Epigram of the month

I was preparing to name "Gogol Bordello is hell's Bar Mitzvah band" the epigram of the week. But that was before Scott Adams knocked it out of the running with this gem:

At the risk of oversimplifying, our current energy policy in The United States involves shooting bearded people.

Comments

What a loser.

Posted by Half Canadian | October 4, 2007 1:03 PM

Why do we need an energy policy? How about the "free market"? Megan's libertarianism seems pretty heavy on consensual sex in public restrooms and pretty light on consensual commercial transactions.

Posted by y81 | October 4, 2007 1:18 PM

"Gogol Bordello is hell's Bar Mitzvah band"

All the more reason to go to hell.

Posted by ostap | October 4, 2007 1:51 PM

Dilbert is funny. Scott Adams isn't.

Posted by Jim | October 4, 2007 2:10 PM

Dilbert is funny. Scott Adams isn't.

Scott Adams is occasionally amusing. More importantly, Scott Adams is insane. He has some ideas about the nature of the universe that rival TimeCube.

Posted by T | October 4, 2007 2:36 PM

That seems about right.

Who said that about Gogol Bordello, by the way?

Posted by terry | October 4, 2007 2:56 PM

Umm, well, me, actually.

Posted by Megan McArdle | October 4, 2007 3:04 PM

I'm not sure that Roger Cohen will appreciate your assertion that Hell is full of 13 year old Jewish boys.

Though he'll probably give you a pass since you're not "The Left."

On the other hand, George Bush approves this message.

Posted by El Greco | October 4, 2007 4:14 PM

"Umm, well, me, actually."-Posted by Megan McArdle

Your epigrams are better than your epigram judgement.

Posted by Njorl | October 4, 2007 4:20 PM

"I'm not sure that Roger Cohen will appreciate your assertion that Hell is full of 13 year old Jewish boys."

Sheol's Bar Mitzvah band just doesn't have the same zing.

Posted by Njorl | October 4, 2007 4:22 PM

Wow, that's oversimplifying to the point of being idiotic. Why does anyone think that is clever?

EI

Posted by Earnest Iconoclast | October 4, 2007 4:23 PM

Why does anyone think that is clever

Lets see, because if the middle east, where there are a lot of bearded men, didn't have great amounts of crude oil (energy)
we would not be fighting wars there and killing bearded men.

Posted by judson | October 4, 2007 4:47 PM

Some of you are way too uptight...

Posted by bob | October 4, 2007 5:22 PM

Actually, I do think it's funny, just not how Scott Adams meant it. In fact, I don't think he really meant it to be a joke. I think it's funny in a "kill more terrorists"-IMAO sort of way.

For that matter, killing all the terrorists is probably a reasonable addition to a comprehensive energy policy.

EI

Posted by Earnest Iconoclast | October 4, 2007 5:30 PM

Lets see, because if the middle east, where there are a lot of bearded men, didn't have great amounts of crude oil (energy) we would not be fighting wars there and killing bearded men.

It depends. If they were still sponsoring and exporting terrorism, we would likely be more willing to start wars in the region, perhaps (but not necessarily) killing a lot more bearded men than we are now. There's a lot of ways in which our consistent foreign policy has been to let certain governments in the area get away with provocations unacceptable elsewhere because there is oil in the area.

Of course, one can debate all day whether there would be terrorism if there weren't oil there, but I think the chain of causality is rather difficult to entangle.

Posted by John Thacker | October 5, 2007 1:12 AM