"1.- Politically, cut ties with Israel; that includes the cash. Leave the ME."

"2.- Economically, Find a substitute for ME oil."

Make ya a deal. We do these two things, but no backing down from the consequences.

1.We cut ties with Israel. When Israel decides to use their weapons systems while they are still dominant to dispatch Iran and Hezbollah, we ignore them. If that ultimately leads to Israel nuking somebody, so be it.

2.Leave the ME. When the Shia and the Sunni engage in full scale civil war across the region, when Syrian tanks rolls back into Lebanon, when the Muslim Brotherhood takes over Egypt, when the House of Saud throws in officially with AQ, when the Kurds of Turkey, Syria, and Iran are subjected to full scale genocide... well, we're out of it. No take backs.

3.Find a substitute for ME oil. Very good. We off our lunatic corn subsidies tying ethanol to the worst crop for it, go full bore into switch grass based ethanol production. At the same time we move to an electric based society... which necessitates nuclear power. Bonus- we reduce our CO2 emmissions by 1/3rd by eliminating coal, oil, and gas power production.

If that works for you, so be it. The problem is the folks proposing this kind of nonsense could never live with those outcomes. They arent interested in ignoring Israel and the ME, they are interested in interfering their way. They arent interested in getting off a carbon based society unless its done their way, mainly by severly curtailing our modern society and technology. And you will never get more in depth analysis from them about these questions, because they know the answers they have arent palatable.

Make sure the world researches all the work needed for a puppy, I don't want all the responsibility later on!

Step 3 ruins world peace as the cat lovers begin to engage in terrorism against all the puppy owners, distributors and breeders.

So easy, even a caveman could do it.

Speaking on behalf of Cavemen everywhere, I wish to register our offense at being associated with such simplistic thinking. Do you think we developed controlled ignition, that's "Invented Fire" to you, with that kind of reasoning?

(I love those Geico ads)

cut ties with Israel

I've said it 100 times here: The goal of a certain segment of our polity seems to be to change the motto of the United States to "no better enemy, no worse friend."

Find a substitute for ME oil.

Yes, if only Bush were smarter and hadn't misplaced all of the substitutes that Clinton turned over to him, we wouldn't be in the position of having to find them again. Still, I'm sure a diligent search will recover a least of couple of them; maybe the kids can do it after the White House Easter egg hunt.

Cut ties with Israel = promote another Holocaust.

Liberals are either drooling appeasers or insane anti-Semites. They have no illusions, most like Carter would welcome another Holocaust. Others simply want to appease.

Heck Hillary said she'd allow ethnic cleansing in Iraq as President. Her hubby sat around molesting interns during the Rwandan Genocide. Ghandi advised the Brits to surrender and upbraided the Jews from escaping from a few concentration camps and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

All par for the course for Liberals.

Cut ties with Israel = promote another Holocaust

Even if we were to cut ties to Israel (which we all know isn't going to happen) I think they would be just fine. They have one of the most trained and armored forces in the world, they have plenty of money, and they have the nuke. Nobody else in the ME can compete with their firepower, as displayed in the six-day war. And since then the gap has only become more pronounced.

Some of the rest includes decent points, but it's immersed in Coulterisms. You can make your post friendlier ;)

Economically, Find a substitute for ME oil. Either find a substitute for fossil fuel altogether, or, heck, a few million bucks, and we could bribe the Mexican government into turning the Mexican oil production to U.S. enterprises

Couldn't we just put illegal immigrants into the matrix and store bioenergy like the machines did? That would kill two birds with one stone.

Just a thought here, is the simplicity above radically different from the incumbent policy?

Alchemist, the Libs have been overrun by anti-Semitism. Take a look at Daily Kos, or Huffington Post, or examine how Howard Dean allowed 9/11 "Jews did it" conspiracy nuts into Dem HQ media events (as covered by Dana Priest in the WaPo). This is not Coulterism. It's the disease of the Left. Europe, and self-styled "progressives" who backed Hezbollah over Israel (example: the Nation's Marc Cooper) are ample evidence of this disease.

But by all means don't take my word for it. Simply sample Daily Kos.

If we cut ties to Israel and stopped supporting it, Iran would nuke Israel with impunity (or Pakistan would). Israel is not invincible and Egypt and Syria and Jordan could simply overwhelm Israel. Israel nearly lost in the Yom Kippur war. They rely on the US for resupply of munitions, oil, food, and other measures. Most other nations won't trade with them, particularly Europeans (pandering to both domestic anti-Semitism and Muslim anti-semitism).

Israel is a tiny country of less than six million facing 300 million Arabs who want to wipe them out to the last man, woman and child. Let's be accurate here: most Dems are liberals, and most liberals would be happy to see another Holocaust. The drivers of Dem policy, Daily Kos certainly would.

Mexican, Venezuelan, and Iranian under-investment in oil field tech has destroyed productivity. The state run oil companies are a means for patronage and feather-bedding rather than productive enterprises benefiting the nation as a whole. I would argue that the politics and corruption of those places makes investments in them akin to pouring money down a rat hole. Latin America is blessed with enormous natural resources yet it's political culture results in massive poverty due to violence and corruption. Chavez, Castro, Pinochet and the like are all the same. Better to invest in oil-shale and clean coal and nuclear tech at home, and domestic bio-mass fuel tech.

