For those of us in states that have already voted or who have used other means to inform ourselves about the candidates, the debates are not very compelling. But many Americans--for better or worse--do not become engaged until their state primary is close at hand. So rather than bemoan the shear number of debates to date, I welcome them, not for myself but for the folks in North Carolina and Pennsylvania who will profit from them.

Yes, I expect the MSM to ask them a number of truly dumb or pointless questions, but some substance will be covered and folks will also have an opportunity to assess each candidate's personality and style. I applaud the candidates for holding the debates and just wish they'd be challenged with questions on matters of real substance.

In the mid 70s, Amory Lovins wrote a book called "Soft Energy Paths" that was clearly prescient. His basic argument was that peak oil was coming and that we had a window of a few decades during which we could use our wealth and policies to make a smooth transition to sustainable energy resources and implement much stronger conservation as well. He argued that oil (and other fossil fuels), a finite, non-renewable resource, was priced artificially low if we considered what its true replacement costs would be. He argued for using taxes to raise the price of oil to its longer term price and then use the revenue to invest in research and development of alternative, soft energy resources and conservation. We needed to do all this because by the time the effects of peak oil hit, we would be too far behind the curve and lack the resources to quickly convert our economy.

In the wake of the 1973 oil crisis his ideas seemed like they might stand a chance, but with the failure of the Carter administration, the subsequent election of Ronald Reagan and the end of the oil embargo, we went on our merry way. Cars got larger, gas mileage became unimportant to most Americans, and American auto companies did everything in their power to avoid working on alternative energy sources for transportation.

Now we are feeling the effects of peak oil, the enormous demands added to the system by burgeoning economies in China and India, and, unfortunately, also the financial burdens of the severe mismanagement of our economy and the war in Iraq. We need a massive reworking of our energy policy in the next administration, made all the more urgent by global climate change.

This is so truly awful that I'm tempted to believe it was made by the Democrats! Ugh.

Just to be clear, I was implying that the Democrats made this just to make McCain look bad, not that only Dems could make such an awful video.

I can't bring myself to watch. I know it's April 1, but could we have some real content here for the rest of the day?

how2know924, I'm all for a bit of levity now and again, but I agree. War Room is less interesting and useful than it once was. Where it was once "must read" material, I now skim it quickly to see if there is anything of substance. I still check daily, but I get much less out of it.

Thanks for the Grieve sighting. Looks like he's continuing to do good work over at Politico.

Our media has been so light weight and toothless for so long, it's very hard not to begin to believe that there is some sort of concerted effort to deliberately distract and misinform the American public.

In the 60s, the CIA and FBI planted stories to distort the public's sense of reality both internationally and domestically

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There have been revealed attempts by the Bush administration to plant false news stories as well

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But what really concerns me is that, most of the time, the news organizations themselves seem to do the dirty work of the administration, without even needing to be paid off, by simply avoiding doing good journalism. It may be that there is nothing more going on than the free market at work (Britney Spears gets more eyes and therefore advertising dollars) or it could be the corporate owners of most news organizations subtly (or not so subtly in the case of Fox News) set the news agenda of the network. But even these possibilities don't seem to fully capture what might be going on. NPR and PBS have also been dumbed down since the 70s and early 80s. Far less time is spent reporting significant issues (think of all the stupid puff pieces that they run everyday) and when they do, the quality of the reporting is pretty bad most of the time.

Are we just too fat and lazy to care anymore (present company excepted)? Why the hell aren't there members of the media who are willing to rebel and produce quality work?

My sincere apologies. Somehow my links for the FBI,CIA and Bush administration planting stories in the media were stripped. Let's see if they get through this time.

CIA

http://www.fas.org/sgp/news/2002/02/re022502.html

FBI

http://www.trackedinamerica.org/timeline/civil_rights/intro/

Bush admin

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2005/12/b1289739.html

Since we're voicing opinions, I like proportional awarding of the delegates since it more accurately gauges and reflects the true sentiments of the voters. Remember how lots of us complained about the overly simplistic labeling of red states and blue states, as if Bush winning a state by 51 to 49% made it red? Give me proportional awarding of the delegates any day over a system that fails to properly reflect real differences within the electorate.