Tuesday, November 01, 2005

TreeHuggers vs Russian Oil

History Lesson Part 1: The United States bought the 526,000 square miles that would later become Alaska from Russia on March 30, 1867. We paid $7.2 million. The purchase was conducted by Secretary of State William Seward and the purchase became known as "Seward's Folly" and (my favorite) "Seward's Icebox." We bought Alaska for it's abundant natural resources.

History Lesson Part 2: TreeHuggers are cowards who chose to engage in battles with enemies whom they know will not fight back.

The TreeHuggers are pissed off yet again about the potential destruction of the interior of Alaska. The Bush Administration wants to drill in the interior, but the TreeHuggers want to make sure that the not a single animal is harmed in any way whatsoever.

We bought Alaska for cheap fuel and we spent $8,000,000,000 to build an 800-mile pipeline to get that fuel down here to the Continental United States. I don't see any reason not to exploit the hell out of a piece of land that we bought for the implicit reason of exploiting. You buy things to use them. You don't buy a car to not drive it. You don't buy a house to not live in it. You don't buy a 526,000 square-mile oil reserve to not drill it.

The Russians have reserves of 60,000,000,000 barrels. The area from which this oil is drilled is in a similar climate to the interior of Alaska and supports the same wildlife.

The TreeHuggers are concerned about the animals that might lose their way of life if the oil rigs move in. But the TreeHuggers do not seem to care about the Russian Polar Bears, only the American Polar Bears. The TreeHuggers are not going door-to-door in Moscow trying to get people to write to their elected officials to shut down the oil rigs.

The TreeHuggers know that if they tried to make a stand in Russia the chances are pretty good that they would, in fact, be arrested and jailed and perhaps sent to Siberia where they would have a pretty good view of the oil rigs that got them in their predicament in the first place. No, the jackass TreeHuggers go door-to-door here in the USA because they know that they can be as stupid and obnoxious as they want be because they aren't actually breaking any laws. (This comes from a story on NPR's Marketplace about TreeHuggers that went door-to-door on Halloween to raise awareness about drilling in Alaska.)

So here is my solution to this problem: let's sell Alaska back to Russia with the caveat that we get oil in the ground for half price. Let Russia exploit the hell out of that land and let the stupid TreeHuggers cry and moan. Then when they come a-calling about the destruction of the interior of Alaska, we can all just blame it on those evil Godless Russians. We win, Russia wins, the TreeHuggers lose. YIPPEE!!!

Recap: TreeHuggers only care about American Animals, therefore they are racist xenophobes.