I'm Slackjawed...

...as I've actually found I agree with a written opinion piece by Charlie Daniels (yes, that Charlie Daniels, who now has his own web site where he releases right-wingnut rants). Here's his recent column (from the Sidney Gazette in Montana; not sure where else his column appears) commenting on our nation's recently discovered oil addiction:

Am I the only one who remembers the long gas lines of the 1970s? Am I the only one who had to drive 30 miles an hour to conserve enough gasoline to get to the next gig?

That’s been almost 30 years ago, and we’re still dependent on foreign imports. Who’s to blame for this debacle?

Well, the truth is that we can point fingers, and there certainly is enough blame to go around - industry, the federal government, science, radical environmental groups and the list goes on and on - but the bottom line of blame goes to “We the people.”

We are the ones who elect the government and if we would only accept the responsibility. We are the ones who decide public policy and set the general course for the nation.

[...]

Have you heard any of the upcoming candidates say anything about actually doing something about our fuel dependence?

I don’t mean tossing a few bones to Greenpeace or mumbling inane platitudes about environmental awareness, I’m talking about making some concrete commitments to action. We’ve heard enough empty dialogue.

This shouldn’t be viewed as a Democratic or a Republican issue. They’ve both had their chance and blew it big time. It makes no difference which side of the aisle he or she sits on.

This issue, at least in my mind, should play a major part in the mid-term elections.

Darn tootin', Charlie!

Now, back to our regularly scheduled wingnut freak-out from Charlie's Soapbox:

It’s getting a little old hearing about how Islam is a peaceful religion when people claim to be doing Allah’s work by hacking some innocent person’s head off or setting fire to cars in France or blowing a hole in the side of one of our ships or bombing our embassies or murdering 50 people in a London subway or kidnapping Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympics or killing school children in India or bombing cafes and hotels in Egypt or firing rocket propelled grenades into Israeli school children or burning people and hanging them from a bridge or flying commercial airliners into the Trade Towers and the Pentagon.
[...]
Some people in other parts of the world make the mistake of believing that it’s only the Americans and Israelis these people hate. The fact of the matter is, they hate everybody who is not a Muslim and their ultimate goal is to make earth an Islamic planet.