Jay Honeck wrote:

I, for one, am not willing to see my kids grow up in a world that has
been reduced to economic squalor simply to benefit a "green agenda".

That's a tenable argument, but, the antebellum south said the same thing
about slavery. If we don't have slaves, how we gonna pick cotton? If
we don't have cotton, how we gonna afford the plantation?

Even before Eastwood cheapened the expression with that stupid-ass
movie, the Marines had a simple philosophy: Adapt and overcome.

Right now we are dependent upon terrorist oil and if we tap the Alaska
oil, it'll be eight years before it gets to market. Eight years ago, we
could have tapped Alaska, OR we could have spent the trillion dollars
we're blowing giving a damn what people do in Allah-land researching and
developing alternative energy with the tenacity that we developed the
atomic bomb and the moon lander.

Sadly, we did neither. We blew our money on stocks and let our energy
and telecom conglomerate executives annihilate our economy.

What troubles me more about RIGHT NOW is that western oil dependency is
more critical than ever; our economy is suffering and it's not just
America, but everywhere. The Osama types live in caves and mud huts.
They don't need oil, but, more importantly, they get it cheap. RIGHT
NOW would be their prime opportunity to attack an oil field or a
refinery or whatever it takes to give the oil barons further excuse to
jack up oil costs (/profits) and for maximum economic impact.

Right now, more than ever, we should be stomping the **** out of the
actual ANTI-WESTERN TERRORISTS and investing hell-for-leather in
releasing what Bush rightfully called our dependence on foreign oil.

The problem is, we all squandered too much time and money in the last
decade to solve our problems, and so here we are. (I get sick of
Republicrats and liberal/conservative propagandists pointing the finger
at each other. We're all responsible. We have to do what we have to
do, green agenda or not. What we have to do is get away from oil or
we're better off going back to horses, coal and steam.)

No sacrifice that I will make in my lifetime will equal the sacrifice my
brother's comrade made in the Anbar province when an IED blew half his
face off. The IED wasn't put there by Al Queda, just a local
warlord/mayor who didn't want his porn/drugs/movie/guns smuggling racket
broken up.

The dark side of me says, let Afghanistan grow poppy like there's no
tomorrow, and get Iran, Iraq, China and North Korea strung out on heroin
like they've got us strung out on oil and cheap lead-laden imports. (and
then kill anybody who tries to smuggle it into the western hemisphere)

Meanwhile, our idealogical enemies would love to sell us a new Cessna
Skycatcher or a fake Rolex. I hear they're cheap.

-c