[Our title comes with a hat tip from "Babylon 5," where it appeared as a line of dialog]
Someday you will not be able to set off fireworks or shoot a rifle or grill meat on a barbecue -- either at all, or more likely only if you are in conformance with strict new carbon caps.
Smart technology will mean that our personal uses of energy will be monitored. Average Americans already create many tons of carbon dioxide and hydrocarbons just from breathing and excreting but mostly from using technology, like gasoline engines. 
When it becomes clear, as NASA scientist James Hansen has said, that in the near future the planet's ecological survival will depend on drastically reduced carbon emissions, humankind will be forced to do something about it. Voluntary restraints will not work. Market restraints will work to some extent (a carbon tax, for example). 
So what may very well become necessary is a world in which each individual is not only taught and encouraged to live a vital, low-carbon lifestyle, but also a world in which to some extent carbon emissions are tracked right down to the household and personal level.
So if you turn on a light switch, your household will add to its carbon emissions output, consistent with the (hopefully very diminished) amount of carbon your local power provider emits to produce that power. At some point, you may exceed your permitted individual level. Maybe your level will be higher or lower than average, depending on medical need or where, precisely, you live. But you will have a limit. 
And when you exceed it, there will be some kind of penalty. Monetary, ideally, but in a world gone totally haywire it might go beyond that. And then we'd have more people playing posse comitatus games with the government and their neighbors. Hiding their outputs. Flipping the bird as they helped drag down the ecosystem to an eventual heat death.
But it won't just be carbons and hydrocarbons. It'll be thermal emissions. Any engine or electronic device, including your cell phone, that produces heat will be tagged and measured, as well. 
[That, by the way, is why nuclear fission power plants aren't other than a short-term fix. Sure, they put out very few air pollutants, if properly operated and maintained. But -- not even considering radioactive waste storage -- most of these plants use a hammer-to-kill-a-fly approach to produce power, boiling pressurized water to drive turbines. And that creates huge amounts of heat, which has to be taken up by the atmosphere and biosphere.]
Someday we'll probably have enormous sunshades flying in fixed orbit between Earth and Sun, giant Venetian blinds to screen out too  much heat. We'll try other more earth-bound remedies on a global engineering scale. We'll try small solutions, making machines and processes more energy efficient and earth friendly. We'll try to curb consumption in part by encouraging population control. 
But none of it will work unless all of it adds up to too much. And that will stress the cultures of this world. And that will lead to resistance. And that will slow our reforms.
Stay tuned. We've got a long way to go to save the planet so we can save ourselves.

The Iraq War is a classic exercise in the law of unintended consequences. The latest example: American citizens are dying in the "homeland" (hate that word) because of it. Follow the chain of causality:

1. The US Army scoops up every available pair of night-vision goggles, manufactured or planned, to use in Iraq.

2. None are available in the US for dometic purposes.

3. Although the National Transportation Safety Board has encouraged the use of such equipment since 2006 to reduce the risk of deadly nighttime crashes during emergency medical flights, air ambulance services have been put on waiting lists of a year or more in deference to the military's needs.

4. And thus, the dying:

> The shortage came into focus last month after a helicopter used by the University of Wisconsin Hospital and Clinics' Med Flight program slammed into a bluff, killing a doctor, nurse and pilot. The chopper had no night vision gear.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=759518

My friends (presumptuous, huh?)

What the heck is it with John McCain? Remembering that one should always keep his enemies close, I have subscribed to McCain's email list to see what the man is up to, and based on his latest missive, he's up to telling us one thing while doing another -- which is itself evidence that he wouldn't as president offer a real change to George W. Bush. McCain (or his mouthpieces) write:

>  This is a change election. But the choice is between the right change and the wrong change; between going forward and going backward.

> The right change recognizes that many of the policies and institutions of our government have failed. The right kind of change will initiate widespread and innovative reforms in almost every area of government policy from energy to taxes to government spending and the military.

So, many of Bush's policies have failed. So we must have change. But based on his specific pronouncements ranging from domestic to foreign policy, the McCain "change" amounts to: More of the same.

The guy isn't a change agent. He couldn't even make change for a buck. Unless, of course, he's simply lying to win office. But that's not a change from the current regime, either.

To paraphrase a line from the NPR comedy quiz show "Whaddya Know?": McCain should sit down and let someone else have a chance -- for a change.

Cognitive dissonance is believing one thing but acting as though its contrary is true. Conservatives and no-nothings have scaled new heights in left-brain, right-wing thinking by simultaneously believing in the two following statements:

1. Barack Obama is of the Muslim faith, and therefore is an outsider who cannot be trusted.

2. Barack Obama is of the Christian faith, but attends a church with a minister who sometimes says startling things, so, even more so, Obama cannot be trusted.

