…If, as the New York Sun reports, the Saudi Commission for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is successful in its efforts to ban the letter “X” (for its resemblance to the Christian cross, an icon already banned in Saudi Arabia), how, then, are Saudis going to be able to find buried treasure? Or, you know—Jenna Jameson movies?
Tough time to be an Arab, I should think…
****
(h/t PJM and Evan Coyne Maloney)
Sometimes going Wiccan looks pretty good, huh?
At least you can still sidle up to the guy in the club with the stupid grin and say “Dude, got any E?”
Hey Habeeb, what the hell are we gonna do with all these Dixie Chicks cd’s?
I often wonder does a Saudi sheik yell “Ah Mohammed!!!” when he stubbs his toe?
Because yelling “JESUS CHRIST!!!” always seems to work for me.
Tough to be a multiculturalist godbag these days I tellsya.
Or Granny Clampett’s moonshine, for that matter.
Sorry, Malcom.
Mind the store, would you all? I need a nap.
It would be funny if it wasn’t so mind numbingly sad. Also, doesn’t the letter T sorta look like a cross?
Plus, you can’t spell Queer if we outlaw Q.
This has nothing to do with the X in X-mas? That seems much more likely an explanation than the sideways cross thing. I mean put it that way, and it’s like totally reasonable.
And that ‘C’ looks just like a crescent moon. So just replace all their X’s and T’s with that.
(Sidebar: Is South Carolina considered about the 1,495,644th most sacred site in Islam?)
Banning letters? WTF?
Don’t these17 mooks have a day job?
I guess that means Steve XXX won’t be able to go there.
At least Sly Stallone can get a few more Rocky movies shown there until they ban Rocky X.
And speaking of movies and sequels, I must have missed Malcolm I through IX.
As you yourself demonstrate, they’ll have to start the banning at Rocky 9.
They should want to ban Rocky anyway, what with all the rugged, American individualism and all.
Plus the red, white and blue shorts.
Unbelievable. Why does America have anything to do with these intolerant, oppressive Christian haters? They make Ms. Pandagon look like the church lady. Let’s just buy their oil, and quit with the palling around. I’m not convinced they’re worth appeasing. It’s my understanding that the Saudi standard of living is quite high; nevertheless they treat the immigrant grunts that do their dirty work like shit. Same with some of our other super-rich ally kingdoms in the region. Plantation living at its finest.
Plus, the men are ugly, constipated looking pukes. They should be the ones with the bags over their heads. Ugh. I supposed I’m doomed for daring to speak out.
I’m with cynn here.
We otta tell the Saudis effective immediatly, until they quit persecuting Jews and Christians (which the vast maoirity of Americans are), we will not buy another drop of their oil. (There may be a new market opening up in Iraq) Wouldn’t THAT get their attention?
Oil in fungible.
You want to break economic ties, you either need to kick the oil habit (unlikely), take the oil (unlikely), or suck it up.
The future brings with it the promise of technology that could significantly cut our dependence on oil. But in the meantime, we are where we are.
Ultimately, though, if we can withstand the threat of oil weath turning Islamic nations into apocalyptic death cults with lots of money to finance their plans for destruction of the west, eventually they will be sitting on a product that decreases in value (nanotech being the hero of that story), and then they will have either to make the move into modernity, or else wait for us to drop crates of MREs and drinking water into the dessert for them.
Of course, I’ve got a nasty wisdom tooth problem right now—which I’ve combatted with lots of scotch—so forgive me if I sound a bit like a low rate Neal Stephenson. I’m just kinda free associating here, and the peat has somehow emboldened my long-term optimism.
I wonder if the oil in ANWR and off our coasts and shaled up in Colorado is fungible too?
Oil, at this point, is not fungible. I strongly oppose opening up new venues to exploration, thereby destroying habitat and laying waste to our future; I want us to develop alternative options immediately. But that won’t happen, because of our cozy arrangements with the kingdoms. What do these half-assed pseudo-monarchies have that we need to not begin weaning ourselves from their hot, thick, oily breast?
Slide Hammer.
