Year: 2005

Thanks for the mounds of email. Some points: yes, there are many other reasons for our over-consumption of oil. But transportation is the main one and the massive rise in the use of SUVs has made a difference. Here’s a chart of oil usage from 1950 – 2002. Transportation is the biggest drain and is becoming more so. Levitt and Dubner also cast doubt on the efficacy of those cumbersome child seats in the back of cars that make SUVs the size of a 1950s ranch house. Here’s their debunking. In general, I favor the market figuring these things out. With any luck, as gas heads toward $3 a gallon, hybrids will see more growth in sales. But shaming SUV-owners is still a good option. SUV-owners and sellers are indirectly weakening the war on terror, by financing the enemy far more than anyone needs to. If young men and women can sacrifice their lives for our security, can others not buy a different kind of car? Or is that too much to ask?

I’m no paleocon, he insists. He has a point.

How’s this for an idea: send me your best ideas for anti-SUV bumper stickers. One reader already suggested: “How many soldiers-per-gallon does your SUV get?” Another ofering: “Osama Loves Your SUV.” Got a better one?

“Well, since I am as big a Soccer Mom as anyone, I think I need to chime in here. Yes, my mother didn’t have an SUV when she was taking care of us in the 1970s. She used to pack four or five of us kids in the back of her Ford Maverick. You know what? The car seat laws are much stricter now. And the car seats are much bigger. And the kids are required by law to sit in them until they are much older. There is no way you could fit even one of today’s car seats in my mother’s old Ford Maverick. I wouldn’t want to try. Kids are much safer in today’s cars, with today’s car seats, than they were when I was a kid. You say yesterday’s kids thrived? I’ll let you check on the car accident statistics, the survival rates, etc., and then you can get back to me on that.
In the meantime, I will continue to schlep my kids and my kids’ friends around in my Honda Oddysey minivan, with the three huge car seats inside.”

Let me know about the child car fatalities if anyone out there can. But why can’t we relax the car seat laws and size down the car seats? Jeez. Meanwhile, we’re financing Islamist terrorism and hurting the environment for the sake of … the kids. Groan. The nanny-state and the gas-guzzling state: about as good a description of Bush conservatism as any, I suppose.

P.S. Do I sound like I had a great vacation?

Fareed Zakaria makes an excellent point today in a column about rising oil prices, and how they are helping to finance the terror masters in Tehran, Saudi Arabi and elsewhere. Some kind of move toward greater energy efficiency is essential in the war on terror. But what I didn’t realize is how the curse of the SUV is so damaging. Fareed writes that 54 percent of today’s U.S. fleet of cars are made up by these ugly, behemoth tanks that guzzle gas, and make life miserable for everyone not in them. My anti-SUV ire always goes up in the summer, when I see these vast, bloated symbols of excess bulldozing down the narrow streets of Provincetown, pushing every bicyclist, pedestrian or small child out of their way. My only solace is thinking of how many of these SUV owners are pouring money away to keep their mobile homes on the road. Pity that same money goes to finance Islamist terror. And please don’t give me all this guff about how I don’t have a car (hey, I’m not indirectly donating to al Qaeda), having to take kids here, there and everywhere, with all their stuff and the dogs and suburbs and soccer practices and on and on. All of this took place before SUVs; kids were just packed into back seats and trunks were stuffed full if necessary. Parents coped. Kids thrived. If all else failed, people could even have less stuff. Imagine that: less stuff. As readers know, I’d gladly put a dollar of extra tax on gas, insist on higher fuel standards for cars, make SUVs comply with the fuel standards of other cars and put a tax on SUVs on top pf all that. We are in a war. As far as I’m concerned, those people driving SUVs are aiding and abetting the enemy, and helping to finance the terrorists that want to kill us all. I’m well aware that the notion that the Bush administration has any interest in energy independence or taxing gas or deterring SUVs is about as likely as their demanding subsidies for sex-changes, but I might as well vent. We can always stigmatize these SUV-terror-enablers. How about bumper-stickers for non-SUVs that simply say: my car doesn’t subsidize Saudi terror. Would that help?

One of the biggest economic stories of our time – finding a way to sustain the Chinese economy – keeps developing. China is now moving in on Central Asia’s oil supplies by buying oil-fields, while the U.S. is trying to keep Iraq in one piece. Advantage: Beijing.

Slate weighs in – long after this blog sliced through the debate – on the question of male genital mutilation, also known as circumcision. We now know it can help prevent the transmission of HIV. But at what cost? Slate’s inviting readers who have had sex with foreskin and without foreskin to figure out the differences. Stay tuned … 1.2 million American baby boys are mutilated a year.

They are not incompatible. For a Christian, I’d say they are inseparable.

Some crotchety remarks from paleo-con Bainbridge and neocon Frum. Money quote from Bainbridge:

What really annoys me, however, are the domestic implications of all this. The conservative agenda has advanced hardly at all since the Iraq War began. Worse yet, the growing unpopularity of the war threatens to undo all the electoral gains we conservatives have achieved in this decade. Stalwarts like me are not going to vote for Birkenstock wearers no matter how bad things get in Iraq, but what about the proverbial soccer moms? Gerrymandering probably will save the House for us at least through the 2010 redistricting, but what about the Senate and the White House?

Hey, we’ve exploded the size of government, legitimized an insolvent nanny-state for a generation, guaranteed a huge future tax increase, missed an opportunity for seriously trying to move toward energy independence, and made the biggest intelligence error since Pearl Harbor. Not bad, eh? The emails on Frum’s blog are very telling about the mood of the conservative base. My own evolving view of what’s happening in Iraq is that there’s still a reasonable chance of a pretty depressingly illiberal constitution, folllowed by low-level civil war, policed in part by young Americans. Better than Saddam? You betcha. Better than a crumbling regime under Saddam’s sons during an Islamist upswing? Absolutely. But a long way from what many of us had hoped for.

A huge bouquet of thanks for my four intrepid guest-bloggers, Judith, Frank, Dan and Walter. They were all unique, and all showed, I think, how intimate and individual blogging can be as a medium. I had one of the best breaks of my life, marred only by my highly enjoyable final weekend. Now back to reality …

PEACE ON EARTH: Yet another expression of his version of Christianity from Pat Robertson. Recall that Robertson was on the list fo people consulted by the administration on the Supreme Court nomination. He’s not an outsider, even though every sane conservative says he is the minute he opens his mouth and says something hateful again. He was once a credible presidential candidate. The test of mainstream Republicans’ integrity is if they do not simply denounce this comment but denounce Robertson and his political machine. He is their Michael Moore. Instead, you get mealy-mouthed and exhausted-to-the-bone attempts to blame it on the liberal media.