I think all the booze and coke fried that guys brain a looooooooooooong time ago.

Glenn Hack: Hateful, third-rate Limp-Bough clone who tries to get up in the ratings by shilling for Big Oil and rubbing elbows with She-Devil Coulter and the like.

That the Conservative News Network gave him a show shows you how desperate they are to become Fox Noise: the Sequel.

“Oh Mr. Beck! You’re asking the wrong guy. The rocket engines are over here.”

“Aha! I knew they were around here”.

“Let’s see…I think an ‘H’ class engine is about right. Now let me put in the ignitor….okay!  Oh Mr. Jiffy Lube dude, can I borrow your grease gun for a second? Great!.....
Okay Mr. Beck, bend over and drop ‘em, I gotcher rocket engine right here, ready to go!”

“Uh, okayyyy..UNGGHHHAHHOWCHYOWCHYWOOOunghmmm!”

“three..two one IGNITION!”

“WHHOOOOOOSSsssssshhhhhh   EEEEEeeeeeeee…..”

“..and there he GOES!  Ejection charge in ...three two one”

“POP! *sparkles*”

“Heh, forgot to pack the ‘chute. Oh well.”

“**SPLAT**!”
(clap clap clap)

“Thanks, folks, for attending yet another episode of ‘ThunderTards are GO!’.  Next week, Jonah!”

Is Obama’s energy policy solely based on tire gauges? No. But can we criticize him for embracing the same kind of gimmicky stall tactics that have gotten us to this place?

Yes. Yes we can.

I’m going to go out on a limb and pronounce Glenn Beck a self-spoof.  There’s no way, no freak’n way, you can tell me he got all of that out with a straight face.  I’m not sure if its good or bad that when his time is up so few people will remember what a giant asshole this guy was.  Part of me wants to know he’ll leave this earth as a footnote in cable news history.  Part of me wants to build a shrine to his media-whorish cocksuckery as an enduring example of how never to behave in public.

There’s an episode of All in the Family where Archie goes back to night school to get his equivalency diploma. At one point, his wife is quizzing him from a textbook in advance of an exam while his liberal academic son-in-law listens in:

EDITH: “Who said the treatment of the American Indian was a national disgrace?”

ARCHIE: Treatment of the American Indian, national disgrace. Uhh ...  Well, uh, Geronimo?

EDITH: Nooo.

ARCHIE: C’mon, it had to be some Indian that said that. Who?

EDITH: President Kennedy.

ARCHIE: Aw, that’s a lie. Kennedy never said that. Oh, maybe he said it, but he didn’t mean it. He maybe said it when he was running for office, trying to get the Indian vote, which he never got anyhow.

MIKE: How do you know?

ARCHIE: Because, Meathead, the Indians don’t vote.

MIKE: Archie, the Indians were given the vote in 1924.

ARCHIE: I ain’t talking about that. I’m saying that they don’t use their vote. Like a fella told me, they sell all their horses for booze and then they can’t ride into town.

MIKE: That is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!

ARCHIE: That ain’t stupid. That’s the truth. That’s what the Indians do to us after all we done for them.

MIKE: All we’ve done for them?! Arch, let me tell you something about this country and the American Indians and all we’ve done for them. We lied to them, we cheated them, and then we drove them off their land without paying for it.

ARCHIE: Hold it!

MIKE: That’s right!

ARCHIE: What’re you talking about, their land? They never had no land. They couldn’t read or write.

ARCHIE: How could Sitting Bull sign a lease? All the Indians ever do is ride around scalping wagon trains.

MIKE: Archie, what would you do if someone cheated you out of your land?

ARCHIE: Well, I wouldn’t scalp the guy. I’d hire myself a lawyer.

MIKE: I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it! I’m in here with this lunacy! Help me!

ARCHIE: What’re you yelling about? I ain’t talking about the Polacks, I’m talking about the Indians.

MIKE: [throwing his hands up in despair] AARRGGHHH!

