WALTER RUSSELL MEAD: MORE GREEN MADNESS ON THE PLAINS:

The proposed Keystone XL pipeline will carry oil from tar sands in Canada across the entire midwestern United States to Port Arthur, Texas. It could eventually transport 900,000 barrels of oil a day and without government funding of any kind has the potential to create 20,000 jobs starting early in 2012. The greens want President Obama to kill it of course; the political blindness and the wishful thinking that so frequently vitiates green policy proposals is fully on display.

Read the whole thing. Meanwhile, now I’ve got Frontier Trust’s “Riot On The Plains” going through my head. Oh, well — it’s a good song if you like Tractor Punk. And I do.

UPDATE: Reader Michael Blum writes: “Living in Nebraska, I get to experience the full madness and incoherence of the anti-Keystone pipeline people. My personal favorite is their clever slogan ‘Windmills, Not Oil Spills’ seen all over their shirts and lawn signs. That rhyme might mean something if GM could produce more than 200 Volts a month…I have yet to figure out how to stuff a windmill into my Scion’s tank.”

A windmill-powered Scion? Not exactly Speed Nebraska.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Nebraska reader Gerald Hanner emails about the anti-pipeline crowd:

Yeah. We have a household of them right across the street.

The parents are teachers, and their oldest daughter is a college student. What a surprise.

Fund teacher raises with an energy tax and watch their positions moderate . . . .

MORE: More on Frontier Trust here.