Addicted to Oil?

As I was listening to Beyond the Beltway, recently, the fellow on the left kept bringing up our "addiction to oil."

Addicted to Oil? Yes, our economy is addicted to oil, in much the same way that our bodies are addicted to air, water and food.

Like it or not, the world's economies are reliant on energy. The cheapest, most reliable, efficient and plentiful source of energy today comes in the form of oil, coal and natural gas - fossil fuels. Electricity could be produced much more cheaply, reliably and cleaner with nuclear energy, but we haven't built a nuclear power plant in over 20 years. So, oil, coal and natural gas, it is. The environmentalists and the left hate the very thing that would do the best job in reducing our dependence (not addiction) on fossil fuels.

The left loves to talk of a future powered by wind and solar energy, and I don't have a problem with that - in the future. Those technologies aren't ready for prime time, yet. Several problems are all but impossible to overcome, the least of which is you can't rely on the wind, and only half of the planet is covered in sunlight at a time. Battery technology is still years behind making electric powered transportation mainstream. If you can't hop in your car and drive non stop from one end of the country to the other, without an 8 + hour "recharge" time breaking up the trip several times, it isn't viable. "I'm sorry , but you can't have your package overnight, the truck has to stop to recharge every 5 hours for 8 hours..."

If there were a better way to power our society, wouldn't the capitalists in our world be jumping all over it? Wouldn't every venture capital company on the planet be jumping on the bandwagon to make a profit from it? The facts are that the most efficient method of powering our transportation, industry and households is burning fossil fuels. Until, that is, our government artificially makes fossil fuels too expensive, and that would wreak havoc on our economy.

President McFly?

I'm sure we've all seen the movie "Back to the Future." George McFly needs to take Lorraine to the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, so they can have their first kiss, set the timeline back to normal, and Marty will still exist. Because Marty interrupted the original timeline, George had to try to win Lorraine over, again.

The reason I'm bringing this up, is because George went through a transformation. The plan was to "rescue" Lorraine from Marty, and win her heart. While practicing what he was going to say, "Get your damn hands off of her," his heart wasn't in it, and he didn't even think he should swear! In the process of trying to save her from Marty, Biff took Marty's place. George's transformation didn't take place, until he realized that he finally had to stand up, be a man, and protect Lorraine. President Obama, tried to make the same transformation, recently. "...And I don't sit around just talking to experts because this is a college seminar, we talk to these folks because they potentially have the best answers, so I know whose ass to kick."

I'm sorry, Mr. President. But, you can't just act tough when you have never shown any proclivity to it in the past. George McFly didn't know how to act tough, because people had been walking all over him for all of his life. It wasn't until he actually felt angry, that he could actually summon up the genuine anger that was needed in that situation. Bottom line: You can't just act all tough when it isn't genuine, and expect the American people to buy it.

In addition, your "ass to kick" rhetoric was misplaced. While George had a genuine threat that he had assessed and dealt with appropriately, your tough guy act is completely inappropriate, especially given your agreement to deal with actual thugs like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kim Jong Il, and Hugo Chavez without preconditions. Find a more appropriate time to try on your big boy pants, sir.