THE GRAND DELUSION OF CERTAIN ZEALOTS AND TRUE BELIEVERS IN ENERGY SELF-SUFFICENCY about "Abundant American Coal" being the magic key to ending dependency on gasoline and diesel fuel derived from imported gasoline needs some serious qualification, and then some.

For starters, maybe we should study the South Africans, where ersatz gasoline and diesel fuel derived from coal are considered a fact of life--and have been since the 1950's, when Sasol, the state oil company, perfected a process to produced an odourless ersatz gasoline from coal, and built the model city of Sasolberg around its coal-gasification works.

But then again, it's my understanding that much of the coal mined in South Africa is of the highly-polluting variety known as "brown coal."

In any case, perhaps some serious research might be in order to find out if these coal-based ersatz gasolines used in South Africa:

• actually produce exhaust emissions which can contribute to serious air pollution;
• whether the emissions from coal-based ersatz gasolines are comparable to those from traditional petroleum-based gasolines or biofuels;
• contributes significantly to air-pollution levels in the major South African cities (viz., Cape Town, Durban and the Witwatersrand, a/k/a the Pretoria/Johannesburg region), based on generally-accepted standards for measuring air pollutants; and
• whether such air pollution from coal-based ersatz gasolines and diesel fuels in major South African cities is comparable to air pollution from traditional petroleum-based gasoline in major United States cities, based on generally-accepted standards for measuring air pollution and its pollutants.

Not to mention whether such automakers as have manufacturing operations in South Africa (centered mostly around Port Elizabeth) have to modify their engines to accomodate the ersatz coal-based gasoline and its pecuilarities for the South African market.

Let alone the socioeconomic and environmental costs to the South African economy, particularly so in the post-apartheid state of affairs ... and whether these ersatz coal-based gasolines are priced comparably to traditional gasolines, taking into account the fact that South Africa sells gasoline by the litre and any fuel taxes which the South African government may assess.

Especially the so-called "Americans for Balanced Energy Choices."

(Let's just hope ABEC, a known and notorious front organisation with known connexions to energy interests, doesn't suddenly have oh-so-cozy friendships with apologists for the apartheid regime or suchlike sympathetic to the "plight" of the Afrikaner.)

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THE NOTION WHICH EXPECTS THE HOI POLLOI TO SUBORDINATE "SELFISH INTEREST" TO A "GREATER COLLECTIVE GOOD" would love to see such regarded as one with "common sense."

Judging from past experience with such "advice," usually in connexion with notions of "proper mental hygiene" and/or preparing oneself for work experience in the community via the sheltered workshop system, Your Correspondent really has to wonder if such advice of placing the collective above the self amounts to nothing less than enforced ignorance and stupidity, epitomised by the maxim of "silence is golden" as further expects "cooperation" with The System @ its most corrupt and perverse.

In its turn, reinforced by paranoia about "outspokenness" being possible grounds for reduction or denial of welfare or Social Security benefits, or winding up on privately-circulated "watch lists" of persons not to be employed under any circumstance whatsoever. In its turn, likely grounds for legal action for Deprivation of Livelihood, Denial of, or Interference With, Civil Rights and Related Conspiracies.

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AND IF YOU WATCH THE MR. MEN SHOW ON CARTOON NETWORK WEEKDAY MORNINGS, you could just imagine the "bumpers" between segments of the individual episodes serving as ideal lead-in to the sign-off messages of TV stations across the country, never mind their becoming an endangered species as TV stations begin 24-hour broadcasting all the more.

Come to think of it, would you consider sign-off messages something of an art form?

(Which brings up something of an Urban Legend involving the sign-off routine TV stations traditionally go through: A novice engineer on duty one night @ sign-off decided to liven up the otherwise boring routine by including stock footage of a broadcasting tower collapsing, as if symbolically marking the end of the broadcast day.

(As it turned out, the next morning, station management received plenty of irate complaints from their answering machine about the signoff routine turning macabre, prompting the engineer to be called on the carpet and warning against the stunt being repeated. Even if it included the tower-collapse film being shown in reverse @ sign-on, just before the test pattern and tone went on screen.)