The Ethanol Papers - Paperturn manuscript - Flipbook - Page 570
or Searchinger or Rahn or David Fridley from Lawrence-Livermore Labs ever
had any business experience. They may have studied business for a time in
school, but that’s like reading about sex and then not ever engaging in it.
Clearly, Bryce consulted “business experts” from some universities and/or his
Manhattan Institute, and they gave him some graphs and formulas to explain
what they read about in school – but never put them into practice. So, what do
I think this means to Robert Bryce’s business observations? I think it means
that he not only didn’t read about and engage in sex himself, but he also relied
on someone else’s interpretation of reading about sex without their ever engaging in it. Incidentally, this is not a challenge for Mrs. Bryce to come to her husband’s defense.
By the way, again, I hope you’ve still noticed that I haven’t even included in the
cost for our military to defend the world’s oil, and I haven’t calculated in the
incalculable cost of the lives of our military service personnel and American
civilians. I will, but I’m saving it for later.
INSIGHT INTO BRYCE’S THOUGHTS
In the 1970s there was a very popular TV weatherman on WABC in New York
by the name of Tex Antoine. One night Tex’s forecast was preceded by a news
story of a young girl having been raped. Tex made the unfortunate mistake of
beginning his segment by saying, "With rape so predominant in the news lately,
it is well to remember the words of Confucius: If rape is inevitable, lie back and
enjoy it.” I remember the incident as I was still living in NY at the time. Tex was
fired either immediately after the news show or the next day.
So why does this little piece of nostalgia have any bearing on a book about fuel
that was written 30 years later, you are probably asking yourself. In fact, if Robert Bryce is reading this right now he is probably also wondering what the heck
I’m talking about.
In the sub-sections of the chapter titled, “The Emotional Appeal of Energy Independence,” Bryce does a pretty good job in detailing the history of oil-related
terrorism and American military involvement because of our reliance on foreign
oil (although he does omit the First World War). In any event, I was very glad to
see that he didn’t ignore this issue or try to mitigate the impact of our involvement as Jerry Taylor from CATO Institute has done. He doesn’t shillyshally
about why we were “there,” wherever the “there” had been. We were “there” for
the oil.
However, he concludes the topic by writing:
