To my mind, that's the real legacy of Reaganism: The idea that if you just believed something hard enough — be it Laffer curves, trickle-down economics or that trees cause pollution — and well, that's good enough. Sprinkle in some cultural animus, and ignorance becomes practically an elevated spiritual state.
So naturally, this leads to “policy” positions untethered from reality, but against which it becomes difficult to argue. When McCain says he's going to balance the budget by the end of his first term, everyone knows it doesn't really make any sense. But saying that's impossible sounds somehow negative; obviously it's better to promise more than less.
And so it goes with energy: McCain's drilling plan won't actually do anything, but damn it's some hard-core sounding stuff. McCain's health care plan will hardly help any of the uninsured — or insured, for that matter — but it hits all the talking points, so therefore it's good enough.
Interestingly, Obama's diagnosis also shows the way out for the GOP: Start suggesting policy prescriptions for problems as they actually exist, that actually have a chance of working. If there's a conservative-branded health care plan that genuinely will help people have health care, let's see it. If there's a conservative plan to genuinely deal with global warming and high gas prices, let's see it. On some level or other, Arnold Schwarzenegger seems to understand that. Bruce Tarr seems to understand that. David Brooks seems to understand that.
The Era of Big Ignorance is over. It has had consequences in reality, and voters are rejecting it. You can't fool people forever.
If we all have our tire pressure at the right level, we’ll save more oil than we’d get from drilling? We’d save over a trillion barrels of oil?!
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p>Au contraire! It has just begun!
Two prong: Inflate the tires with CO2 and we’ll whip global warming by saving gas plus sequestering Carbon dioxide.
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p>Heck, use the digital tire gauge hook it up to a solar cell! Truly, He must the One.
is on top of it.
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p>Less time actually discussing his disastrous energy plan the better.
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p>Obama’s quote:
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p>Yes, please sent $25 McCain’s way to help someone with no energy policy and his only method of getting votes is to lie and mock. I know that’s what I want in a President and that had taken this far with Bush….and aren’t we better off now?
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p>You know he’s running a campaign that he can be proud of….but who knew that pride was being ignorant.
I thought he was to defend and protect the Constitution. Who knew the power of the president was to be used to tell me how to maintain my car or lawnmower. “Not your ordinary Magtag repairman”.
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p>What next? Be sure to clean the lint from your dryer sreen? Protect efficient airflow; save the planet.
he should protect the Constitution, I like it!
about protecting the Constitution (maybe you should cc Bush on that one too). But I also wanted to ask if you voted for Herbert Walker?
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p>His administration wanted everyone to inflate their tires. Maybe McCain can explain why he thinks HW is an idiot.
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p>But we all know this is a sideshow, as I noted above and what you have neglected to respond to is this whole episode is to run away from his own energy policy and his 26 years in the Senate on the issue. You know the old Dean Weirmer line from Animal House, I’ll edit it for McCain. “Lie, Mock and being Ignorant is not a way to go through life son.” Nor is it what I want in a President.
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p>I’d rather have someone is an actual policy that I think will work, not someone repeating policy failures. But that’s me, carry on.
Recall that each and every President since Nixon has promised ‘energy independence’. It’s a soundbite. It’s impossible, IMHO. And, even if not impossible, it’s not even desireable. But, it’s impossible for a politician, NOT to call for energy independence.
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p>So it’s hard not to grimace when Mr. Obama calls for an end to fossil fuel within a decade.
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p>Wind, .667% of all US electricity. To get to 20% would require first, $2 trillion dollars plus 10 thousand miles of transmission lines, combined costing far more than coal. Then, it would require that the wind blow on demand.
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p>So, coal. How will Mr. Obama collectively summon the political will to cause most of the states (and many, many states have coal reserves) to ignore the stuff in their ground that a) burns cheaply and b) provides employment, to suddenly say, “Nah, we’ll leave it there.” I’m not saying it’s impossible, but Mr. Obama is, shall we say, vague on that small issue. Why, he’s quite keen on liquified coal.
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p>So, Mr. Obama says, let’s mandate flex-fuel cars. That ethanoyl thing has worked so well. “Yum,” says Big Corn.
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p>Next then, he’s promised millions of plug-in cars by 2015, but when you’ve endorsed or adopted cap and trade, and can build no more coal plants and the winds not blowing up to speed, where to get the electricity? No worries, that’s a detail so long as your tires are inflated.
that inflating tires is not his energy plan, but at this point we know McCain’s pride in being ignorant.
