Energy Party think-tanker Samuel Tenenbaum gave me this book to read this morning, but knowing how slow I am at getting books read (currently I’m slogging my way through The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt and Breaking the Spell simultaneously, and have promised myself a novel when I’m done with those), I figured it would be awhile before I’d be in a positive to comment on it, which I figure is something Samuel is hoping I’ll do, which is why he gave me the book.
… To increase the pressure, Samuel emphasized I was one of the few he’d given it to, the others being Barack Obama, Joe Biden, U.S. Sen. Amy Klubocher (yeah, I had to ask, too — it’s the woman who spoke to the state Democratic convention over the weekend), Capt. Robert Miller (a Democrat, late of the U.S. Marines, who is trying to challenge Joe Wilson), Harris Pastides and John Mark Dean at USC… He plans to give one to Lindsey Graham tonight.
… you’ll notice a trend toward Democrats there. Samuel says Dr. Dean did complain about the book’s politics, to which Samuel said, Ignore the politics! Read the science!
But apparently it’s not necessary to read the book in order to blog about it. This guy panned it without Samuel even giving him a copy. That is, I think he panned it — the post was so long that I figured I could read the book quicker.
I mention this because I’ve got to hand it to the guy for admitting that he didn’t read it. Did I tell my 11th-grade English teacher I hadn’t read Moby Dick? No way (if I had, she might not have given me an A-plus on the essay test, which still stands as a great moment in the annals of the Golden Shovel). Did I tell the audience at the Salman Rushdie symposium I moderated recently that I hadn’t read any of his books? No way. They might have thought less of me…
But this guy, who just comes out and says it, and dares ’em to come on (as Huck Finn would say — and I did read that), is an inspiration to B.S. artists everywhere…
By the way, here’s my short synopsis of what the book’s about. Mr. Zubrin says thumbs-down to hydrogen, thumbs-up to methanol from coal.
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In eighth grade I read one-fourth of Moby Dick and got an A on my oral book report.
I know it’s utterly irrelevant, but I wanted to share, and I don’t have anything on-topic to add.
Yeah, the book’s not that complicated. A guy’s got this thing about a whale, and the whale’s like this symbol and stuff…
Throw in a few references to Queequeg and you’re home free.
Don’t forget “Call me Ishmael.” That one’s key.
Brad,
This may be slightly off the subject of Moby Dick, but surely you won’t allow Lindsey Graham to be a part of your Energy Party with his recent silly defense of the gas-tax holiday on The Big Picture? I just noticed you linked a video of him talking about energy independence, which is antithetical to the gas-tax holiday. Please don’t let Senator Graham ride free on this one.
Thanks,
Brad,
This may be slightly off the subject of Moby Dick, but surely you won’t allow Lindsey Graham to be a part of your Energy Party with his recent silly defense of the gas-tax holiday on The Big Picture? I just noticed you linked a video of him talking about energy independence, which is antithetical to the gas-tax holiday. Please don’t let Senator Graham ride free on this one.
Thanks,
Actually, “this guy” didn’t pan it. He critiqued it. Some points up, some points down. No mention of what methanol (made from any biomass, especially corn) does to food prices.
How about FICA Tax Holiday, so working people can try to make up for the money they couldn’t save all those years while it was being stolen and flushed down the Social Security toilet? A 20-year holiday would be good.
Not ethanol from biomass — methanol (ya know, the stuff that makes ya go blind if ya drink it) from COAL, which you can’t eat.
I’m not sure of the process, since I haven’t read the book yet. But I did read Rose, by Martin Cruz Smith, and learned about how ubiquitous firedamp, aka methane, is in coal mines…
I highly recommend the Smith novel, by the way. It might be his second best — the best being Gorky Park. Oh, and don’t miss December 6, 1941.
Smith has one limitation — he keeps writing about the same characters over and over. You know, Jonathon Blair is Harry Niles is Arkady Renko, etc. But he puts them in fascinatingly different settings. And the settings are almost more important than character or plot in his books, even though the characters and plots are finely drawn as well.
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It was shocking to learn that Smith had never been to Russia before writing Gorky Park, he evokes a sense of place so well. Ditto with 19th-century Lancashire in Rose, and 1941 Tokyo in Dec. 6.
Good stuff. Don’t bother with Stallion Gate, though. Big letdown…
Methanol from biomass, or corn, or coal, or cow poop, NOT ethanol.
Reading the work beats the Cliff Notes every time, or making it up as you go along.
But some people just prefer to proffer misinformation, pass it off as opinion and then recommend we raise the tax on gasoline when the price already punctured the roof from the inside months ago.
People who profess to know nothing about money and hate even thinking about money but read the Wall Street Journal as though it were scripted by Peter himself.
No wonder our economy’s so dour. The people controlling the ink by the barrel can’t even read.
BORING DUDES