talking supply disruptions as the only possible thing to change this style of development?

[JimE]

What would the mideast be like if we hadn't invaded Iraq? This is the classic logical fallacy of a 'hypthesis contrary to fact' and really the only issue on which I take issue with JK. We can never know. However, we can comment on conditions that existed before the invasion of Iraq and on options we foreclosed with that invasion.
The folks most in the know - weapons inspectors and intelligence agencies - pretty much agreed that Saddam didn't have WMD. We didn't have to invade to look, but simply keep the pressure on with a threat of invasion. To the best of my memory Saddam was not in a position to threaten anyone at the time and so we had time to work on alternatives.
So what 'stability' was there to gain by deposing him. Virtually every Mid-East expert outside the neo-cons said that Iraq was not a real country & would fall apart without a strong force to hold it together. So far, they were right.
What options did we foreclose? A few would include: the cooperation of many allies on many issues, including energy, because of our lies and intransigence - The ability to really attack the roots of terrorism, because of the lack of resources brought on by the war - The reconstruction of Afghanistan, where we might have actually received positive reactions from some Islamic nations, see resources - and a reasoned conversation in our own country about the energy future, in an atmosphere not complicated by the blood of thousands on our hands. The last is probably the most damning.
Finally, I would turn the question back to JK, since he avoids addressing it as far as I have seen. Suppose that despite the lies we told to go to war, we had brilliantly won it and the following peace. What would we have gained? Would Iran be more or less likely to go nuclear? Would Kurds, Shiites and Sunnis suddenly learn to love each other and become a stable democracy?Would China become more or less competitive with us? Would Saudis now love us or hate us even more? I would like to hear the reasons why JK thinks war was a good idea, since almost all wars do not accomplish their long-term goals and all have unintended consequences. I can't believe he thinks W and company just had our best interests at heart.

[Jussi Hämäläinen]

One more thing... I will post this excerpt from the Simmons interview,then leave.

" ..if we get through the Summer we have a fabulous respite from Labor Day to Thanksgiving, until we hunker to try to figure out how the world gets through the Winter of 2005 and 2006 because oil demand globally could easily go to 86-88 million bpd during the Winter, and that could easily exceed supply by 2-5 million bpd.[38:53]

JIM: If that was to happen we would almost be looking at $75-80 oil, I suspect.

MATT: No, no, no. Oil prices could easily go up 5-10 times.

JIM:[-----]Wow!"

[kd]

Interesting post, as always, Jim.
One thing I must confess is that I still don't really know what your personal feeling is about the war. I do get it (& for the most part agree) when you point out the fatuousness of driving a $40,000 vehicle, living in a million dollar home, & spending thousands a month at the shopping malls, etc. while at the same time decrying a war that is being fought (to a great degree) for the very purpose of making all this possible, now & in the short-term future.

But I think the war is being fought for more complex reasons--among them (simplistic as it may sound) is the Bush team's vanity.

That said, I just want to add that I fully agree with your assessment of the Democratic party! I'd like to hear more discussion about this (ways the Democratic party can fix itself, & find a positive course in light of Peak Oil).

[Blaine]

Sound like jealousy to me Jim. Deep down you'd like to be Harry?

I have the impression, from your writing, that you were supportive of the invasion of Iraq.

Being "a registered Democrat" is not much to boast about. You are part of the problem.

You write: >>the war is a desperate attempt by the US to stabilize the region of the world where two-thirds of the remaining global oil supply exists in order for Americans like Harry Shearer to continue enjoying a lifestyle of extreme car dependency.<<

What we were told [the first time] was it was about WMDs. The ones the UN told us he did not have.

Bush's cabal lied to the world to justify what they were predetermined to do. Denied it was about oil. Ex post facto claim it was all about freedom and democracy, Saddam was evil ergo our actions are justified.

You're right to rant about the lack of public transportation, but if you think being a Democrat obsolves you from being part of the problem...well...forget it.

Did you breakdown the just-passed transportation & energy bills?

Nonsense and P-O-R-K.

[theBhc]

Hi Jim,

I am reminded of something a certain something Texas Republican Joe Barton said when the Energy porn bill was introduced and passed by the House. From The BHC, Vol.51, Energy Porn:

"When asked about telling Americans to drive less, he offers his sage Texas wisdom:

'If you want to tell them that, go ahead. I want to be re-elected.' "

Short term political reality to these fine members of Congress trumps any and all ideas about how to fix this mess. As you often say, they and we insist on pretending that the future will exactly like now. They don't want to say it and we sure as hell don't want to hear it.

