US set to become “New Middle East” for discord and (hopefully) oil

As it heads rapidly towards energy independence, the US has been dubbed “The New Middle East” by Energy Department officials, hoping desperately that it will be true. Slightly rising oil production, a lot of shuffling paper around to make “liquids” look like oil, and a new policy of fostering internal discord and violence will, hopefully, make overblown claims about our energy situation slightly more plausible.

After years of merely rhetorically presenting itself as the “Saudi Arabia of Coal and/or Natural Gas,” the US Department of Energy announced a new, stepped up resemblance policy based on the theory that if it looks like a Middle Eastern Duck and Fights like a Middle Eastern Duck, it will have oil like a duck (er…Middle Eastern dictatorship). A DOE spokesman announced that despite their references to ducks, while they do hope for oil, no waterfowl are expected to be harmed in inevitable brushfire wars between states, except maybe in South Carolina, where some light poultry decapitation is anticipated while taking the capitol.

The policy change comes in response to increasing pressure from presidential fodder to violate the laws of physics, creating “energy independence in five years” and other fairy tales. The DOE, bowing to political pressure has unveiled its radical new policy of fostering internal strife and social repression in order to make short-term increases in oil production appear most lasting.

A DOE spokesman announced “US states see the benefit of this new model in producing more of our desperately needed crude oil. In order to kick off our new campaign to be the New Middle East, Iowa has agreed to invade and conquer Minnesota, Vermont is firing rockets into neighboring New Hampshire and Texas has announced its new sovereign nuclear program designed to insure stable energy supplies and a general sense of supremacy over its neighbors. Radical splinter groups from New Jersey have annexed Westchester County, and we anticipate a Florida-Georgia border war and the interdictment of citrus shipments.

Seven participating states have ordered new oil rigs to drill in areas where oil is expected to be produced by conflict. Drilling is expected to commence in Bergen County, New Jersey under the Paramus Park Mall, in Sheboygan Wisconsin and in a host of other locales not historically known for their oil production. In order to faciliatate rapid production growth, Arizona legislators offered to require all resident women to stop driving, saying “Arizona drivers already have to carry their papers here to prove citizenship, so we feel that we’re ahead of most US states in the “be like Saudi Arabia” game. We’re willing to go that extra mile and become the first state where only white, propertied men can drive.”

As a DOE spokesman pointed out, making the US more like the Middle East is much more plausible than encouraging energy literacy and conservation. ”If the Saudis can “double” their reserve estimates with a single press conference as they did a few years ago, there’s no reason we can’t estimate all the oil we want under Stone Mountain in Georgia or on Pismo Beach. And hey, who wouldn’t want there to be oil reserves under Brooklyn? All we have to do it get (New York Mayor) Bloomberg to start building a chemical weapons stockpile to use on Trenton, and how hard is that? ”

Pipeline production through the Bay Area’s new demilitarized zone is expected to begin transmitting oil from Oakland to Missouri. Local refiners announced, however, that it will be over their dead bodies that a single drop goes to “those heretic scumbags in Oregon sitting on our historic land.”

In other news, the US also announced that its definition of “liquids” will be expanded to include Coca Cola and Lite Beer, arguing that these too are “fueling America’s growth” (in this case, its rapid growth in cases of obesity).

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