[Note: this is part of a webwide series of blog posts about compact fluorescent lightbulbs. January is the darkest month of the year in the Northern Hemisphere (December might be a bit darker, but with all the candles, trees and dropping balls, we work hard to light it up). To fight off the darkness, bloggers everywhere are invited to create a post with their own riff on why CF bulbs are cheaper, better politically, harder to market or just plain cute. Your choice. If you trackback here, I'll post your link in a future post and/or you can add your link to this lens, which donates all royalties to Ecotrust].

From Seth Godin’s Blog

This is something I’ve felt pretty strongly about for some time now. I’ve always been a turn the lights off when you leave a room kind of guy so naturally any energy savings is appealing to me. Why? Is it to save on my utility bills? Sure – who wouldn’t want that? But I really think it is more than that. Every bit of energy you conserve cascades, it adds to the big picture. Sure your bills might be a little less. But on a grander scale every little bit of energy that you save is less energy that has to be produced be it via a coal plant or oil refinery. That helps the environment. So when people are still buying large SUV’s because they can “afford” the price of gas, they’re missing the point. There is more to conservation than just your bottom line.

But the thing is, switching away from incandescent lighting may make a bigger impact than you might expect. How big? Well, according to Energystar.gov:

“If every American home replaced just one light bulb with an ENERGY STAR [compact fluorescent bulb], we would save enough energy to light more than 2.5 million homes for a year and prevent greenhouse gasses equivalent to the emissions of nearly 800,000 cars.”

Frankly, that’s a pretty modest goal. Australia has plans to completely ban incandescent bulbs altogether by 2009. How about that for government really acting on something?

So please comment here. Send your trackbacks. Sign the lens linked above. But most of all, replace those outdated bulbs with newer, more energy-efficient compact fluorescent models.

On the state and national level, Republican politicians have supported a lying, warmongering president who has committed impeachable offenses. They did so purely for political gain. The GOP has obviously blown their majority-rule opportunity, and voters should tell them so in local elections.

Head on over to read the article for a great race-by-race analysis of the Democratic slate and don’t forget to vote on November 7!

Bush’s unpopularity with many Canadians was underscored as thousands marched through the streets of the Canadian capital to protest the visit.

But the two leaders made light of the demonstrations, with Martin remarking jokingly that Bush seemed to draw larger crowds than he does.

“I don’t know if that’s good or bad,” Bush said. “It all depends on who shows up I guess.”

In another quip, Bush expressed appreciation for Canadians who greeted him on the route from the airport waving “with all five fingers.”

That’s far more clever than the guy we saw the past few months.

Not only is The Daily Show one of the funniest and best written shows on television, but it clearly is informative when it comes to critical issues. I think many underestimate the viewership and power of this program. It is telling that nearly every major political figure from both parties (John McCain, John Kerry, John Edwards, Bill Clinton, numerous campaign advisors/managers, etc.), with the notable exception of the President, has appeared as a guest on the show in recent months.

Today I read a conversation in New York Metro between Norman Mailer and his son as they discuss the upcoming Republican National Convention and George W. Bush. In so many ways this piece speaks to me and succeeds in verbalizing the feelings I have felt about our nation’s leader. Particularly the following passage by the senior Mailer in reference to Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11:

On the other hand, the stuff on Iraq was powerful. There, he didn’t need cheap shots. The real story was in the faces. All those faces on the Bush team. What you saw was the spiritual emptiness of those people. Bush has one of the emptiest faces in America. He looks to have no more depth than spit on a rock. It could be that the most incisive personal crime committed by George Bush is that he probably never said to himself, “I don’t deserve to be president.” You just can’t trust a man who’s never been embarrassed by himself. The vanity of George W. stands out with every smirk. He literally cannot control that vanity. It seeps out of every movement of his lips, it squeezes through every tight-lipped grimace. Every grin is a study in smugsmanship.

That is my biggest issue with the president. The ugly display of pride and arrogance that guide every decision, every conversation with the people of America and the world. This is most evident in our arrogance in foreign policy which has transformed us from the benign superpower to a belligerent bully.

Another passage speaks about the devisions in the U.S. where voter apathy and entrenched ideologies make for close elections:

He is a collection of disasters for America. What he does to the English language is a species of catastrophe all by itself. Bush learned a long time ago that certain key words, “evil, patriotism, stand-firm, flag, our-fight-against-terrorism,” will get half the people in America stirred up. That’s all he works with

This is dead-on. It seems that the days of a superior candidate winning the hearts and minds of the nation’s people are gone when a candidate can count on lethargy by the opposition and pandering to the a scant virtual majority as a viable means of being elected.

There is more in the full article including Mailer’s thoughts on protesting the convention and the 9/11 commission report.

This Land.