Friedman: Drilling Not The Solution

Not the biggest fan of New York Times columnist Thomas "Right Twice A Day" Friedman, but he made a good point about the relevance of drilling as a solution for oil dependency.

FRIEDMAN: I’m actually not against drilling. What I’m against is making that the center of our focus because we are on the eve of a new revolution, the energy technology revolution. It would be, Tom, as if on the eve of the IT revolution, the revolution of PCs and the internet, someone was up there standing and demanding, “IBM Selectric typewriters, IBM Selectric typewriters.” That’s what “drill, drill, drill” is the equivalent of today.

That’s just what Saudi Arabia, Russia, Venezuela and Nigeria want to hear Americans focusing on. They are hoping we drill and never invent new solutions.

Not A Friedman Fan, But He Points Out 7 Wasted Years

Thomas Friedman tends to give too many "the next 6 months are important" without ever criticizing the previous 6 months of stagnation. In his op-ed he points how the past 7 years have been different for the US and China.

"As I sat in my seat at the Bird’s Nest, watching thousands of Chinese dancers, drummers, singers and acrobats on stilts perform their magic at the closing ceremony, I couldn’t help but reflect on how China and America have spent the last seven years: China has been preparing for the Olympics; we’ve been preparing for Al Qaeda. They’ve been building better stadiums, subways, airports, roads and parks. And we’ve been building better metal detectors, armored Humvees and pilotless drones."

Bush, and Conservatives, have Americans thinking we can be taken over by extremists. Somehow our whole country is going to be taken over. With all the guns we have here, good luck. So with our collective eye focused on an exaggerated, although necessary, goal of "fighting terrorism", Friedman points out that once you're off target you need to refocus.

"But the first rule of holes is that when you’re in one, stop digging. When you see how much modern infrastructure has been built in China since 2001, under the banner of the Olympics, and you see how much infrastructure has been postponed in America since 2001, under the banner of the war on terrorism, it’s clear that the next seven years need to be devoted to nation-building in America."

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