The only way to rationalize these two contrary ideas is to pretend (or have the delusion) that Obama is really either a Muslim or a Christian and pretending to be the other, which in itself presents logical inconsistencies. Okay, the muddleheads reason, maybe the two qualities are merely separated by time. Obama (they imagine) was a Muslim, which remains bad, because once a questionable person, always so.

Also, they might reason, he's a turncoat, even though in order to be one in the faulty construct of these conservatives, he would have had to do what good fundamentalist missionaries ask, namely, to convert.

Ah, but Obama's imagined transformation from Muslim to Christian is not causal; one instant he's the former, the next instant the other. Indeed, this quality is atemporal. Obama can at any present moment be one, the other, or both as conservative needs dictate.

It's horribly unfair, but on the other hand it's exactly the way conservatives and the GOP present John McCain. He's a neocon now, a pretender then or later; he's a straight talker; or no he's not. He's a maverick; no, he's the middle-ground salt of the party. He's for sanctions, but he's not for sanctions. He's for the troops, except when he's not. He likes Bush, except when he doesn't.

See, it's easy once you learn to throw out reason and reality. And also see: The conservatives are merely treating Obama as they do their own (well, as needs dictate) kind.

Here's a massive political inconsistency I noticed again today.

1. If you're a Republican, hope is a good thing. The surge, for example, is working, almost entirely because you hope it's working. Moreover, if you're the GOP's putative nominee for president, your "policies" and "positions" can often consist of little else but sheer hope. As when Sen. McCain punts on the mortgage crisis. From Salon.com:

    How the World Works just got off a conference call with McCain campaign advisors Doug Holtz-Eakin and former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. The topic: "John McCain's Remarks on Housing Crisis."

    The flow of the call went pretty much as follows: Reporters pressed for specifics about possible McCain policy initiatives or legislation, to which Holtz-Eakin and Fiorina responded by stressing McCain's "principles." There were also repeated references to McCain's speech as being "vintage John McCain" and a few slaps at Hillary Clinton's proposal for direct assistance to beleaguered states and communities, which both Holtz-Eakin and Fiorina seemed to enjoy labeling as a "slush fund."

Yas, yas, in Neocon World, Republicans who punt on solutions are considered bold and wise and decisive. Read further about McCain's take on the housing crisis, and you'll discover that his "solution" is to call a meeting. Sort of like Bush's solution to global warming. "Waiting For Godot" might be another way to characterize both Bush and McCain.

2. Meanwhile, if you're a Democrat, hope is -- from the GOP standpoint -- simply not good enough. Obama's message of hope? Empty rhetoric, sayeth the neocons. From a recent David Brooks column in the New York Times:

    But those in the grips of Obama Comedown Syndrome began to wonder if His stuff actually made sense. For example, His Hopeness tells rallies that we are the change we have been waiting for, but if we are the change we have been waiting for then why have we been waiting since we've been here all along?

If you can see past Brooks' channeling of despair a la Samuel Beckett, the talking point here is obvious: Obama is all image because he preaches hope. Never mind that his campaign has actually issued any number of detailed policy papers. Nope. Any message of hope whatsoever is proof that Obama is fluff and not stuff.

Because, you see, we are supposed to accept at face value that McCain's fluff is not who he really is. He's really a straight talker who has a very keen set of principles and thus policies obviously can be expected to form out of that void. Whereas, Obama's actual policy positions are not to be believed because he is often guilty of, to put the worst spin on it, rhetoric.

It's all pretty much business as usual. Americans fell for this dichotomy in the last two presidential elections, electing a man who used rhetoric to portray himself as something he was not. Who went on not only to implement policies contrary to his "philosophy," but in many cases policies contrary to his policies.

And thus the Alice Through the Looking Glass character of our election process proceeds apace.

If you're wealthy and your Republican candidate tanks, you get your money back. Just like if you're a giant bank and you tank, the feds step in to help. However, if you're of modest means on either front,  or a working-class victim of Katrina, don't bother exerting yourself because you'll never see your money again.

 From the Los Angeles Times:

Wealthy donors receiving refunds from GiulianiThis could be Rudy Giuliani's own brand of national economic stimulus.

Unwinding his once-promising campaign, the onetime Republican front-runner has been handing out refund checks amounting to $3.16 million in February alone to more than 1,400 of his wealthy presidential campaign donors.

In a campaign finance filing, Giuliani discloses that he raised a total of $64.94 million for his campaign and spent $56.95 million on his candidacy, which ended after his loss in the Florida primary.