[kd]

Let me qualify my last statement by saying that--in the final analysis--the Democratic party will NOT offer any radical "solutions" to oil addiction, urban sprawl, environmental degradation, mindless consumerism & corproate imperialism. I just damn sure want to see the Bush "team" removed from power.

[JimE]

Some words on hypocrisy. Intentional hypocrisy or hypocrisy born of willful ignorance is truly irritating and I can understand JK's feelings about his SUV driving neighbor. However, I think one needs to be careful about accusing others of this fault, especially by name.
First, for some reason, people of late really like to put down celebrities for having political views, and for being able to voice them, because as celebrities they can get an audience. Celebrities as a class are no smarter or stupider than any other classification of people & their comments should be viewed as anyone else's. They either make sense or they don't.
If Harry Shearer, in fact, drives a big SUV then he is a hypocrite. But if he simply drives a lot because he lives in LA, he shouldn't be criticized personally, because it's simply a fact of life in LA. Are all the people who grew up in the suburbs precluded from commenting on Peak Oil because they are not 'pure' of energy use? JK himself admittedly often flies around the country to promote his book.
So, JK, if you want to blast hypocrisy, that is fine. But to blast someone personally as a hypocrite, when you don't really know if its true, just because he irritates you, comes off as just being 'pissy'. After all you both are probably on the same side of most issues. What is gained by unproven personal accusations simply to make a point that can be made just fine without them?

[speedbird]

My favourite theory for the 'real' reason behind Iraq is this:

Saudi Arabia are currently the world's 'swing' producer of oil: as the biggest producer, if they increase production, the price drops; if they decrease production, the price rises. The West, therefore, keeps them nice and sweet.

Suppose Saudi go into decline. Who's got the next biggest potential produciton in the world? Who's going to be the next swing producer?

Saddam Hussein.

Can you imagine GW rolling out the red carpet for that dude? Hugs in the desert, some nice arms deals in the pipeline?

His teddies must have been right out of the cot when he saw that one coming... no wonder we had to go 'stabilise' the region...

[llamajockey]

Passenger rail is a great idea. However, building a state of the art passenger rail system means importing much of the technology from those European surrender monkeys like France, Spain and Germany. Already, this summer wing-nuts wanted to zero-out Amtrack and gut the Accela eastern shuttle cause it used French technology.

Very soon all of the major cities in
Western Europe will be linked by high speed rail. The Europeans are looking ahead to the day when the masses will not need conventional gasoline powered cars nor overly complex, expensive and hard to mass produce hybrids like the Toyota Prius.

Instead, Europeans and Koreans are studying simple and inexpensive gasoline car alternatives like Compressed Air powered cars.

http://www.theaircar.com/
http://www.theaircar.com/thecar.html

These cars actually are electric powered since they would use electricity generated compressed air but without the weight low battery cell-cycle life and
long recharging time with tradional electric cars. They would weigh less than half of a conventional car and use an Indy Car Racing/tubular style frame for advanced crash safety and road handling. They could feature re-generative braking like modern hybrids but with smaller and lighter weight batteries. The bodies could be made out of a composite of fiberglass and hemp for both light weight, strength, insulation and low fossil fuel construction requirements. The cars would not need air conditioners since releasing compressed air produces cold air. Nor would building these cars require massive assembly plants and capital expense.

These cars would have a practical range of 60 to 100 miles between fill ups. A high pressure compressed air fill up would take 3 minutes. But that should not be a problem, because unlike a gas station an air compressor could be located at every store and street corner. An over night fill-up at home takes 3 to 5 hours. The cars could have a maximum speed of 60 miles an hour. Sustained speeds over 40 miles an hour would require using a low cost supplemental fuel source like hydrated ethanol(10-20% water) to pre-heat the compressed air for more horsepower.

These compressed-air cars a not intended for long distance high speed highway travel. They are intended for urban and suburban use and as a complement to mass transit and commuter rail.

Nobody is going to get laid because they drive a compressed air car. But for the future economically strapped masses compressed air cars may be a much more practical solution. Let the wealthy own the higher priced Prius and other gasoline powered hybrids. We will certainly never see expensive hydrogen fuel cell cars.

