Pragerblog

I’m thinking the GOP might be rethinking its decision to use that mondo backdrop in its stagecraft.

Not only did it dwarf the candidate in the long shots, but it produced some odd effects when camera was tightly focused on the speaker. During McCain’s speech, it looked like he had a blue aura, which might have impressed some new-agers, but looked pretty creepy to me.

They used location-specific shots much of the time — NYC (sans Trade Center towers) for Rudy, Alaska for Palin, etc. (but NOT anything Mass.-related for Mitt) — but may have fumbled one comically in this picture from McCain’s speech:

It is of the Walter Reed Middle School in California, and kind of a puzzler. But someone in Josh Marshall’s shop suggested that the staffer tasked to get images for the screen had went looking for “Walter Reed Medical Center” and missed it by that much. Pretty clever reasoning, almost certainly correct, and extremely funny.

One of the thoughts I had from Gov. Palin’s speech was that she couldn’t have written it, but that her ability to deliver it was powerful nevertheless. Then I thought about her beauty pageant experience, and her broadcasting experience, and — of course she’d be a good presenter!

But there’s no way to dismiss her superficialities without addressing Obama’s situation: One of his foremost attributes is his ability to reach people through his presentation skills. It’s not the same — he got his at least partly via his law training at one of the world’s greatest universities. He wins on substance hands down, but on style, there’s an equivalence.

McCain’s speech, meanwhile, sucked; my question is whether it was weaker on substance or on presentation, though he gets props for scolding his party, which began with, “We were elected to change Washington, and we let Washington change us.” It’s as close to an acknowledgment of the miscreantics (not a word; should be) not only of the Bush years but of the 14 years since the Gingrich congressional takeover.

The issue that arises from that comparison is, who’s more qualified to be president, McCain or Palin? No contest, right? But her presentation was stirring, and his wasn’t. And this morning, I think, lots of people are buzzing about her and underwhelmed by him.

To the extent that that’s true, we’re electing on presentation skills. That began with Kennedy, but like so many other pernicious trends, it is more acute than ever.

* I am feeling so much better today, after being unable to write yesterday in the aftermath of Mitt, Rudy, and Sarah. I have John McCain to thank for my recovery.

* Gov. Palin’s speech was very good. On C-Span (the only way to watch this stuff), one of their mid-speech camera cuts was to a woman just as she was leaning into her friend to say, “I love her,” and I could imagine that happening all over America.

* When Palin was chosen, many pundits invoked the Geraldine Ferraro election as the operative historical reference, but now I think they got it wrong. It’s Dukakis-Benson, when many people thought the wrong candidate was at the head of the ticket.

* Palin is not experienced and would not make a good president, but she’s going to be a formidable opponent. She’s so lacking in substance, and I don’t see a way to pin that down. Criticism of her will be seen as partisan sniping, even from the “liberal” press, and no matter what arises from that, it won’t be substantive.

* The tactic of making the media the issue when you don’t have the goods is not new, but it was particularly well displayed Monday by the interview by CNN’s Campbell Brown of McCain talker Tucker Bounds. Brown was persistent, but only because Bounds refused to answer a fair question: Name one decision she has made as commander of of the Alaska National Guard. She asked only after Bounds cited that role as proof of her experience. Bounds never gave ground, never conceded anything — he just made Brown to be a villain.

* I’ve heard three people — not pals, but on the national stage — actually aver that Palin has foreign policy experience because Alaska is closest to Russia. This doesn’t reflect on Palin, but on those who would be so stupid to suggest such a thing. Both Colbert and Stewart had rejoinders, but Colbert’s was better: Alaska also has Mount McKinley (tallest peak in North America), making her an expert on space policy because her state is closer to it. Absolutely idiotic.

* Then again, maybe stupid works. How else to understand the multiple GOP speakers railing against “liberal Washington” when the White House has been horribly Republican for 8 years, and the Congress has been greedily and haughtily Republican for 12 of the past 14? How can they blame “them,” when “they” are “them”?

* Among the friends and friends of friends on Facebook today, the chatterers are very upset about Palin — how she wasn’t truthful, how she was bullying, how her beauty pageant/TV broadcaster training implied depth that hasn’t otherwise been evident. There’s also a lot of snark. Part of what that tells me is that even in my super-extended network, sympathies are left of center.

I’ve mentioned previously a story I wrote about electric bikes for E, the Environmental Magazine, and though it has been available to subscribers for more than a week, it’s now available electronically as well. I commend it to you, but duh, I wrote it, y’know?