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p>McCain’s want to expand oil industry tax breaks by $4 billion, why? Then put up a s-load of nuclear power plants. Do you actually believe that’s going to happen? You have to admit it’s a load of BS. Then he’ll give a prize to someone who comes up with a wicked cool battery. Maybe they can even get a picture with Paris Hilton. His plan is basically do the same thing we have been doing.
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p>That’s it, that’s his energy plan.
Energy, at big scales, is dangerous and has downsides.
First, your claim on wind:
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p>
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p>Except that the EIA disagrees.
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p>Source: EIA
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p>That’d be twice your claim. Not much to be sure, but twice your claim. But wind power is doubling every 3.5 years or so based on current energy policy. In 10 years under current growth rates and policy, wind could account for 10%. If that is used to replace coal (currently 50% of generation), it could cut coal by 1/5 to 40% of total generation, a significant shift.
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p>What do you suppose would happen if we had a more aggressive policy — one which locked in the production credits for longer periods of time to provide more certainty in the wind energy market, one which charged carbon polluters for profiting by putting their carbon in our collective air, one which required the mining companies to maintain appropriate safety standards for employees and the environments surrounding their mines? I think the growth rate would increase, and we would hit 10% from wind even sooner.
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p>As for the $2 trillion claim, how much would it cost to maintain/repair/replace the coal fired power plants that are due to come offline over that time period? That part isn’t free. The transmission lines will need to be upgraded, but the Great Lakes blackout a few years ago reminded us that the upgrade needs to happen regardless. Finally, since you know that correlation does not imply causality, I’m sure you also know that with enough samples with negative values in their covariance matrix, you can state with exceedingly high probability a minimum [and maximum] number of MW being produced at any instant over a large series of wind turbines — meaning that you can count it as base load. This is precisely what finance geeks are doing in Manhattan right now. So no, you don’t “require that the wind blow on demand”, you simply observe that with enough turbines, it is statistically certain that the wind is blowing somewhere — more statistically certain than a given coal fired power plant being online.
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p>Now, on to coal. It’s true that many states have coal, but have a look at my (ancient) post on the matter: Coal’s Stranglehold on Congress. The reality is that fewer than 75,000 people are employed in the domestic coal mining business, from explosives experts to accountants. The further reality is that three states (WY, WV, KY) are producing over 60% of America’s coal, so it’s hardly the widespread issue you make it out to be. Furthermore, your claim that Obama is keen on liquefied coal is quite dated. On June 13 2007 the LA Times reported that Obama was indeed backtracking on his support for liquefied coal, in this article. So to be clear: there aren’t many jobs in coal, most coal only comes from 3 states, and Obama is not keen on liquefied coal.
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p>Got a source on Obama’s plan to mandate flex-fuel? I haven’t seen it.
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p>On to plug in cars.
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p>Again, you’re showing your ignorance on the topic. Tesla Motors has a car which can charge in 3.5 hours. So, you get home late at 10pm and won’t be driving your car until 7am the next day, earliest. You plug in your car and the optimized charger then makes sure it’s charged by 7am. What’s nice is that it’s got 9 hours to do 3.5 hours of charging, so it can choose when to charge based on when the wind is blowing [or, more precisely, when the instantaneous price of electricity is cheapest because generation with zero fuel cost like wind power is happening.] Instead of having to meet instantaneous demand, plug in electric vehicles will represent the largest shift in electrical demand ever — the opportunity to shape demand over the course of hours so that the demand curve moves with the supply curve. It gets better. Let’s say your car is plugged in at work, at it’s at 100% charge by 3pm. It knows you leave at 5pm ish and only need 20% charge to run errands and go home. So, you’ve got it set up to sell some of your power to the grid at 3pm, when the prices are high. This allows additional supply to come online when prices are high, either because demand is high [hot day, ACs running] or because supply is low [power plants down for repair, wind not blowing, etc]. Plug in electrics will allow demand to chase supply and allow for additional supply when the market is tight. The result will be more stabilized demand and more stabilized supply — making the market more efficient and eliminating the concern about intermittent sources like wind.
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p>P.S. The biggest growth sector for electrical power, in terms of MW capacity, is natural gas, something you completely ignored in your post.
