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Here’s a great piece by Amory B. Lovins on efficiency and conservation:

Since the Arab oil embargo in 1973, the United States has gotten more new energy from efficiency than from all net expansions of domestic energy supplies put together.

The millions of little things people did to weatherize houses, get more efficient cars, upgrade office lighting, plug up steam leaks, etc., plus some shifts in economic structure, yielded four times as many additional Btus as did the net increase in supply from all new American oil and gas wells, coal mines and power plants built in the same period.

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At Business Week:

We have reached one of those rare moments of broad societal accord. We all agree the U.S. has become overly dependent on fossil fuels, particularly foreign oil. We all want to do something substantive to eliminate the dependency. The consensus transcends party affiliation, occupation, income level, or age.

He better let some scientists inside the Whitehouse bubble:

This may be the president’s most disturbing statement yet on global warming. In the past he has been more cautious and even accepting of the basic scientific consensus. Here, however, Bush calls into question the central scientific finding that today’s global warming is largely human-caused, and suggests there’s a “debate” about that fact. Incredible.

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Eric Haney, a retired command sergeant major of the U.S. Army, was a founding member of Delta Force, the military’s elite covert counter-terrorist unit …

Q: What’s your assessment of the war in Iraq?

A: Utter debacle. But it had to be from the very first. The reasons were wrong. The reasons of this administration for taking this nation to war were not what they stated. (Army Gen.) Tommy Franks was brow-beaten and … pursued warfare that he knew strategically was wrong in the long term. That’s why he retired immediately afterward. His own staff could tell him what was going to happen afterward.

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This book is really in the news this week. In this case in a New York Times review:

Kevin Phillips, a former Republican strategist who helped design that party’s Southern strategy, made his name with his 1969 book, “The Emerging Republican Majority,” which predicted the coming ascendancy of the G.O.P. In the decades since, Mr. Phillips has become a populist social critic, and his last two major books — “Wealth and Democracy” (2002) and “American Dynasty” (2004) — were furious jeremiads against the financial excesses of the 1990’s and what he portrayed as the Bush family’s “blatant business cronyism,” with ties to big oil, big corporations and the military-industrial complex.

I’d run out to get a copy, but I’ve got three books in progress that I should really try to finish.

I caught Kevin Phillips (author of American Theocracy) being interviewed on After Words last night, by Grover Norquist. I’m not sure if Grover was just slow-pitching, by giving Kevin some kind of dumb questions … I’d hate to think that’s how Grover really is.

Anyway, the show looks like it will be on again tonight. I think it is worth a listen, as Phillips lays out his concerns with theocracy, oil, and debt.

BTW, the book is apparently dedicated to “lapsed Republicans” … people pushed out by changes in the Republican party. Is that me? Maybe.

(After Words is listed on the C-SPAN podcast page, and so this program might be available there later.)

The word “podcasting” was coined just a couple years ago, in 2004. I was one of the early listeners, and it has been interesting to see the technique break out into the mainstream. I don’t suppose many people will ever know who Adam Curry and Dave Winer are, but those guys must get their minds blown as they see their tech spread. The latest boggle for me was seeing the “podcasting” icon on the bottom of my C-SPAN screen. Yes, C-SPAN has a podcast page.

(… and yes, podcasting was co-invented by the same Adam Curry who was an early “VeeJay” on MTV. Big hair and all. I think Adam was the guy who pushed it (pushed Dave) and made it happen.)

I was searching for something else and tripped over this. I listened to this talk some time back, with my mp3 player, while walking in the park, and it blew my mind:

I’d like to give a strong recommendation to listen to the address that David Weinberger gave recently to an audience at the Library of Congress (and C-SPAN). Dr. Weinberger is currently a fellow at Harvard’s Berkman Institute for Internet & Society and is the author of Small Pieces Loosely Joined and co-author of The Cluetrain Manifesto.

Consider it a little iPod fodder.

Oil prices will remain high “for some time” until major consuming countries reduce their dependence on oil, in particular from the Middle East, former Saudi oil minister Zaki Yamani said Thursday.

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This seems like a joke, but the VP’s requirements for his “Downtime Suite” include that TVs be preset to Fox … wouldn’t want to be momentarily offended by non-Fox news, now would we?

While the vice president’s requests are pretty modest (no extract-the-brown-M&M demands here), Cheney does like his suite at a comfy 68 degrees. And, of course, all the televisions need to be preset to the Fox News Channel (what, you thought he was a Lifetime devotee?). Decaf coffee should be ready upon his arrival along with four cans of caffeine-free Diet Sprite. And when Cheney is traveling with his wife Lynne, the second family’s suite needs an additional two bottles of sparkling water. Mrs. Cheney’s H2O should be either Calistoga or, curiously, Perrier, a favored beverage of French terrorism appeasers.

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