Link.

Meanwhile, I saw a squib this morning (on Venturebeat, via Cleantechnica) about Powergenix, a company I mentioned in the story because Houston-based Veloteq is partnering with the California company on a nickel zinc battery. Its touted attributes are that it holds more power than lead-acid but is lighter and cheaper than lithium-ion batteries.

At the time I wrote, Veloteq was unprepared to offer a timetable, but Cleantechnica says the new-battery bikes will be marketed in Europe and in America next year. (I was unable to find that either on the Veloteq or Powergenix site, so perhaps not.)

The highlight of the GOP party tonight will be Sarah Palin, the VP nominee, and I’m excited to see and hear her.

The little I’ve seen and heard of her so far has not been impressive to me — “just what does the vice president do all day, anyway?” — but I do love the wildcard she represents. She could stumble, or she could wow. Both seem more likely than her being boring, though that would probably put her in the former category.

While on the topic of her, I want to take note of some of the very bizarre things that bloggers are saying. That Trigg wasn’t her baby after all, but her daughter’s, and that the baby tried to cover it up. That her water broke in Texas, but she stayed to give a speech, and then flew 8 hours back home to have the baby, and that this represented an outrageous and injurious for her child.

And Rachel Maddow! I have enjoyed listening to Rachel since she was part of Air America’s morning show years ago, and am glad to see prospering in the media world — not only has she made a comeback on that network, but she just got a slot on MSNBC. But this morning, I read of her comments that McCain should drop Palin from the ticket because of the disarray she has brought to it.

That’s nuts, based on what is known about her so far.

I don’t understand this tendency to invent crap, when it is so unnecessary. I equate it to the age jokes about McCain. The guy isn’t doddering, so why focus on it, when there’s so much real stuff with which to find fault: He placed his fate in the hands of his tormenters (famously and bravely, he stood up to the North Vietnamese, but now he’s taking advice from Karl Rove, the miscreant who spread word in South Carolina in 2000 that McCain might have a black illegitimate child, when she was an Indian girl who McCain and his wife brought here for treatment, and then adopted). He’s sold out principle after principle — on torture, on drilling, immigration (great John Kerry line last week: “Before he debates Barack Obama, he should settle the debate with himself”). Who needs to make things up, when he’s sold out on the tendencies of independence that he tossed aside in order to be elected?

Same with her. She’s for teaching creationism in the schools. She supported the “bridge to nowhere,” and now says she doesn’t. She’s been out of the country only a couple of times in her life. She thinks global climate change isn’t caused by humans. She says health care must be market-driven. She appears to have misused her office to harass her brother-in-law, involved in a custody dispute with her sister. She’s a gamble in the extreme, likely to flub a few more times before the race is over. Why make it up?

Thursday night, on O’Reilly, no less.

So sayeth the Times.

Joe Lieberman was a friend of mine, once. My senator. But I’m down on him, as are many of his former supporters for the way he has turned warmonger, and otherwise disappointed those who thought they knew him.

But I was glad to see him speaking last night in St. Paul.

I would like to be able to say that I took national pride in the display of cross-partisanship. I have no reservation in saying that greater cross-party cooperation would make our nation greater. I would like to be able to say that I express that view in my actions and sentiments.

But I don’t, not yet. I’m still angry at the lies and at the knife-edge meanness displayed by the other side. I hope the ability to forgive returns, but I’ve found it usually doesn’t while the offenses are still being committed.

No, I was glad to see him speaking last night in St. Paul because I didn’t think he did very well. Much of what he said seemed to fall tepid on the ears of the other-party faithful. And if he didn’t stir the Republican guard, I can’t imagine he had much effect in middle America.

He sure didn’t change my mind about anything.

From The Fix, the blog by Washington Post writer Chris Cillizza:

Rick Davis, campaign manager for John McCain’s presidential bid, insisted that the presidential race will be decided more over personalities than issues during an interview with Post editors this morning.

“This election is not about issues,” said Davis. “This election is about a composite view of what people take away from these candidates.”

You can’t make stuff up this good.

Yes, it’s true that I bought into this election much earlier than most, but even so, isn’t this thing just getting better and better, richer and richer?

This is partly so because of the abysmal, multilayered failures of the bonehead and bungler, Still President Bush — not that I’ve made my mind up about him yet. The condition he’s leaving the country in — and this presumes that he doesn’t finish off with one more colossal blunder — has established very high stakes.

But on top of that, we have history being made in several ways, no matter which way the election goes: We will elect a black man or a woman to the executive suite for the first time. And we will send a senator to the Oval Office for the first time in almost half a century.

To me, though, those are static factors, enough to make the election important, but not necessarily exciting. What elevates it, for me, is how the unpredictability of life is reasserting itself in a relentlessly scripted political landscape.

Usually, it’s the Republicans who stage-manage every last gesture; where the Democrats tried to do that, they came out wooden (Gore) and leaden (Kerry). But this time, the Obamacrats sailed through their convention with nary a ripple they didn’t plan, and it’s the Republicans who are being buffeted:

* McCain picks a complete unknown, not because he wanted to but because events (trailing in the polls, a pending insurrection if he puts an abortion-rights guy on the ticket) forced him to. It’s a risky choice that could go either way — the antithesis of scripting. Will voters see her as an asset? A liability? A joke? Real questions, even beyond the bounds of calculation.
* The hurricane bears down on New Orleans, just as the party of the people who completely botched Katrina gathers at the other end of the Mississippi River. They could only respond, in real time.
* What, her daughter is pregnant? The candidate herself was pregnant before she got married? She hired a lawyer because she’s about to be deposed for the inquiry into her potential abuse of power? Her husband has been a drunk driver?

Will the conservatives react like they do when it’s in their family (Dick Cheney positions an election on the evils of homosexuality, but his daughter’s homosexuality is off limits), or like they do from the pulpit, with condemnation? Who knows! Could got either way!

Polling suggests the race is still close, though if that’s accurate, I don’t understand why. Of all the potential outcomes, I think that a McCain landslide is the least possible. Most people, I think, expect it to be close. I think it won’t be — probably not a landslide, but closer to that than to either of the last two outcomes. But the fact is, I don’t know.

So far, at least, the voters haven’t been co-opted by calculation, crass manipulation, or even polling. Anything could happen, and I like it that way.

It is pretty tough to excel in a judgment-rated endeavor when you’re expected to excel, and that’s the situation Barack Obama was in last night — the foundation of all that has grown up in the past four years around him was his keynote speech at the Boston convention.

Even against such high expectation, I thought Obama gave a very good speech last night.

I loved when he said that the election was not about him, but about us. Damn right.

I appreciated his talking about the manipulativeness of the Republicans, who make big elections about small things when they have no new ideas. His comment that offshore drilling is a stop-gap, not a long-term solution, not even close, was in the same vein and I was grateful

He had great flourishes, such as, McCain says he’ll follow him to the gates of hell, but he won’t follow him to the cave he’s been living in. And, if John McCain wants to debate me on who has the judgment and temperament to be commander in chief, that’s a debate I’m ready to have. (I’m paraphrasing, from memory.)

I thought he was direct, clear, and both controlled and passionate. It was a good speech, and he gave it well.

However.

One of his first big applause lines was when he pledged to get us off imported oil from the Middle East in 10 years. Just what does that mean? Is it even possible, in the world oil economy, to specify where the oil comes from? Aren’t purchases made by private parties, not the government? Does he intend to buy only from non-threatening, freedom-loving oil producers like Russia, and Venezuela? Probably not, but just what does he mean?

And there were two other clunkers in there, his endorsement of clean coal (no such thing, so far) and his pledge to find nuclear that’s safe (ditto).

I know that there are states that depend on coal, so there’s a political motivation to toss that sop, but who but big business — and even then, only the businesses who sell nuclear-plant technology — is going to be swayed by that?

I concede that I have wavered, just a little bit, on nuclear, as a potential transition to a renewable-energy economy. The way I see it, we would trade the poison we put into the atmosphere — a clear and present danger — for the poison we would put into the ground, a never-ending danger. Nuclear also brings, of course, the potential for meltdown and for accidents during transportation of wastes. Beyond conceding that they both suck, can we really pick one as less sucky?

So far, there’s at least a case for wavering. But then there are the economics. As I understand it, no nuclear plant has ever been built without substantial government assistance. That means each of us has paid to help nuclear plants be built. Kinda makes you feel all warm and fuzzy inside, doesn’t it?

We will undoubtedly need to continue investing tax dollars, one way or another, in our energy future. No matter what small-governmentalist conservatives might say, we have a communal interest in the outcome, and it would be follow just to let the ruthless market choose the outcome. We have to invest and to invest wisely.

