Reality trumps

From an Atrios comment on one of Kuntsler's latest posts, this one stood out:

I heard that they are rushing another Mad Max sequel into production... working title is:

Mad Max Beyond Kunstlerdome.

and then someone said:

Nah, it's Mad Max Beyond SuperDome.

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On Air America's Ring of Fire show today:

Linda McQuaig, author of "It's the Crude Dude: Big Oil, War and the Fight for the Planet", dissects the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq and Cheney's war profiteering.

Of course Cheney had no oil industry experience before heading up Halliburton. Once he obtained the experience, BushCo determined he would make perfect vice-presidential material. How convenient. The show gets replayed Sunday afternoon (and on the archives). You can also hear the usual populist-flavored Pap Attack on "Big Oil Hits a Gusher". I just hope these guys don't push their audience too far down the populist trail and more people start believing stuff like this Big Gav find: Is 'Peak Oil' a put on? I think the balance of populism ("Big oil conspires against the little folk") and that of realism ("Oil depletion exists") remains one of the great challenges that lay ahead for progressives who want to get the word out without alienating their base of followers. In any case, see the bottom of this post for references that the Ring of Fire dudes produced for their show. They certainly did their homework.

Thanks to mg for pointing me to the public radio interview with Daniel Yergin. Too bad that he clearly showed an inability to keep up with his homework, twice displaying ignorance of the DoD-sponsored SAIC report titled "Peaking of World Oil Production: Impacts, Mitigation and Risk Management". The host kept asking Yergin about doing something now instead of 20 years down the road (which Yergin seemed to telegraph as a peak oil date). This irritates me to no end -- an obstinate refusal to acknowledge a paradigm shift before it comes breathing down our neck. What on earth good does that do us? At least you would think that the right-wing neo-con "technologists" at places like Yergin's CERA or, worse yet, Tech Central Station would have an interest in at least pushing a thesis like this (i.e. imminent peak oil) forward. After all, you can't damage innovation by giving it a headstart (in time) or a kickstart (in money) -- notwithstanding BushCo's comically bold plan to get us to the moon by 2018.

Last week, WN characterized NASA's plan to return to the moon in 2018 as an impossibly expensive and pointless program that some future administration would find it necessary to cancel, thus sparing the Bush administration the blame for ending human space exploration.

Like ineffectual corporate managers, we always get a couple of options from the BushCo minionists.

1. Set up unrealistic expectations so far in the future that you time shift the blame to some as-yet unborn sucker.
2. Wait until the last second to delegate responsibility so that the stuckee will have an impossible schedule to meet and shoulder all of the blame.

Do they really think that the energy technology market will work out with a set of horse-blinders in place?

Sorry for the rhetorical question.

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From the Ring of Fire resource page, I copied these references as they did not appear to have a permanent link.

Pap Attack: Big Oil Hits a Gusher

Bush family oil ventures
   http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/bush073099.htm

Bush contributions from big oil
   http://www.publicintegrity.org/oil/report.aspx?aid=345&sid=100

Oil companies' profit
   http://business.bostonherald.com/businessNews/view.bg?articleid=101320

Tax credit for purchase of SUVs
   http://www.detnews.com/2002/autosinsider/0212/18/c01-38875.htm

Tax breaks to oil companies
   http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0420-30.htm

Bush Dismisses Global Warming
   http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/06/03/tech/main510920.shtml

It's the Crude Dude: Big Oil, War and the Fight for the Planet

Carter Doctrine
   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carter_Doctrine

Dick Cheney's Energy Taskforce
   http://www.commondreams.org/headlines01/0906-06.htm

Chalabi
   http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/not_in_website/syndication/monitoring/media_reports/2291649.stm

Halliburton and Hurricane Katrina
   http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/09/09/1411242

Chair search committee for Bush running mate
   http://www.publicintegrity.org/bop2004/candidate.aspx?cid=2