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p>P.P.S. Complete energy independence is probably impossible in the US because we buy our nuclear fuel from Australia. But, if we didn’t give a damn about pollution we could use natural gas for autos and just use coal for electricity and we’d be independent, and choking on the haze. Not so desirable indeed.
to be converted to wind farms.
but have you been to western Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming? There’s an awful lot of real estate there, and not much else. Same goes for quite a bit of tUSA between the Rockies and the mighty Mississippi.
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p>Besides, many wind turbines get plopped down in ranch land. The rent check (lease payment) the turbine owner pays to the rancher exceeds the value of that land for cattle ranching, so it’s a good deal for all parties.
My only point is: let us not pretend that wind energy is completely without negative trade offs.
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p>Rent checks would probably help the medicine go down, doubtless.
1:
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p>Right from his website, and energy plan.
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p>2: Wind, 1.3% of total or .667%. Who really cares, but the difference in stats is this. Wind is 1.3% of electricity produced in US and .667% of electricity consumed in US.
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p>3: Cheaper to build wind or upgrade coal. I don’t know, but considering that coal plants are the producers of choice among capitalists, I’d have to say that the burden of proof that windmills are cheaper rests with wind advocates, and I’ve not seen such statement. I must therefore conclude that coal plants are cheaper contrary to proof otherwise. To CMD’s point, also consider the cost of land in these wind parks. (BTW, have you ever seen one of those things? I just saw one in Illinois. Cripes, they’re huge! as in NY skyscraper huge.)
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p>4: I ignored Natural Gas, because I have no awareness of Mr. Obama’s plan for Natural gas. I read through his plan, linked above and there was no mention. I suppose its absence is worthy of criticism.
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p>5: Plug in cars. Yeah, Tesla has one for sale. I reckon I’ll go pick one up for $350,000 and charge it at night.
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p>Or maybe I’ll wait because:
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p>- Obama will set aside a few parcels of land, let’s say, the entire state of Oklahoma!, to build windmills; while
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p>- at the same time convince the states that their coal 75,000 jobs really aren’t important, and
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p>- he’ll push through cap-and-trade and the coal producing States’ will smile and agree because they know that coal is best left in the ground even though it’s a very cheap and efficient energy source, then
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p>- before 2015, we’ll invent and platform an electric car that’s cheaper than the current $350,000 Tesla, while
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p>- stubbing out thousands of miles of lines in all direction from Oklahoma to get the wind to the garages of New England and beyond.
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p>Here’s my plan. Let’s hook a cable to one of Saturn’s moons and tow it to Earth and drain off the Methane. Nah, that’d be fantasy.
1: So point to it. Give me a quote, a line, a something.
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p>2: So the production is actually twice what you claimed it was, and you continue to take pride in your ignorance. Way to go. The point is that the growth rate is phenomenal, and has been for about a decade — meanwhile, cost per kWh generated has gone down, signaling that growth will continue. And furthermore, your statement that
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p>is (also) just plain wrong. Since the US consumes almost exactly the electricity produced in the US, and since the US produces almost exactly the electricity consumed in the US, those two numbers had better be correct within two or three decimal places.
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p>3: I didn’t claim that the capital outlay for wind was cheaper — I merely pointed out that much of the costs you embed in wind are also embedded in any other energy generation, thereby eroding the size of the big scary number you post.
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p>No, wind turbines are not NY skyscraper huge. The world’s tallest turbine has an operational height of 650′ (source), but the largest wind farm in Illinois uses the far more common Vestas 1.5 units, which go on towers approximately 250 feet tall. There are 82 buildings in New York which are taller than 600 feet (source). That’s worth quite a bit of pride methinks.
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p>4: No, ignoring natural gas makes you worthy of criticism, because you leaped to the conclusion of wind vs. coal, when the reality is that the marketplace is far more complex. Currently, natural gas lives somewhere in the middle — it pollutes far less than coal, contributes somewhat less to climate change, and is cost competitive in most parts of the country.
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p>5: I’m not arguing that anyone buy a Tesla today. My point is that plug in cars already can charge in 3.5 hours; that number will only go down [or range of car increase]. In either case, it will allow for so-called smart grid demand shifting. But, why bother thinking when you can remain ignorant?
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p>As for the land — it won’t take up anywhere near the size of Oklahoma. That’s just nonsense, and nobody’s suggested it but you. Oklahoma’s got about 3.5% of the US installation of wind turbine capacity, and that number is shrinking. In fact, New York will be 6th in total capacity some time late 2009 if all wind projects nationwide finish on schedule between now and then. As for the jobs, believe it or not, wind turbines don’t make, install, and operate themselves. In fact, the number of jobs per kWh of electricity generated tends to be higher for wind than for coal, due to the very distributed nature of wind. As for the states, there are quite a number of states with more jobs in wind than coal already — and that number will continue to increase as major wind installs continue. Coal is no longer “very cheap” when compared to alternatives, and if you’ve ever lived near open pit mining, you’d probably think it’s best left in the ground too.
