It's clear that there is not much which individuals can/will do to reduce their petroleum usage. Which is why obama or somebody similar needs to make things happen on the grand scale. Build that electrical commuter railroad network in the northeast corridor, and people will use it. They're not going to if you don't.

It doesn't matter much, anyway. The fact is, it's been accepted by the AGW worriers that we are going to burn every drop of petroleum. Given that the lifespan of the carbon dioxide it generates in the atmosphere is in the neighborhood of 5 thousand years, whether we do it all tonight, or within another two centuries, doesn't make a lot of difference (unless you're planning to 1) go extinct before we finish turning up the heat, 2) get humanity to a new planet before then, or 3) screw future generations, as long as your kids and grandkids are OK). Where energies are being focused nowadays is on keeping us from tapping into the much vaster carbon source of coal. Once we start getting dependent on that we won't/can't back off (see first paragraph) and all the "progress" done on "clean coal technology" thus far is merely a ruse to get that camel's nose under the tent.

someday, rightwingers will learn the difference between "cold" and "snow". maybe it's because so many of them are sudderners? nordeners know that when it's real cold, it don't snow.

someday, it will occur to rightwingers to wonder "if the glaciers are shrinking, where is all that water going?"

you can do real well explaining human behavior in terms of primate sociology. toss in some thinking about the evolutionary utility of some of those traits.

anyway, like i said elsewhere, a chimp gets violent and, either deliberately or by mistake, injures a friend, and I'm supposed to think that makes chimps somehow less rational than humans? if anything, that behavior makes chimps seem even more similar to humans. show me an animal that doesn't have any random violent streak, and that's an animal i will say has very little resemblance to humans' mental processes.

you'll never get anywhere trying to fix your corporation. and god forbid you become a whistleblower on somebody or some group; haven't you read the news in the past decade?

of course, the grand gesture of leaving isn't going to fix it any more than the grand gesture of blowing the whistle. it's like trying to divorce a rich and powerful spouse; much as you don't like it, your best option is to keep it friendly.

although, fat, deaf, and on oxycontin ain't no way to go through life.

"Bush won,"

well, no he didn't. they seized power, although by the subtler means of seizing the electoral process rather than by force of arms. Anyone who didn't see as a warning as to what the next 4-8 years was going to be like was just whistling in the darkness.

i thought it was a documentary about my favorite hobby, watchmaking. imagine my disappointment. i guess i need to read reviews more.

it's an old managerial trick; you get hold of the type of department, motor pool for example, where you can save a fortune by slashing maintenance to a bare minimum without immediate disaster; then after your bosses note what a great manager you are to have beefed up profits so much and promoted you, the next shmuck gets stuck with a load of decrepit junk needing a fortune in repairs and looks like a complete idiot compared to you.

because our vast wealth, up to now, has allowed us to paper over the cracks in the system by throwing money at it. the question is not, why do we spend twice as much as the next nation and still get inferior care? the question is, how does our bizarre patchwork system of healthcare do well enough to only be a little bit worse than any other industrialized nation, rather than deliver the third world results which should go with our third world processes? and the answer is that we get care that is only somewhat inferior rather than totally wretched, by spending twice as much.

how long can we keep that up?

that keats is one of the 36?