The rest of the money is being returned, most in $2,300 chunks to more than 1,400 donors.

Why does the government prop up giant corporations, over and over again, when they get into financial trouble? Because, in the classic phrase, these institutions are considered "too big to fail."

Which is also why a Democratic president, if we should be fortunate to have one again beginning in January, will be counseled by pundits, Republicans and even some members of his or her own party to tough it out at some level in Iraq, and not withdraw completely.

Because, you see, our venture in Iraq is "too big to fail."

Notwithstanding that there's an element of truth in such usage, and in both of the above examples, it's also a Catch-22 of modern politics.

Clearly, the Republicans have worked very hard to create institutions -- or situations, or impediments to both -- that are very hard to undo. So that, if and when they ever do fall out of power, their successors will be straitjacketed by the labyrinthian and serpentine complications of inherited policy.

Thus: Run up the deficit to astounding levels. Commit us to stay in Iraq a hundred years, if not forever. Tie our well-being to that of international systems such as NAFTA that we will find it hard to discard. Make us so hated internationally that playing Peace Corps Redux simply won't work, at least anytime soon.

The lesson, for those of us who dislike this scorched-earth strategery of modern conservatism? Get so big we cannot be allowed to fail. And how do individual, average American citizens and American families and small American institutions do that? By joining forces. Not just by voting as a bloc, but by acting as one.

Nothing will change for the better until Americans re-organize themselves into super-groups -- such as, but limited to, labor unions --- that can compete with giant corporations and giant government programs and policies on an even footing.

Otherwise, the average American will continue to be ignored, on the basis that he or she is too small to succeed.

A couple more squirts o' kerosene on the Spitzer fire. Just my own thoughts:

First, the way this went down, I'm more than ever strongly inclined to believe that the administration and its vast unsupervised domestic spying operation will not hesitate to poke around -- as Nixon did, but more so and with far better tools -- into the affairs of its opponents.

Once it spies on you and digs up some dirt, the Bush excavation machine has leverage over you that it doesn't even need to bring into play to coerce cooperation. If you're an elected official who is careful and has a skeleton or two lying around, you won't do anything to seriously oppose the administration.  If you're all too human AND foolishly fearless, you eventually go the way of Spitzer.  And, if you're clean, well, they'll just manufacture some dirt, as in the case of Gov. Siegelman, and shove you down the sluice ramp.

This incident, in short, arguably helps to explain why some Democrats just can't seem to get up their dander against the current hegemony.

Second (and almost as revealing), I find it very interesting that the construction of the news reports didn't say that Spitzer hired a prostitute or that he hung out with a call girl. Rather, the headlines (prompted, perhaps, by the constructions of someone in the government who leaked all this) were to the effect that Spitzer had "ties" to a "prostitution ring." Sounds as if he were an investor or a pimp overlord of some kind, rather than a mere customer. Now, Sen. Vitter got some of this treatment as well, but it wasn't -- in my opinion -- of similar caliber. If you're a French or Greek officeholder who has openly dallied about, you have to be very amused by all the righteous fuss, from a country that meanwhile explains with a straight face that torture is only torture when we don't do it.

Beyond that, the background to this nudge-nudge, wink-wink form of public scrutiny includes the spectacle of former Rep. Charlie Wilson (yes, a Democrat, though a Texas blue-dogger), being turned into a fictional version of himself in a big Hollywood movie, and all but celebrated for his own sexual exploits. It's presumably okay though, because he was an anti-communist and, well, such an engaging rascal, of the Dubya kind.

No wonder the country is dysfunctional. The moral relativism that the right uniformly decries is in fact leavened by their own brand of special, targeted moral relativism, as in the case of Spitzer versus Vitter.  Spitzer? He must go at once! Vitter? Well, we'll be getting around to that, maybe, one of these days.

Don't get me wrong. Spitzer screwed up and, given his crusader credentials, he's probably and rightfully toast.

And yet, after one celebrated Democrat joins the  ethically and/or morally challenged ranks -- mostly peopled in recent years by Republicans including ex-Speaker Gingrich, Rep. Hyde, Sen. Craig, Rep. Foley and others -- we have immediate calls from the GOP for his resignation. We have .... parity.

This false dichotomy is exactly what paralyzes the Democratic Party. The party is made up of human beings. They will, from time to time, make bad choices, precisely as GOP officials will.

However, unlike the GOP, just ONE bad choice by a Democrat will be enough to cook them all through. A pattern of such bad choices, by individuals and the GOP as a whole? All of that is neutered with one bad choice by one Democrat.

