"Nixon knew nothing about Watergate until he started covering it up" ? Did I hear Tony correctly? Even if one is unaware that Nixon taped conversations in the Oval Office, the mere grammar of this sentence is mystifying.

Tony's revisionist history continued with his claim that "All of the charges against Newt were false".

Ah, Newt Gingrich was cited by the House ethics committee for violating House rules eight times. No other Congressman in history has been cited more than twice.

Hands down the most corrupt Speaker in American history.

Blagojevich certainly did in his blunt blue collar Chicago way what is common in politics, particularly in the money driven political system we have. Pay to play is a way of life and certainly was under the DeLay regime in Congress. Blagojevich was perhaps more concerned with feathering his own nest, with money or a job for himself, than in building a political machine to hold power. But we have political capitalism, where politicians spent much of their time "fundraising" from people who expect something in return other than appreciation. Ambassadorships in European countries generally go to big contributors.

In any case Blankley is certainly laying the groundwork for Republicans to do what they did so effectively against Clinton with the "Whitewater" and then the various sex scandals, that is use these for both diverting Administration attention and energy and campaigning to take over. There seems to be even less here than with Whitewater, as Obama pretty clearly kept Blagojevich at arms length the more trouble Blagojevich got into. But even arms length may not be enough in the news entertainment cycle, and with the Republicans ready to start sniping.

Why would unions possibly agree to accept the same wages and benefits that nonunion employers give their workers? Isn't that just admitting that unions have no reason to exist and that employers should be able to do whatever they can get away with? That is certainly the view of many Republicans. Why is a decent wage, health care and retirement for people who aren't CEOs, hedge fund managers, mortgage industry insiders or entertainers a good thing? And if they had money to spend and were spending it (instead of having to borrow to spend, which only lasts so long?) would we be having all these layoffs?

It is interesting that the finance CEOs were handed huge amounts of money without any humiliation ritual, or even questions, and that they haven't really done the thing the government wanted them to do with it, which is start lending to businesses and individuals so the economy didn't slow down. Seems that they aren't worried much. Conservatives want to draw the line quickly, before benefits trickle down to ordinary people, and we will need to draw it somewhere, but somehow we treat finance like God, perhaps because they made up all of these derivatives and things that no one can understand.

Perhaps LRC can spent a program on the price of oil and the role of speculators, futures buyers, and the "pipeline" nature of this commodity so that the supply today has nothing to do with the supply tomorrow. Would people buy big cars today because the price of gas is down at the moment. How do we get people to be motivated by the fact that oil is going to run out and before it does, get difficult and expensive to find? And why shouldn't the oil companies use their enormous profits to prop up the auto industry that they need so much? Or is it crucial to keep the oil industry from influencing the type of cars that are developed?

An underlying issue is can we have a sustainable economy without and imperial military providing Keynesian spending, without cooked books that make earnings and prosperity look more substantial than they are, without Ponzi scheme fraud like this Madoff guy seems to have perpetrated, at the expense of the charities that we need to do what government hasn't been doing under the compassionate conservatives, and without borrowing from the future and depleting the past, like we are doing in so many ways.

Hybrid cars are an interesting technology, but they are not the only technology for reducing energy consumption. Tony's point is that even Hybrid technology relies on carbon-based energy consumption. We have yet to make that leap from burning carbon to produce energy, which is no different from the first caveman (or woman) who lit a fire.

Currently, hybrid cars are a technology that makes people feel less guilty about their contribution to carbon consumption because they refuse to submit to changing their lifestyle. The best evidence is the little screen in every Prius that tells you when the car is using electricity vs. gasoline. The screen doesn't help you control the car, it merely relieves your guilt as you sit in traffic. There are new generation diesel vehicles that get better mileage than hybrids, but they don't have that little screen to make you feel better, so they don't get to wear those bumper stickers about saving the planet. Who gets better mileage, one person commuting in a Prius getting 45 mpg or 8 people commuting in a Suburban getting 12 mpg, but 96 mpg per person. Substantially less total carbon consumption occurs by buying an medium-mileage used car than to purchase a new hybrid.

The fact is, there must be a transition of lifestyle over time. Moving a single person per vehicle will never be as efficient as moving multiple people per vehicle, which will never be as efficient as pedaling or walking a shorter distance to work.

Getting back to the automobile industry. They've been trying to cram an anachronistic and inefficient mechanism of travel down our throats for decades. The management is just as guilty as the UAW, because neither would like to see the status quo change. To steal a phrase, "It's time for a change."

There is an aftermarket conversion for Hybrid cars that combines plug-in charging and the original hybrid technology. They claim 100 MPG in a converted Prius, but as Tony alludes, they don't include the carbon consumption from the generation of electricity. Electricity generation is much more efficient than an automobile gasoline engine, hybrid or not.

It's not a matter of ridiculing people interested in energy conservation, it's pointing out the futility of pursuing the sensational paths to being energy neutral. Al Gore is a good example. His "Inconvenient Truth" spent more time promoting his activities and his loss of his presidential bid than it did on solutions to the energy crisis. The original and solution of the world's energy crisis was only mentioned in passing and not clearly given as a solution to the problem. The answer is not buying hybrid cars or CFL lights, it is population control.

Each new person born into this world will contribute a certain fraction to energy consumption and pollution. Population control is the answer. The world cannot sustain the exponential growth in population. Promoting zero population growth with education and birth control is something that can be done now and can be done very easily. It is something we have the means to do; instead of spending billions on fusion research, why don't we hire a public health czar who will promote population control. Of course, these notions will not put millions of dollars into Al Gore's carbon credit companies, they're not as exciting as a CFL light bulb or as zippy as a new hybrid, but population control is the only answer in the end. It will come if we manage and promote as a solution or it will become a solution in itself if we ignore it and allow natural selection to run its course...no matter how many gagets we conceive in the interim.