Sachin -- the current policy is no policy. Other than sometimes, in some ways, fighting terrorist muslims and state-enablers of same abroad in very limited ways. The simplicity is pretending to ignore the central issue Muslims have with us (we exist and threaten Islam with Modernity) and that if we just behave "morally" we can avoid the "New Black Death." It's as stupid as the Flagellants who paraded around flogging themselves to be holy. Or burned witches and cats as tools of the devil.

"Let's be accurate here: most Dems are liberals, and most liberals would be happy to see another Holocaust. The drivers of Dem policy, Daily Kos certainly would."

These kind of Democrats doesnt want to destroy Israel they want to destroy USA because USA is the immoral country for them . Israel is only a target because US is a big supporter of them. They dont give a crap to what happens in Middle East or any other place. Things only matter if USA is there. If US suppports X they support Y if US supports Y they support X. USA is the evil entity.

Jim, I specifically meant the 'molesting interns' and 'ethnic clensing' arguments. I thought those two comments were a little over the top.

These kind of Democrats doesnt want to destroy Israel they want to destroy USA

Yes, that's why we waste our time blogging, fundraising and running for office... so we can destory the system from the inside out. They're on to us Boys! Time to run for the hills!

Look, obviously this is a silly foreign policy plan brought on by an overly simplistic view of our current conflict. The left-wing equivalent to "let's nuke'em all!" i think it's brought on by the idea that we should have a more transparent foreign policy that's less dependent on foreign oil. I would agree that much. Afterwards he makes some logic leaps that I disagree with.

BTW: Jim, W. has a chance to prove the Republicans have a better record on Darfur.... so far he hasn't done anything either. This is an international problems as much as an American problem, but since Bush has shown to not really care about international views anyway, he might as well be the one to try something.

I'm all for nuclear power:

Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion

Electricty costs go down by a factor of 10X at the bus bar. (making roll out very fast as those things go). Capital costs decline for power stations (no steam turbines required).

For $2 million we get a re do of previous experiments to refine the reaction constants. If that proves out $200 million buids a test reactor.

The advantage over fission nukes? No fuel stored in the reaction area so reactor accidents become much less likely. The problem with fission nukes is that at start up they have two years of useful fuel in the core. What would releasing all that energy in a few minutes do? Ruin your day.

What are we waiting for?

Uh, Pinochet is not like Castro. Pinochet killed 3,000, improved Chile's economy, fixed social security, and left office with a little push.

Castro has killed 30,000, destroyed Cuba's economy, they have no social security, and he ain't leaving except in a box.

There IS a difference between authoritarians andf totolitarians.

How do you promote alliances?

Cut ties with your friends when they become inconvenient?

Czechoslovakia 1939 ring a bell?

M.Simon: Complete agreement from this corner on nuclear power, almost regardless of the form of nuclear power.

The aversion to nuclear power is something that has long baffled me. The same folks who are usually the most opposed to nuclear energy are also the folks who seem to think most of our policies should be more like those of Europe.

Where do they think Europe's electricity comes from?

#11 from alchemist: "This is an international problems as much as an American problem, but since Bush has shown to not really care about international views anyway, he might as well be the one to try something."

There's never been an American President who showed as much care for Africa as George W. Bush.

It's just that he's not stupid enough to thing that "try something" is a workable solution for Darfur. As far as I can see, nothing is.

Buying the country a puppy would be the best option, except that puppies are hateful to Allah.

I think we should transfer the weight of our struggle to Africa. But in doing so we should fight on potentially winning ground, as with the Ethiopian operation, not just reinforce defeat, which is all that Darfur offers.

"There's never been an American President who showed as much care for Africa as George W. Bush."

This is why he chose to defund AIDS groups with a record of success, and instead funded abstinence only programs with no track record and no understanding of African culture/politics...

BTW: have you noticed that the amount of money sent to Africa so far has been dramatically lower than what he has pleged?

Bush is big talk, little action on Africa. Just like everybody else.

Plan can't possibly work. It doesn't involve underpants.

#17 from alchemist: "Bush is big talk, little action on Africa. Just like everybody else."

Well if all are equal, why do more? In fact why not do less, or nothing?

Which takes us back to the starting point of the thread. "The war, the oil crisis, and the immigration problem -- all SOLVED" -

.. as well as they can be solved. By anyone, regardless of how little they do. Because regardless of your efforts, you're just like everybody else.

#18 from Achillea: "Plan can't possibly work. It doesn't involve underpants."

Workable or not, the plan was an excuse to post a really nice dog picture.

More dog-blogging!

David: ? Don't understand your point?

My point is: that's one adorable puppy.

Its for real that oil production has declined a bit and the near future

the oil deposits will be exhausted.

There are three options that we could readily do to solve this

dwindling oil supply.

First is to use biofuels like <a

href=http://greenfuelpower.blogspot.com>biodiesel and E85 as an

alternative to oil.

Second is to patronize fuel efficient <a

href=http://gohybrid.blogspot.com>Hybrid Cars. Diesel hybrid is the

best choice.

Third is to hasten the research and development of Fuels cells which is

being used in All Electric

Vehicles.

These 3 measures are sure way to solve and eventually break free from

oil dependence.

What if i told you we had a proven technology with a 50 year record of unparralled safety and reliability who's implimentation would cut American CO2 production by 1/3rd while using essentially zero fossil fuels?

Step 4- nuclear power. Something has to provide all that electricity! Actually that should be step one.