It works the same in public policy. Why are so many Democrats afraid to push back on Bush's call for FISA telecom immunity?  Because the GOP only needs one bad outcome to paint the entire opposition. If there is ever a terrorist event in which anyone could even suggest (even without evidence) that it wouldn't have happened with telecom immunity, then the Democrats are cooked.

Whereas, Bush and his ilk get to screw up over and over and over. Because, hey, while they're not perfect, we're obliged to treat them that way. Because, after all, they believe they're right. Self-righteous good intention (to the extent anyone believes that excuse) trumps good policy every time.

The other day, after tornadoes tore through Kansas, George W. Bush leaped quickly and decisively into action. From the official White House transcript:

> THE PRESIDENT: Our hearts are heavy for the loss of life in Greensburg, Kansas. A tornado devastated that community. It just basically wiped it out.

True enough, but in the bigger scheme of things, Bush once again demonstrated that -- with respect to red versus blue states -- he's simply not an equal-opportunity national leader, and certainly not a "uniter," much less a "reformer with results."

In the case of the Kansas disaster, the WPE (Worst President Ever) was, as usual, more than happy to speak directly with a GOP senator and a GOP governor when disaster struck a red state.

But check out what happened two years ago when, in just one day, a record TWENTY-SEVEN tornadoes blasted through Wisconsin, killing one man, injuring many others and devastating several counties in the Badger state. The twisters wiped out hundreds of homes, factories and businesses. The governor declared a state of emergency and called on FEMA to help residents dig out.

What did Bush do?

Nothing.

No presidential disaster declaration. No presidential calls to either of the state's two Democratic US senators, nor any presidential call to the Democratic governor.

But it wasn't just WPE Bush who sat out the Wisconsin devastation. The entire federal apparatus remained willfully asleep at the switch. It was almost as if FEMA was out to prove that New Orleans was not a fluke, but business as usual.

After months of delays, the Bush administration simply turned down the Wisconsin's request for federal disaster assistance -- just like it blithely turned its back on New Orleans and New York City, post-Katrina and post-911, respectively. Big problems in Iraq, calling for big bucks, so none left for you, dontcha know. And YOUR National Guard? Assigned overseas and largely unavailable to help disaster victims.

The Wisconsin crisis, the Bushies implacably explained, simply didn't rise to the level of haughty FEMA's attentions. Fifty-plus million dollars in damage to private property? No problemo! Also, no cash-o and no loan-o.

Assistance aside, a better explanation for the federal refusal to help a state in sudden need was that the Bush team was just not going to be bothered to send money to a blue state after it gave its electoral votes to John Kerry. Nor while a key Democratic governor was campaigning for a second term. Drop dead, in so many words.

And, cuz, ya know, after all, in Bushworld, it's only poor, rural, red states that need federal aid. The blue states are loaded with wealth and can always afford to take care of themselves -- and the red states, too.

The only way this country will once again get itself sorted out in terms of democracy is to adjust its representational scheme to better reflect -- yes, that pesky detail -- reality.

If the House of Representatives apportionment method can -- as it has over the centuries -- be adjusted to reflect changing demographics, but the Senate "two per state" method cannot, then we need more states. Simple as that.

Twenty years ago, a wise University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee anthropology professor [writing under the pen name Dakota James] wrote a science fiction novel, "Milwaukee the Beautiful." Its premise:

The year is 2013. The Greenhouse Effect has ravaged the south, creating a huge illegal immigrant in-flow from Mexico (causing the US to build a huge, laser-armed, barbed-wire-topped wall across the southern border). The Midwest is semi-tropical. Milwaukee has palm trees. The city and its metro area -- along with a handful of other urbanized regions in the US -- take advantage of a new federal law and secede from their states, turning themselves into self-governing city-states. Thus [although this is not made explicit in the book] the "State of Milwaukee" continues with the same number of congressional districts but adds two senators of its own.

Of course there are huge problems that would prevent the subdivision of existing states given our current political and electoral siutation (not the least of which is: It's essentially unlawful). But one can imagine it happening after a semi-social breakdown under economic or environmental stress.

Counties and city governments have already begun to merge; metro government has become a reality in Indianapolis and elsewhere. As the nation is hugely more urban and growing ever more urban, the advent of an American city-state system seems ultimately inevitable.

New York City-State could become the first such conversion.

The rise of the city-state will have negative side effects, of course. It will create rancor and division in the beginning, and to the extent rural areas continue to suffer (not at all a sure thing) it will for at least awhile further divide the country into haves and have-nots.