If we throw tens of billions toward nuclear — say, for a couple dozen new plants, if that would be enough — that’s tens of billions we won’t throw toward solar, wind, wave, and whatever else will be “free” and nonpolluting once it’s built. Once those nukes are built, they will be our investment for the next few decades, as entrenched by then as oil and gas are now. If we’re going to go in a new direction, let’s rush hellbent toward the good ones, instead of detouring from one dumping ground to another.

There was a time when such stances would be the kiss-off for me, but I’m still with Obama. A couple of weeks ago, I was talking to an intern-age San Diegan at Boston Green Drinks (I can hook you up, if you’re interested) and he said he was thinking of withholding his vote from Obama because of his FISA and drilling reversals. I had sympathy for the position — I voted for John Anderson in ‘80, and I voted for Nader in ‘00; my position has long been, you don’t vote for the better winnable candidate, you vote for whom you want to win.

But the reply that came out of me was that this is a race between two people, and that one of them is going to win. I don’t think anyone in our lifetime will ever again be able to think that voting for president doesn’t matter, not after the uncountable debacles of Still-President Bush. Voting matters, and whom we choose matters.

So even if Obama put nukes and “clean” coal into the biggest speech of his life, he’s still the one.

I’m just flummoxed by those who see the Republicans on the winning side of the energy issue, because they are for offshore drilling and drilling in ANWR. Those positions are wrong, wrong, and wrong.

Yes, I know that polling about domestic drilling has been running in that direction, and I concede that the easier political strategy was to follow along. Still-president Bush chose the easy way when he lifted the executive ban on offshore drilling, and McCain joined right in behind. (Hillary’s best line last night (paraphrased): It’s fitting that Bush and McCain will be in the Twin Cities next week, because you can hardly tell them apart.)

But it is vacant, crass pandering, and classic abdication of leadership.

On this issue, the people are wrong. Drilling won’t help in any substantive way. If the people need a feel-good energy bump, how about someone standing up and pointing toward the new way?

Much earlier in the year, I cited Obama’s leadership potential as my primary reason for supporting him. When Republicans mock him as an empty-suit celeb whose policies are just like all the other lefties, they miss this point horribly.

In the recent past, however, Obama has been looking pretty standard-issue pol — not only on drilling but on FISA. Certainly, Obama didn’t get to the brink of nomination by being politically deaf, and he has apparently decided this is a place to bob and weave, rather than bluntly point out the fallacy of the people’s reasoning.

This is when a leader would stand up and say, “this is not the right way to get what we want. I want energy security just like everyone else, but this is not the way to get there. Here’s how we’re going to do it. We’re going to rely on American innovation, and then we’re going to prosper by building new American industries focused on renewable energy. Where it will most help, we’ll tailor our tax policies to encourage these innovators, to get us to our new energy future sooner — what better investment in our public welfare could we possibly make?”

Whoever gets the stones to ignore the polls and point the way — this pol will own the energy issue.

Via Re-Nest and the Hartford Courant (a former employer) comes the Tiny House, a one-off production of Elizabeth Turnbull, with help from friends and neighbors.

Turnbull lives in Newburyport, Mass., but is moving to New Haven for the next two years to attend the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She calculated her housing costs for that period, and decided to apply the funds in a more constructive way than just finding a roomie and paying rent.

As with many things on Re-Nest, I’m not sure I could live in her space. The bathroom, as she points out in a video, is smaller than most people’s showers — 3 feet by 3 1/2 feet. But she’ll be quite self-sufficient, with a composting toilet and three 70-watt solar panels that she says will provide all her needs.

Whether you’d live like that or not, she’s an interesting person with an impressive outlook and attitude. Check it out.

… because I’m sure there will be a shortage of it today.

First off, I like Joe Biden. A lot. I heard him speak for an hour last summer, before it became obvious he wasn’t going to be the breakthrough candidate, and I was impressed. Good story, excellent wisdom, a direct way of speaking. I think he’d make a good president.

But I don’t get it.

He comes from a likely Democratic state.

It’s in the Northeast, the region most likely to support Obama.

Even it was going to transform his state from red to blue, who cares? You can’t find a state with fewer electoral votes.

Then there’s Joe himself. I like him, OK? But which voter who wasn’t going to vote for Obama already has now been persuaded by the combination of the two? Not which bloc of votes; which voter?

Further, he’s a bit of liability, open-mouth-wise. He’s never said anything that turned me off him, but hey,

I’m a Northeast, blue-state, left-leaner, as likely to forgive one of my own as the Limbaugh-ists somehow find the capacity to forgive Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice/Perle/Cheney/Feith/Wolfowitz/Rove/Cheney/Addington. (OK, so Biden doesn’t measure down to them, tainting the analogy.)