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p>
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p>gary, you’re spouting ignorant nonsense. Your blowing Rush Limbaugh soundbites, completely ignoring the facts in my post, and trumpeting your mistakes. Thanks anyway.
1: You seek a link, “mandate all new vehicles are flexible fuel vehicles”. Seriously, couldn’t you simply google search ‘flexible fuel mandate obama’ if you were truly interested.
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p>2:
Now frankly, the difference to me is irrelevant. The point is, wind generation is extremely small. But, if you feel 1.3 v. .667 is important, this should correct your errant information. Read closely. The dead giveaway on your link: Electric Power MONTHLY.
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p>Your link says, “Even with this significant increase, the contribution of wind-powered generation to the national total was only 1.3 percent in March 2008.” IN MARCH 2008!
Please note, there are 12 months in a year, not just one.
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p>link Seasonality has something to do with electricity, no? Solar, it may surprise you, excels in the Summer!
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p>What then is the percentage of US wind generation as a percent of total US Generation? Total in 2007 of US generation is 4,159,514 GWH. Total wind in 2007 of US generation was about 32,143 here’s the link. don’t forget to convert KWH to GWH).
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p>BTW, by correcting your error, I just cut your wind generation estimate by nearly 50%. Does that, Mr. Small Picture, change your analysis. No. As I said, it doesn’t really matter that you were dead wrong, spouting supposed facts and all.
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p>3:
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p>Now I simply don’t understand the value of that remark. I’m was simply pointing out as an aside that I stood beside one and looked up and it was big. Bigger than I ever imagined. Big as a freaking building. Big as many skyscrapers in NY. No value judgement here. Just an observation.
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p>4: Coal v. wind. And to ignore natural gas is a critical miss you say.
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p>Well, maybe you’re right, (which would interupt a trend) but regardless, i) The significant point of my post was to explain why wind is very, very, very expensive alternative compared to existing systems ii) Mr. Obama’s plan doesn’t mention natural gas Not a single mention. Nary a word, and iii) coal generation is 300% of gas generation in the US and is the big gorilla in the room and the producer you ought to be trying to replace. If you’re critical of me for not discussing natural gas in this thread, then certainly you’re right to be critical of Mr. Obama for not discussing it in his energy policy. He is, afterall, running for president.
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p>5:
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p>Google makes you stupid. Do the math. T. Boone Pickens plan is 200000 prime windy acres to produce 4000 MW or 50 MW per acre. Oklahoma is 69,898 square miles or 44,734,720 acres. Fill up Oklahoma to produce 2,236,736 GWH. Just over half of TODAY’s electical needs, nevermind tommorrow’s. 1/4 of US electricity means land use equal to 1/2 Oklahoma land mass.
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p>The point there is this: with that sizeable land requirement, issues of where to build (efficiency per acre), what land to take by imminent domain, what to pay for that land–all those issues, add to the complexity and delay the process (Cape wind?) and make said conversion expensive.
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p>6:
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p>Neither I nor most people live near an open pit, and therefore there’s little NIMBY opposition to open-pit mining.
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p>Once again you’re wrong. Coal is extremely cheap to mine and burn. Coal’s not labor intensive. 1 or 2 guys running a long-wall can mine many, many ton per day. The process is mechanized from mine to end use and has become so over hundreds of years. New energy economics would have to replace this.
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p>The politics to convince a state to leave coal where it is will simply become more difficult. If petroleum continues to increase in price, eventually even lignite coal will become economically desireable and there’ll be pressure to mine and burn that too.
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p>My overall criticism of Obama’s plan, in addition to the vagueness of it all, is this: he proposes $150 billion over 10 years to get us to energy independence and 25% renewables by 2025.
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p>Which renewable, wind? If wind, based on the cheap systems in place and the incredibly expensive ones for wind, that $150 billion is nothing, and his plan fanciful. I’m happy to chit-chat about solar, biofuel and hydro. Perhaps that’s his solution–his plan is rather vague, except the spend $150 billion part.
which it is, the candidate lecturing people about car maintenance looks small and “unpresidential.”
