Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death…

Well I came about as close as a conservative can next to attending the Daily Kos convention. Last evening I decided to attend a “Biodiesel Mixer”, the event took place in the loft of an organic food co-op store. Outside was parked the “Big green biodiesel bus”, a green painted former school bus that once served as transportation for the failed House campaign of Monica Lindeen. It usually can be found outside the ALF-CIO bar along with the anti-Bush signs of the week. As you can imagine I hadn’t even entered the building yet and my skin had already begun to crawl, this…was the heart of liberalism.

The crowd entering the building was about what you’d expect. Men wearing ponytails, women in pant suits and everyone wearing either pastels or earthtones. Luckily for me I was still wearing my kaki pants from work so I had some camoflague. The youth of the crowd were about standard as well like something out of a rave or “awareness” march. Also in attendance was our mayor Ron Tussing, this guy is a real piece of work. The local paper is in love with him and the NRA recently declared him anti-gun after he joined a mayoral group that promotes banning handguns. Seems he’s in good company here.

As I arrived in the loft I could hear in the background a familiar sound, bongos. The natives soon would be getting restless. Over in the opposite side of the loft were a pair with the boy who looked like he was about 16 and dressed like he was auditioning to be the next Jason Mews. Hanging on his side was a girl who looked about 14 or 15 and 3 months pregnant. It’s like looking back in time at Brittany and Kevin. But that’s also when I noticed that most everyone there were wearing those stick on name tags. Awwww yeeeah, this was an opportunity not to be missed.

People were milling about yammering in small groups. Seeing the double takes, amusing. Watching the smiles melt off their faces and turn to shocked scowls, priceless. It’s really too bad nobody spoke up to try and delay me as I walked by.

The organizers of the evening were all wearing yellowing shirts with “Biodiesel” on the front and “Sign my petition!” on the back. The head yellow shirt had a name tape identifying him as “Mustard”. Hell why not, people are naming their kids “Apple” and “Moon Unit” too. So Mustard give a brief speech thanking all for attending and encouraging them to call their representative and tell them to vote to make it mandatory for all state vehicles to run on biodiesel. He went on to say how biodiesel would allegedly help save us from the big corporations and big agri-business. Yeah, because big business would never get into growing the components of biodiesel if there was a reasonable profit to be made doing so. As you can imagine this gained massive cheers and stomps from the assembled leftists.

Part of the evening’s celebrations when you signed the check-in sheet was a ticket that got you a free bottle of microbrew from a place that powers their delivery truck with biodiesel. Additional brews were only $1, nice to know most everyone there would be drinking and driving that night. Myself I was content to have a cup of organic “cider n spice”, it wasn’t bad but was a bit watery. So I figured now would be a good time to question “Mustard” since he seemed to be the head spokesman of this event. I identified myself as being from Passionate America which got no reaction and didn’t get me thrown out. We still much work to do apparently.

“How do the emissions tests compare between vehicles powered by biodiesel and those using standard petroleum products?” He wasn’t exactly sure and pointed me towards an area with “more information” that I could examine later. All I found in that area were a sticker of a sunflower with the words “Biodiesel: Homegrown Prosperity” and a photocopy of 2 newspaper articles on biodiesel which were essentially the same article ran twice. Both times it talks about how bd will reduce dependence on foreign oil. So would domestic drilling with the added benefit of creating jobs, but that wasn’t mentioned.

“How does biodiesel compare with other petroleum alternatives like ethanol?” Again, he wasn’t really sure.

“Just recently we saw riots in Mexico City over the price of tortillas because more and more primary foodstuffs such as corn and sugar are being rerouted into ethanol production. With the ever increasing amount of agricultural capacity being devoted to alternative energy production it would seem that this new way forward is being built on the backs of the starving poor.” That statement really knocked him for a loop. You could see he was trying to square the various special interests in his head while attempting to come up with a response. Just before that he’d admitted that soybeans were currently the main crop turned into biodiesel. I think they qualify as a “primary food”. In the end he said that things like biodiesel were good but that they weren’t a panacea to solving all our energy needs and that ultimately the real solution involves everyone cutting energy usage. Wait a minute, everytime I hear the speeches saying how we should force government and private individuals to use this stuff that’s exactly what it’s portrayed as, a panacea to our problems. In the end though the real “final solution” was exposed, restricting our lifestyles and limiting choice. We can all see what the “conserve our way out of energy shortage” mindset has done to California. If you want to see rolling brown outs every summer, government mandating what light bulbs you can use, what cars you can own and what devises you can have in your home then let these people gain power.

I will give “Mustard” credit in that he was rather polite and overall a pleasant person to talk to. But as a spokesman for his movement in the end he can off as rather uninformed. This isn’t unusual though, for a great laugh and a real eye opening experience, check out the Penn & Teller Bullsh*t episode on Environmental Hysteria. The spokesman for the Rainforest Action Network is a brainless ditz in it. All she can do when asked question after question she should know the answer to but doesn’t is to giggle and bounce. You know, not that it made the episode any worse. Hey, SF gets to be a male pig now and again too.

Is biodiesel a real solution? I don’t know but from what I’ve seen I think it holds promise. God knows the farmers in my region could use a boost and if raising crops for fuel production does it then more power to them! Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to find a drink mainly composed of artificial components and preservatives to wash that organic juice outta me.