Good article. I look forward to reading the book. It is rather droll that much of the confusion over the author's intent here is that the article appears to be a verbatim excerpt from the book. On the other hand, a review written specifically for Salon could be tailored to account for the preconceptions (certainties) of its readership.

I'm reminded of my sophomore modern physics final exam. One of the questions was phrased as an exercise in designing your own problem. The professor went on and on for a good long paragraph stating that we could design any optical system we want - it could have this feature or omit that feature - wide vistas of possibility lying at our feet. ...Except for one kicker at the very end - that somewhere in the solution a virtual object must form a virtual image.

A virtual image is what you see in the mirror of the medicine cabinet while you brush your teeth each morning. I'll leave it as an exercise for the interested student to sort out what a virtual object is. But consider that even before the neuroscience of certainty comes into play, that our perception of the world is full of ghost images and things that aren't there - just as you are not inside the medicine cabinet and aren't holding the toothbrush in your left hand, but rather your right.

As Uncle Walt said:

Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself, I am large, I contain multitudes.

Some of us need larger mirrors than others :-)

Without analysis, no public policy question can be addressed appropriately. Any pat statement claiming that one option is obviously true, or that another is completely devoid of any applicability, is bunkum. It was asserted in a previous letter that no calculus is needed, rather the whole world is governed by a business layer of interacting differential equations responding in both subtle and blatant ways to the rules of calculus. It is hard to pick the best answer. (Thankfully, it is often easier to point out answers that cluster around the worst choices :-)

There are well known tools for addressing such choices. The trade-off study is one. Different options (e.g., IB, CFL, LED) are rated versus a large number of criteria. Ratings are scaled, weighted and combined. Criteria can be model based. In this case, models can be sensitive to the mix of residential and business customers, to diurnal and annual usage and so forth. A sensitivity analysis will reveal how changing one value affects the result.

Here the idea seems to be that the models' sensitivity analysis suggests that in a cold climate the differential effect of the heating byproduct from incandescent lighting may offset the differential effect of consuming more electricity. Whether that "may" turns into a "will" then depends on the source of the power. The question is not whether this form of heating is inherently best - just how all the different heat inputs add into the differential home heating equation.

On the other end of the question are the life cycle questions. Is there an analysis of the cost side of manufacturing light bulbs of various types? Cost means money, energy, environmental impact, disposal costs, packaging costs, etc. These are all parameters for a broader trade-off. The result will, of course, depend on many issues and the "answer" may well vary from place to place, but relatively simple guidelines may still be possible. The question, however, is more about characterizing the problem properly than picking some oversimplified answer out of a hat.

Of course, the reality is that many bad-faith actors influence every public policy debate. A trade-off study is also a way to make the critical issues clear to all stakeholders such that special interests don't receive special attention.

So we have that 'the USA Patriot Act created a new category of domestic terrorism, which is defined as an offense "calculated to influence or affect the conduct of government"'. By this definition, every congressional lobbyist is a terrorist.

Moreover, 'or "to intimidate or coerce a civilian population."' clearly implicates the Bush administration as a terrorist cell.

If as described, however, this case was lost during voir dire. Tainted, conflicting eye witnesses versus an exculpatory receipt? This should have been a text book example of reasonable doubt.

Isn't it a compliment to refer to Bush voters as "low information"? What is the alternative? That they had all the information, but decided so badly anyway? Our information is metered to the country by the craven corporate media. The common sense of the common man (white or otherwise) is innate.

Our country's woes are the result of an unrelenting campaign of misinformation. That the resulting group decision-making is questionable is unremarkable. The choice between Clinton and Obama is small potatoes. Upon how large a fence can swing voters be sitting that the choice between either Democrat's likely actions and 100 years of McCain's stated folly not be obvious?

Look always to the "statement against penal interest". It was Eisenhower, stalwart Republican and beloved five star general, who warned the country against the military-industrial complex.

Ask what Ike would think of Iraq, torture, the subversion of the constitution, Halliburton, and all that, not what the hornswoggled electorate thinks.