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p>He might as well be lecturing about the benefits of tooth flossing.
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p>Even in the context in which it was first raised,(“What can I do?”) it was a gaffe in that it made him look like he is focusing on the picayune details too much, and was thus evocative of Carter telling people to wear a sweater.
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p>He could have grinned his grin and said, “you can start by supporting me!” and then his usual big policy schtick.
as making a point that something simple such as proper tire pressure can make a bigger difference than the drilling McCain is proposing.
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p>Besides, I don’t think Carter telling people to wear a sweater was such a bad thing. If people were more aware of conservation, they might have supported alternative fuel development back in the 70s, and we’d be better off today.
It damaged Carter in 1980, and plagues Democratic candidates still.
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p>Being right isn’t enough. He must be right, and politically deft enough to make being right something other than an epitaph.
but to me it’s strange that this is OK:
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p>
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p>and this is OK:
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p>
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p>but this isn’t OK:
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It would be beneficial for American health policy if all Americans exercise more and ate less bacon. But we don’t expect the President to spend time on this. If he did, well, we would think, aren’t there more important things for you to be doing with your time? In the same way, aren’t there more important things for a candidate to be discussing for the last three days than tire pressure?
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p>But, anticipating stomv’s reaction to this, global warming is among the most important issues that there are, so any encouragement to conserve is a good thing, if it educates people. Why shouldn’t the president use his bully pulpit to encourage this virtuous behavior?
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p>Answering, I don’t think that it works that way. I think most voters regard global warming as an issue, but not THE issue, and certainly not to the extent that stomv does. Viewing the exchange from the perspective of someone who views global warming as a remote problem at worst, a candidate for President spending time on this would seem like the CEO of a major corporation spending lots of time checking to see that all of the copiers are loaded with paper.
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p>To the extent that the prevailing view of global warming as a remote problem at worst is horribly wrong, I suspect that people have developed something of an immunity to CRISIS! driven environmental policy.
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p>In any event, the candidate has to play on the field where the game is. This was a rare instance of him forgetting that. The news story probably has more juice than it otherwise would because it hasn’t been all that good a week for Obama, and McCain has managed to get him on the defensive.
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p>It was bound to happen sooner or later, over this or whatever issue. No we see if he can duck and counterpunch.
There’s a counter punch.
… our government already contribute to the facts that we don’t exercise enough and eat too much bacon. We’ve subsidized the automotive lifestyle with our willingness to spend tax money on highway products. Our food system is all out of what partly because we subsidize it that way.
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p>So yes Virginia, there really is policy effect on mass behavior.
Really. Do I need a politician to tell me to wear a sweater when I’m cold, or to tell me to maintain my automobile? If Dems would stop assuming I’m such a simpleton, and can’t get along without their help in every little detail of my life, it might be easier to hear the messages about what they’re selling.
… for crying out loud, it was a question from audience: “What can I do to deal with gas prices?” He answered it with something he could do.
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p>He didn’t shove the idea down the throat of someone who didn’t ask and then pass it off as ‘energy policy’. If you asked someone for “help in [a] little detail of [your] life” I suppose what you want to hear is silence rather than anyone actually addressing your question.
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p>It’s the guy with a question who’s afraid to ask it of anyone that’s the simpleton.
But please, “the guy” asks a presidential candidate “what can I do to deal with gas prices”. It’s the nature of so many to first look to the government for answers for every little problem. I’m not saying don’t ask the question, it is whom you ask, that I am commenting upon. Better to ask your mechanic, or your accountant, perhaps your neighbor.
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p>Maybe Barack can help me with my leaking boat cabin. Lots of us with old boats have that problem.
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p>Wouldn’t a better question have been “what will your administration do to reduce gas prices?”.
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p>Oh, and I’m getting tired of giving folks here “a break” when they rip me constantly.
… and it was asked and answered. Everyone is spinning this like it’s a nannystate policy proposal. It isn’t and it never was. That means that spin is a lie and complaints about the nannystate policy proposal are misapplied here since it doesn’t exist.
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p>I’m reminded of the Howie Mandel routine where he tells a story: “So she said ‘Howie’? So I said ‘What?’ (pause for laugh) What would you say?”
Republicans have made a cult out of mocking energy conservation for years (see: Cheney, personal virtue). It’s very strange, Republicans laud the efficiency of the free market, but are derisive toward energy efficiency. I thought that the free market was good because it achieves (at least on paper) efficient allocations with little waste. And yet you guys are just in love with wasting energy.