Despite all that, I find my reaction this morning to be, “wow, that Obama must be one sophisticated political strategist. It makes no sense to me by all the usual standards, so he must be viewing the field on some higher plane that I can’t see.” Yes, that could be delusional, and I may look back on this with anger and rue, if it turns out to be just plain stupid.

But for now, I still believe in Obama’s abilities.

I’m conversing with an architect this morning in advance of a consultation next month about expanding our house. No matter which way we imagine it, we’re two rooms short, although we could probably get by with just one more.

It’s just unfathomable that we are in this position, since we did a not-small renovation after we moved in just four years ago. Could we have resolved this problem then? Who knows; what I do know is that we didn’t, and it’s in the past. In the same coulda/shoulda category is that we didn’t approach the job with nearly enough green consciousness; this is slightly more difficult to let go of, since “mistakes” made in such a (usually!) one-time event can last for decades.

I’ve written before that we didn’t have the right architect, because I didn’t ask the right questions. We should have been looking for someone who excelled in green practices, so that not only would she/he have done what we asked, he/she would have told us about stuff we hadn’t even thought of. There was little of that with the architect we chose, green-related or not.

There are several tendrils to our inquiry, but it begins with, “is it more cost-effective to do more work here, or to buy elsewhere?” Some of that is not quantifiable: We like our street, our neighborhood, our neighbors, our park, our prospective school. Also, we have made the house the way we want in many ways — the whole-house wired and wireless networks, the installed speakers and media plugs, etc., plus all the work that Georgie has put into the garden. And my wall, of course.

But will we end up with something too large, for us, if we renovate? Can we do enough energy-efficiency stuff inside our already-built space? By the time we’re done, will we find we should have moved after all?

I have to say, it would be a great long-term blogging project to document the further greening of our blue house, but I dunno if I want to purchase that opportunity for six figures (renovation included).

There is also, of course, the footprint issue. I know that we don’t have enough space; that’s is quantifiable. But I catch myself ogling some of the nicer houses I cycle past around here, and then I remember: Oh yeah, it’s way too big for what I ought to value. That part of my brain is still in transition.

For several years, LEDs were supposed to be the next big thing in consumer lighting, and they’re still coming.

But a post this week at GreenDaily touts Electron Stimulated Luminescence as a quicker comer. They are supposed to be equivalent to CFLs in cost and lifespan, but to overcome two of their shortcomings: They use no mercury, and are dimmable.

Rigel Gregg writes that ESLs have a coating of phosphor on the inside of the glass that is excited by electrons accelerated against it. CFLs send current through mercury vapor to get the same effect. The company behind it, VU1, says the light created is far more like incandescents than CFLs. It also boasts that it doesn’t need the twisty shape.

I have never seen one of these bulbs, and I don’t know if they work. The news of this product surprised me, and triggered at least some skepticism about whether it’s real. Until they’re on the market, it’ll be impossible to tell, but it sounds promising.

Note: Action item at the end.

Yet another post that doesn’t directly address a green topic, although as yesterday’s post makes clear, lobbying expenses for the gas, oil, and electric-utility industries exceed any one industry: More than $120 million so far this year.

Yesterday, I finished listening to a podcast of Prof. Lawrence Lessig’s hourlong appearance before the Commonwealth Club of California last week, in which he talked about his crusade against influence peddling.

It was excellent in all respects, but the comment that stuck with me was (this is a paraphrase): The reasons so many industries are spending dozens of millions of dollars on lobbying is because they expect to get more out of that expenditure than they would spending it in R&D, or in new machinery, or on salaries.

It’s so true: Corporations — which have been ruled as citizens by the Supreme Court, at least for the purpose of having the right of free speech — are different in at least one crucial way: One cannot expect a corporation to act morally or decently, as we might at least hope of a human being. Their “moral compass” is the bottom line, and if they can make a greater profit by dumping waste, or by manipulating the rules against their undue influence, they do it. Their leaders are, in fact, fiduciarily responsible to win the best return for investors.

Yes, they also must obey the laws, but we can expect them to do their best to get around them, and in the present discussion, to spend lavishly to condition the laws to their liking. That’s fine, that’s what they do.

That’s why the people’s representatives have to make strong, enforceable laws for the public good, and to be protected from corrupting influences.