By the way, I watched the debates on the Energy Bill. Democrats who wanted to funded research into electric/Compressed Air Vehicles were shot down in committee with the comment that we are not going to use public money to fund "glorified golf carts". Great, in the future we can import them from France along with the TGV trains.

I really like Harry Shearer, the voice of Ned Flanders and Mr Burns on the Simpsons. I believe Shearer may very well be part of the Prius driving Hollywood set, but your point is well taken nonetheless.

[Weaseldog]

Bob, the big deal in the 1970s was that oil production was peaking in the United States. Hubbert Predicted in the 1950s that US oil production would peak in the 1970s and it did.

This time it's World Oil Production that's at issue.

In the 1970s, the media worked hard to keep the issue clouded and confused, when it was actually pretty simple. Same as now. You're supposed to be confused so your betters can make the big decisions for you.

The point of being in the ME is instability. It's keeping other nations from making inroads into the Middle East. It's keeping Saudi Arabia on top and in control. It's insuring that Christian Oil Corporations and not Muslim Oil Corporations are making all of the profits. It's about maintaining graft and funnelling huge sums of US taxpayer fuinds and Iraqi oil profits into offshore accounts.

So to summarize.
1. It's about taking our money and using it to buy villas and hotels for the super rich.
2. It's about taking Iraqi oil profits and using it to buy villas and hotels for the super rich.
3. It's about isuring that real power in the region is the Saudi Monarchy.
4. It's about repressing rivals powers, even democracies like Iran.
5. It's about insuring all the money is funneled through specific corporations like Halliburton.
6. It's about keeping the Russians and the Chinese out of the region.

Jim, the chaos is the point. We are there to maintain the chaos at an acceptable level.

When we pull troops out next year, it will be after our permanent Iraqi bases are well established.

And then we can do the same thing to Iran, a that is more democratic than Saudi Arabia.

But Bush doesn't kiss rings in Iran does he? He kisses them in the House of Saud.

[David Goldberg]

Dr. K --

You know I love you, bruh, but the cognitive dissonance in your thinking on the war is so jarring it's giving ME a headache. It may sound like 20-20 hindsight, but there were many people who foresaw what a blindingly foolish escapade this would turn out to be well in advance, whatever the rationale for the invasion.
(I can show you an editorial I wrote for the Atlanta paper in 2001, when rumors of an attack on Iraq first emerged, that, in all humility, fairly accurately predicted the current state of affairs.) You, on the other hand, apparently were suckered, and you're understandably pissed. But for some reason you're taking your anger out on people like me, who opposed the war from the beginning. You insult our intelligence and our valor by claiming we were just too naive to comprehend the threat to a way of life we are unwilling to defend. At the risk of sounding overly self-congratulatory, I have written, argued, campaigned on behalf of a less oil-intensive lifestyle for years, and I manage to live with a wife and four kids and only one car that we put less than 10,000 miles a year on. My son is a fucking Marine and could be deployed any day. I don't want to hear anymore rationalizations for this goddamn war, and I don't want the good people who oppose it to be smeared and slandered by someone like you, who should know better. And you're mucking up your message in any event, which ought to be that we CAN'T sustain our oil-instensive lifestyle by playing petrocop, so we better think up something else.

[gilliani]

If war in Iraq HAD stabilized the region, securing our access to the majority of the world's oil, I would say that you are right in asserting that (in the search for oil) "war is the answer."

But the war has DE-stabilized the area and diminished our access to oil, so that would be a fallacious argument.

Second, your dismissing the argument against war that says there were no WMD's so we had no right to look (or something like that; I am in a hurry so don't have time to keep going back to check your exact words) is a specious argument too. Not simply because we have done so much more than "look", but because you left out the part of the anti-war argument that says (or implies) that not finding any WMD's IN CONJUNCTION with no credible evidence of their existance beforehand is one of the very strong reasons the war was unjustified from its inception.

[kd]

Interesting post, Speedbird.

One thing I've noticed is that money is held in such esteem (or would the right word be 'reverence'?), that when anyone criticizes a wealthy person for his or her lifestyle, the result is often cries of "Jealousy!" Or, as in the case of Arundhati Roy, when a wealthy person criticizes the power elite (ie: other wealthy persons), they are often met with cries of "Hypocrite!" Both these cries issue not from the wealthy, but from ordinary people.