Of course it’s better to have a dentist wield it and before you get old; but you are where you are
Talisker is good medicine. You are way better than a low rate Neal Stephenson. I would aspire, mysaelf, to be a low rate Neal Stephenson. Hell, if I could write anything even half as good as the chapter “Yamamoto” in the Cryptonomicon, I’d die happy…As I said, you are up a lot higher in the firmament than that.
Hope the tooth gets better.
Please, spare me the dramatics.How is drilling 3 miles off shore or in the Alaskian wilderness any different from the coal/copper/whatever mines that supply our way of life?
Where do you stand on nuclear power? It seems some of those that opposed nuke power plants for the good of the enviroment are now changing positions.
cynn, you do realize what the word “fungible” means, do you not? Are you trying to say once a barrel of oil is sold on the open/spot market it can never have it’s ownership transferred again?
Huh?
cynn, sweetness, we have been drilling oil in this country since 1851. Surprisingly, for the first 50 years or so, the oil industry in this country relied exclusively on 19th century technology. And yet here we are 156 years later. Ponder that.
Sorry – 1859, not 1851. So just 147 years on. Wow. We have a sesquicentennial coming up. There really should be a postage stamp or something. Someone should write Nancy Pelosi a letter.
And also there should be cake.
You’re saying we were able to drill for oil during a civil war Happyfeet? It’s amazing what we could do then that is impossible now…
That the Saudis want to ban crosses reminded me of a claim that plus signs are not used in some schools in Israel, and I would have put that down as urban legend but I see that Volokh has a note about it on his site.
In a somewhat related domain I am reminded of Hindus in Europe who are opposed—with good reason—the German attempt to ban the swastika throughout Europe (inasmuch as the swastika is like 5,000 years old, or something).
And then for some reason I am reminded of the scenario that is replayed every year on every college campus: some white southerner puts the stars and bars in his window, and then is confronted with a group of individuals who want to educate him on his latent racism.
The human race is so full of shit. Really.
Cynn’s error is that fungible meaning easily transferred quickly leads to the meaning can get it anywhere, like, for example, utility players who bat .240. That’s where I first heard the term.
Well, Mark, and notice you do not get the sweetness part added cause I don’t think I like your tone, they started drilling in 1859 before the war and then they just kept going but all the drilling was in the north and the confederate army did not attack civilian populations and blow themselves up like jiffypop popcorn and they wore uniforms, so, no, oil drilling was not a real problematic thing.
While it’s true my primary reference was to the “civil war” in Iraq that all of our “cut and run” Dems (and too many Reps) tell us is going on in Iraq which requires we hightail it on out to Okinawa.
My secondary, sadly unspoken, reference was to ANWAR and the coasts right here in the good old energy dependant USA—we’re supposedly at peace in our 50 states 147 years later, right? Yet we can’t sink a drill or break ground on a nuke plant to save our lives (literally).
Oh. Sorry. I misunderstood. We’re on the same page. You can have the sweetness thing then but just for you and not for steve cause I don’t want to make him uncomfortable.
I am not uncomfortable. Sweet away.
Now I feel shy.
Get a room.
I want us to develop alternative options immediately.
Well. That ain’t gonna happen. The vast majority of alternatives available in the near future are more energy inefficient than refining a barrel of crude oil. Hydrogen is an example. The only thing I can think of off the top of my head that is remotely comperable to gasolene is a fuel cell and those are prohibitively expensive right now. Another is refining organic industrial waste, but that uses the same refining technology as refining oil and you greens just don’t want that.
We’ve already made the compromises in the area of new refineries and nuclear powerplants to satisfy environmentalists, now it’s the environmentalists turn to compromise.
Then there’s Denny Crane’s idea, harvesting human fat. We could establish the Organization of Cholesterol Exporting Nations and put them extortin’ Ay-rabs out of business with those quintessentially American inventions, the cheeseburger and the extra-large side order of fries.
Major John: I have always understood “fungible” to mean “interchangeable,” as in we can substitute more of our oil for that of foreign sources. And I take issue with that option.
cynn – why is it better to ask ferners to despoil their precious natural bootifulness? Whether it’s the pristine beaches of Cuba or undespoiled Arctic Europe and Russia or the untamed coasts of savage Africa? Considering that our technology and safeguards are the best in the world, that’s very selfish of you.
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