All that to say that after reading halfway through that linked article I know how old Meathead felt; and that if they ever decide to do a cinema verite re-make of the show, they could do worse than cast Glenn Beck.

If we all put on our Jimmy Carter sweaters and used less oil, we’d still need millions of barrels. How about making sure those barrels come from America by starting to drill for it now?

Beck seems to think that all those billions of barrels of oil will just be gifted to the American people, rather than simply added to the world’s supply and most likely shipped overseas.  Certainly, we could do it the former way, but Beck would just deftly switch over to complaining about the commie reds ruining our great nation.

“It’s sad to see (McCain’s) campaign adopting the politics of the tire gauge, promoting the fallacy that Americans are powerless to address their own energy problems. Because the truth is: Yes, we can…”

But not by reducing our consumption, cuz liek that’s just silly commie red talk.

“That means we’d likely save somewhere around 800,000 barrels of oil a day if everyone else also complied[with the tire pressure thing]. Meanwhile, the U.S. Minerals Management Service estimates that there are about 86 billion barrels of oil in the areas that we’re not allowed to drill. You do the math.”

Math suggests that, assuming we can get to all 86 billion barrels, and do so instantly, keeping all tires fully inflated would save us the amount of oil in the areas we aren’t allowed to drill in 1075 days, or slightly under two years.

The thing is, at that point, we would run out of oil in those areas. We are unlikely to run out of tire gauges.

Also, was Obama actually suggesting checking tire pressure as a solution to the energy crisis, or was he just saying “here’s a stupid idea, and it’s way better than offshore drilling, which implies that offshore drilling is a terrible idea?”

Also, was Obama actually suggesting checking tire pressure as a solution to the energy crisis, or was he just saying “here’s a stupid idea, and it’s way better than offshore drilling, which implies that offshore drilling is a terrible idea?”

He’s saying that we would save the same amount of oil by keeping our tires properly inflated as we would gain from offshore drilling.  And, as you point out, when that oil is gone, it’s gone.

Also, as (I think) Kevin Drum points out, funny how the Republicans are all hepped up about drilling but never make a peep about increasing refining capacity?  All the crude oil in the world does jack shit unless you can refine it into gasoline, heating oil, etc.

Beck compared the Gas Tax Holiday to the gas gauge thing.  Hey genius, keeping your tires properly inflated won’t take billions of dollars away from highway maintenance like taking the 18 cent tax away will.  Tool.

“Fuck you.  And fuck.  Your stupid.  Face.  I paid my $26, I want my rocket engines.  ” Is pretty spectacular. Like something out of William Gaddis.

Isn’t it marvelously ironic, that the Democratic candidate for President is being hooted and scorned for suggesting personal responsibility as an alternative to the Republican candidate’s call for socialistic intervention in the marketplace?

“Isn’t it marvelously ironic, that the Democratic candidate for President is being hooted and scorned for suggesting personal responsibility as an alternative to the Republican candidate’s call for socialistic intervention in the marketplace?”

This was my thought too.  I love the part of Beck’s column where he says people will never do the things that will fix our problems—never, never, never! Because putting in more energy-efficient light bulbs and checking your tire pressure is just too hard for Americans.  Who knew we were such hopeless slackers?  I thought we were the greatest country in the world, the most innovative, the hardest workers, etc and so on.

I can’t figure out what story these whacktards believe.

Math suggests that, assuming we can get to all 86 billion barrels, and do so instantly, keeping all tires fully inflated would save us the amount of oil in the areas we aren’t allowed to drill in 1075 days, or slightly under two years.

This message brought to you by the National Education Association.

This message brought to you by the National Education Association.

If so, I truly fear for our educational system.

That math is two orders of magnitude off.

Indeed, it is two orders of magnitude off. However, considering that the world demand for oil (as of 2005, it’s probably much higher now) is about 83,607,000 barrels/day, one can reasonably assume that these “new” reserves would last about 3 years, assuming that we could get all the oil out of the ground, and that the stats of the reserves are not being misrepresented.