Why are we so increasingly enamored with wealth? Everywhere I go--in restaurants & cafes, in line at the grocery store, waiting for a film to start, walking down a city street--the conversations I overhear are not about family, ideas, politics, books, films, music, pets, children, wives, husbands, mates, hobbies, sports--but money.

It certainly can't be for the reason that we don't have "enough". I look around & see that we're better dressed, drive better cars, live in bigger houses, shop at bigger stores (filled with more goods than our grandparents could have imagined), work in bigger, more luxurious buildings...in other words, we have more "things" than anyone on earth, at any time.

[Rodrigo]

Okay, we're doomed and we're all gonna die.

Meanwhile, how about a post, an article about what individuals can do now to avoid or delay the calamities you so confidently predict.

Given the realities of most 9-5 suburbians, those of us who can't affort a light rail system instead of the family car, or who can't plow up the lawn to plant wheat, or who can't overcome the power politics--local and national.

Are we just to be condemned by you as boobs, deserving of the inevitable miseries to come?

I recall the fellow in one of your audiences who you ridiculed for suggesting his children walk to school instead of taking the bus, which would protect against child obesity, save fuel & cost of fuel used by school buses, and reduce pollutants generated by the buses.

This alone would not solve the enormous problems we face, but along with similar modification in behavior in other areas, it might contribute.

I think sometimes you just like to rant, and rant about overwhelming problems which may have no solution. Ranting is part of your nature, and it sells books.

[davidog]

weaseldog- i look forward to seeing w in bedouin drag. him and his hand-holdin' tent buddy, pinky-swearing friendship forever.

jim- my objection to the war is not that bush lied about the evidence of wmd's, which he did; i expect that from our government. remember remember the maine...

i object because the policies now in place could not be better devised to thwart the stated objectives. we are destabilizing a formerly fairly stable country. we are creating new "terrorists" every time we kill someone's innocent brother, mom or child. if you bombed my brother's house i would kill you. do you expect less from iraquis? and we have grossly added to the cost of oil: factor in the cost of this war to the cost of a barrel of go-juice and the average american might soil his honduras-made, walmart- purveyed knit boxers.

shearer shmearer. the guy is an entertainer. if he introduces constructive ideas to his listeners good on him. it is childish to hold harry to a higher ideal than we do the nation as a whole.

democrats? feh. i voted nader. twice. kerry was pro-war, pro-wall street, anti-worker. he just wanted to be president real bad. no agenda to help me or the people i care about. did he mention once during his campaign the need to conserve oil, lower speed limits, restore our railroads? clinton screwed us with his support of gatt and nafta, and by giving up on the issue he was elected on: universal health care. we are not a 2-party country. there is one party, and my friends and i are not invited.

[odograph]

I've enjoyed your Monday articles, but this one misses the story by a country mile.

If Bush & Co. had say "war for oil" (blood for oil) the American people would not have gone. That is the GOOD news. We are not resource plunderers on quite the scale of past nationalist governments.

So the WMD and 9/11 were played up in the public mind to create the environment for a war. That is the BAD news. We as a nation had enough unrequited anger to support one more war.

Now, sadly, oil is at the bottom of things in Iraq. The tragedy in my mind is that the direct question was not asked - do you want to downsize your SUV or do you want to go to war?

At least then, we'd have a better idea how evil we are, if we are really a nation of plunderers.

[mikef]

Couple of comments
First I want to say I'm a big JHK
fan, have written to him and have gotten such quick responses it still
amazes me.

1.Several people have mentioned how
"hypocritical" JHK is for flying around the US while decrying other peoples energy use.
The plane was going to take off anyway so being angry at JHK is pretty lame.
It would only be hypocritical if JHK
bumped Aunt Bea on a full flight,if the seat was going to be empty,why not him.Only Jim can tell us how full
his flights are.Jim?

2.I'm surprised Jim didn't mention
that Mr. Shearer is also the voice
of Smithers and Mr.Burns on "The Simpsons"
He's also plays the merkin to his
lesbian wife Helen Hunt.Safe to say their garage/driveway is clunker-free.

3.America have made a choice,Mama Sheehan nonwithstanding ,their
"lifestyle is non-negotiable" to fuel it?WWIII

4.This is a serious long shot,but the person whose energy habits I
want to know about is Paul Craig Roberts.
This guy was an undersecretary of the
Treasury under Reagan.
A Reagan Republican who by association blasted Jimmy Carter's
honesty about energy (conservation)
and is now all over the net blasting
Dubya on Iraq (consumption)
Anyone?