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p>And the whole “drill, drill, drill” mantra is pretty interesting. I don’t like to analyze these things from a psychological perspective, but this one has got to have a really primal drive. It’s like you guys need to mark your territory or something.
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p>Fine, drill away. Start with Georges Bank. Have fun dealing with the fishermen and the tourist industry. Think Cape Wind x 100.
That’s 4.2 – 5.6 billion gallons of gas per year, or about 280,000,000 barrels of oil. Looking at it another way, it’s $16-$20 billion that stay in American consumers pockets per year.
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p>How is that ignorant, Joe?
and over 1 trillion is a huge difference. it looks like this.
1,000,000,000,000.
280,000,000.
Huh?
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p>You’re the one that brought up trillions.
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p>I don’t see how reducing our gasoline demand by 3%-4% is ignorant just because it doesn’t save trillions. Especially since it will have an immediate impact and by the time 10 years from now when that new drilling McCain wants does start to impact the market, it would have saved 28,000,000,000 barrels of oil.
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p>What is the non-ignorant alternative that McCain and you would offer America to save 28 billion barrels of oil/$160 – $200 billion at the pump?
that the tire pressure thing would save more oil than we’d get from drilling.
http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/3…
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p>That translates into either 365 million barrels or 730 million barrels per year 10 years from now! If we start both plans today, assuming the 1 million barrels per day for the new drilling, it would take 39 years for new drilling to have produced more cumulative barrels than the barrels saved by tire inflation. Assuming the 2 million barrel per day number, it would take 15 years for drilling to out pace the savings of tire inflation.
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p>Oh, and that “trillions” number that you float. If today we started producing the estimated 2 million barrels per day the government estimates we could reap from drilling, it would take over 1,369 years before drilling would give us 1,000,000,000,000 barrels, meaning it would take 2,739 years before we got “trillions” (plural) of barrels for drilling.
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p>So anyway…
“That translates into either 365 million barrels or 730 million barrels per
yearday.”is like saying people shouldn’t go to college because they won’t get a degree for 4 years.
I’m arguing against you insinuating that it is ignorant to think proper tire inflation will have a greater and more immediate impact on US gasoline consumption than new drilling legislation. I’m not arguing for or against drilling here. You said that
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p>was ignorant.
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p>According to the math, by the end of the next 3 presidential terms, more gas would be saved with proper tire inflation then will have been produced by new drilling. The question is, how, exactly, is Obama’s statement ignorant? It doesn’t appear to me that Obama is the ignorant one in this equation.
Do we really know that there’s a deflation crisis?
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p>I mean is all/some/part of america driving around in underinflated ignorant bliss, or is this some urban myth kinda like the “it’s good health to drink 8 glasses of water per day.”
http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/P…
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p>74% of Americans are driving around on at least one underinflated tire according to the NHSTA/DOT.
I’ve apparently been driving around with over-inflated tires for years. It came up in a conversation the other week, and a friend pointed that out. See, I’d always seen the label on the tires saying “do not inflate over 44 lbs/in^2” and assumed that — because I’ve always heard of the dangers of underinflation but never overinflation — 44 was the optimum number.
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p>But it’s not. The optimum number, for our car, was in the mid-30s. After letting out some air to get to this optimum number, we’ve noticed a significant improvement in mileage of the vehicle.
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p>Read your car’s owner’s manual. Seriously. Nobody ever does, but this information is in there, and it actually works.
..is McCain’s plan do achieve oil independence from the Mid East: turn out the lights 5 minutes earlier!
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p>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v…
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p>I think both ideas are sensible; I’m sure our friend Joe disagrees.
The McCain campaign has done a great job raising the profile of tire pressure issues. I saw on Colbert last night one of those “Obama’s Energy Plan” tire gauges, and my wife and I totally want one.
You can get yer tire guage here. I’m sure the Senator will be grateful.
https://secure.donationreport….
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p>For a second, I was almost considering it. But then a quick Amazon search showed me this digital key chain tire gauge for $8.66, and none of the money goes to the GOP.
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p>Though the RNC seems to be giving them away according to this link: http://www.gop.com/News/NewsRe…
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p>Funny how the text is perfectly white and doesn’t blur nor shrink as it gets farther from the lens.
…spend $0.99 and buy the same gauge at the local hardware store and put the other $24 bucks into your tank.
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p>That’s fiscal responsibility I can believe in.
http://blogs.guardian.co.uk/us…
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