Any thinking being need only look at the dozens of millions that industries are spending to know that there’s way too much value being offered in Washington, by a body that is already being paid by you and me. Except for those directly enriched by Washington’s booty, I can’t imagine why any breathing citizen wouldn’t see how badly we need to change the rules of the game.

Lessig and Joe Trippi, a longtime political operative who most famously deployed Internet technology to foster the growth of Gov. Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign, have created change-congress.org to enlist candidates who will support any or all of four propositions:

You and I can also take the pledge(s). They have established a map that shows where the support resides nationwide, in part to show candidates what people think, in their districts and nationwide. Check it out.

Also from Think Progress this morning…

QUESTIONER: If we don’t reenact the draft, I don’t think we’ll have anyone to chase Bin Laden to the gates of hell.

[Applause]

MCCAIN: Ma’am, let me say that I don’t disagree with anything you said.

Great, me and John McCain, touting the same issue. Almost.

He’s talking solely about the military, and I think we have different motivations: He wants to fight and I want to bring the broad swath of public opinion into the questions of whether we should fight optional wars.

But still, so be it. It’s the right position, no matter who else is in the corral.

Here’s what he said yesterday, via Think Progress:

I think this is a classic illustration here where affirmative action has reared its ugly head against them. It’s the reverse of it. They’ve, they’ve ended up nominating and placing at the top of their ticket somebody who’s not qualified, who has not earned it. […]

It’s perfect affirmative action. And because of all this guilt and the historic nature of things, nobody had the guts to say, well, wait a minute, do we really want to do this?

So what were George Bush’s qualifications? Governor of the worst educated state in the union who got there by family connections up the wazoo, failed oilman, draft dodger.

If a white guy had done what Obama did — humble beginnings, Harvard, Harvard Law, Harvard Law review, community activist instead of corporate cash-in (well, OK, he probably wouldn’t celebrate that part, but decent people would) — he’d be gushing over him.

But this man is black, ergo, he got a break. What a racist thought. What a pig. And worst of all, he’s a leader in America.

Though my position arises from original thought — as in, I didn’t hear it from someone else — I’m quite certain I’m not even among the first thousand or ten thousand to come to my conclusion:

Our country would best be served by a universal public service requirement.

Though I concede I started musing toward this point as a reaction to how understaffed our military has become through our imperialistic invasion of Iraq, it ain’t about warmongering.

In fact, it surprised me to realize that if military service were broad-based, we would have been far less likely to have gone into Iraq, because the issue would have been personal to millions more than it was. Whether to shed the blood of our soldiers becomes a different question when it’s our sons and daughters who will be shedding it. How many people actually know someone who has served in Iraq or Afghanistan, never mind have a family member who has?

By no means do I say that everyone would have to serve in the military, although even in the military, there are myriad jobs that don’t include shouldering a firearm. The military has outsourced many of them to private contractors. People opposed to aiding the military in any way could work as laborers fixing bridges, or do administrative work in social services, or whatever — certainly, there is no shortage of public-benefit work that would be speeded by more staffing.

Applying the service requirement universally would mean no one would be put at a disadvantage by having to take a year away from personal pursuits to serve the common good.

I believe most individuals would benefit, too, from the pride that comes with service, and the pride of ownership that arises with personal investment.

There are plenty of potential problems — what if people cheat their way out of it? or wouldn’t it be a nightmare to administer? or how would we pay for it? I respond that, sure, there would be, but I can’t imagine any that would dissuade me from the point. If millions of people are working annually for the good of America, we’re going to come out ahead, no matter the logistics that support it.

I am not an America-love-it-or-leave-it kind of guy, and it’s fair to say I don’t relate to or understand those who are. But from my foggy, suppositional perch, it seems obvious that they would be the first cohort to endorse a year’s stint of selfless service to the common good.

Please tell me what you think in the comments section.

So would you spend $55 million without expectation of return? You know, if you made billions in profit and could afford it?

The oil and gas industry has spent that much this year — so far — to lobby for its governmental interests. According to Jennifer Lance, writing at Red, Green, and Blue, an offshoot of the Green Options website, that puts the industry on a pace to exceed the most it’s ever spent in a year, $83 million.

She gets her information from Open Secrets, the website of the Center for Responsive Politics.

The most lobby-happy industry is Big Pharma, at $112 million and counting, but if you add the other side of the power equation, the electric utilities, the combined figure exceeds $120 million. Individually, they are ranked fifth and third, respectively.

No consumer representatives appear on the list. Presumably, that’s because the senators and representatives speak for us, but does it seem that way to you?