But it will also have positive benefits, among them: More equal representation, and a new kind of identity for urban Americans. But this trend doesn't have to be limited to urban areas.

Chaffing under the rule of its southern brethren, The Upper Peninsula of Michigan -- which geographically and culturally ought to have been left part of what was then the Wisconsin Territory -- has been angling on and off for years to partition itself into the "State of Superior."

Upper Michigan is the result of a partitioning scheme similar to those that created today's strange boundaries in the Middle East. It was a political creation, not a rational one.

Luckily, jurisdictional boundaries are hardly written in stone. They can and will change, as the peoples of each region assess their interests and decide among themselves how to reorganize for the greater community good.

Some of this reorganization will be quite selfish in origin; that, however, doesn't necessarily mean it won't be a good idea. Having to rethink alliances and boundaries will be a good exercise in populist democracy, no matter how things turn out.

Federal government will of course act as a brake on this development, but it will only slow the accelerating train, not bring it to a halt.

Some will see this trend as a balkanization. Some will see in it an echo of the Roman Empire's decline. But one just as well can see it as a move toward enhanced local control and self-determination. Nor do you have to be a "states rights" wingnut to view the potential for good in this, especially given modern technology and the likely re-emergence of the "small is beautiful" movement.

All hail the coming rise of the American city-state.

How low can the GOP go in sliming the loyal opposition? As low as you like, apparently. Here's a smear from upstate New York.

As the right-wing Human Events magazine reports it (while hanging themselves in the telling):

"Democrat congressional candidate Mike Arcuri, while serving as district attorney of Oneida County, N.Y., has billed taxpayers for several questionable expenses, including a call to a phone-sex hotline, according to records obtained by HumanEvents.com."

After pointing to a URL providing audio of the sexy greeting on that sex line, the author goes on:

"(This afternoon, after this story was posted, I was informed that the number in question, 800-457-8462, was accidentally dialed instead of 518-457-8462. The latter number is for the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Services. However, this new information raises questions about why Arcuri dialed his calling card, 800-255-2255, just one minute after hanging up on the phone sex hotline, as his hotel bill indicates. The campaign has still not returned my calls seeking an explanation.)"

Here's how the Associated Press reported on the matter (emphasis mine):

But Arcuri's campaign released records showing the call two years ago from his New York City hotel room to the 800-number sex line was followed the next minute by a call to the state Department of Criminal Justice Services. The last seven digits of the two numbers are the same. Arcuri, the district attorney in Oneida County, said the ad was "clearly libelous" and threatened to file a lawsuit. His GOP opponent, state Sen. Ray Meier, described it as "way over the line." At least seven television stations in Syracuse, Utica and Binghamton refused to run the ad, Arcuri said. The ad's sponsor, the National Republican Congressional Committee, stood by the 30-second message. Spokesman Ed Patru insisted it was "totally true" and said Meier was not consulted.

No doubt, the GOP just wants to make voters aware of the possibility that their opponent is, well, human, so that they can then trumpet his supposedly imperfect morals in supposedly misusing public funds. Except, of course, that even in the most unforgiving analysis, there's no evidence, even circumstantial, that he did. Just innuendo and supposition.

Beyond that, how, exactly did Human Events, a conservative publication, come to have a Democrat's phone records, including records of calls from a hotel? Clearly, the GOP and/or Human Events went back through YEARS of public documents concerning Arcuri, checking every little itty bitty fact on every scrap of paper including expense accounts for any possible appearance of blight.

In effect: They audited his life.

It's really chilling. If you run against them, your past had best be squeaky clean; unlike, of course, the pasts of a growing number of Republicans.

On one level this isn't new; it's the same old use of private detectives on fat retainers in service to opposition research. But increasingly these tactics smack of illegality and invasion of privacy.

This case is in fact reminiscent of another, not dissimilar case developing in Colorado. As per the Denver Post (I've slightly edited this excerpt for context's sake):

"Republican Bob Beauprez, already struggling in the polls, spent much of last week responding to allegations and questions about how his campaign got information for an ad attacking Democrat Bill Ritter's record as Denver district attorney. It says Ritter reached a plea bargain that freed an illegal immigrant who went on to commit a sex crime in California. The man used aliases, and Ritter's campaign alleged the only way to link the two was through a restricted law enforcement database. Cory Voorhis, a veteran Immigration and Customs Enforcement special agent, has been identified as a target of the probe by the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and the Federal Bureau of Investigation into whether someone violated the law by using the database for non-law-enforcement purposes... ."

In short, the GOP will go to any lengths to smear Democrats and progressives, including breaking the law.

Then again, we've known that ever since Watergate.