it is also true that his pro-industry-ness scares me. i believe we should be talking about what systems we’re going to be taking offline until they’re safe. emphasizing technological fixes, even future ones, gives chicken legislators cover to agree on bad fixes now because the future versions of those fixes are desirable.

oppo oppo oppo!
that is how we win!
dirty hands, dirty pants,
dirty tricks, and spin!
GO-O-O-O, ‘WINGERS!

Speaking of which: I found it curious that in 2005, per the group’s tax return, viewable at Guidestar.org, they paid $48,000 in salaries (and neglected to include the names of their paid staff or board of directors, normally required on these forms); now they have 9 staff and 12 scholars, per their Web site. Sounds like they hit a jackpot in the funding world! Now why would some right-wing funder want to pump up a group in Tennessee and help it grow by at least an order of magnitude in less than 2 years? Why indeed?

I would also wonder at your assumption that a northern clime house should take up less power than a southern clime house. Heating is a much more efficient process than cooling, and the South uses up plenty of electricity on AC. August was probably the worst month, energy wise, hence it being picked for the critique. The real question is–how many people are living and working in that house at that time? (You divide the house up into shifts—presumably more people are there, working, during the day, then are there, sleeping, at night) and compare on a percapita@thattime basis. If he’s sitting and working at home during the day when the average American leaves the house and has fewer gadgets running, and there are more people requiring more cooling, then that might also explain some of the discrepancy.

Or maybe he’s running a giant cloning tesla coil and has massive plasma screens on all day. Who knows. My problem with criticisms of hypocrisy is they frequently are made with partial knowledge. The Puranas are full of stories of some king or sage who seemed to be doing a good deed to external observers, but was actually doing a foul one, and vice versa. Gore would be a more effective messenger if he woul defend himself, but he’s not, and on the whole, that does not change the truth of his basic message at all. It’s a prima facie ad hominem attack. (Mmm, Latin.) Therefore it should be ignored in this context. It would be relevant if he was running, but he’s not–yet–and his ideas and data are, and it has nothing to do with those.

And I’ve already bitched and moaned on this site at great length about the dangers of pursuing consistency to death. To pull out another Hindu reference–the Gita is full of try-your-best instructions. Ideals are prescribed, immediately followed by next-best ideals, immediately followed by next-best ideals. That’s a very portable approach to ideals, regardless of religion, because it allows us to hold ourselves upto higher standards without killing ourselves or shirking away from too-high-standards.

that think tank… i think that’s the first time i ever remember seeing one of those vaunted state-level ‘winger operations strike a national-level blow. i knew they were out there, like i know there are manta rays.

what did i see. a blog entry? something along the lines of:

a) cheney’s house is 5-10x that consumption.
b) both of the couple’s offices are in that house.
c) they’ve already done a lot of efficiency work on it!

i think what disturbs me about all this is how it shows that gore has already compromised significantly. he’s taking a very pro-industry stance, which has many good aspects, in terms of getting concessions, but it has the bad aspects that you’re looking for future technology to solve current problems, without fully acknowledging the current gap between capacity and need.

it also shows, we’re just gonna have a horrible horrible time with the per-capita idea. already we’re looking at china and development from the wrong angle. when we get around to patting ourselves on the back for making heavy relative gains, per country, we’ll be forcing other folks to stay living in slums because they can’t either get back out to the country or build infrastructure.

this is really gonna piss us off, this. we are so not at another bretton woods/marshall plan moment in our national life.