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This belongs to you. Take it back...
energy 
Wed May 25, 2011 at 05:34:57 AM EDT
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In America, today, there are three kinds of drivers: those who look at the other gas pumps down at the ol' gas station and think: "Oh my God, I can't believe how much that guy's spending on gas", those who look at their own pump down at the ol' gas station and think: "Oh my God, I can't believe how much I'm spending on gas" - and those who are doing both at the same time.
Naturally, this has brought the Sarah Palins of the world back out in public, and once again the mantra of "Drill, Baby, Drill" can be heard all the way from the Florida coast to the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
But what if those folks have it exactly backwards?
What if, in a world of depleting oil resources, the last thing you want to do is use yours up?
To put it another way: why isn't all our oil part of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve?
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Thu Apr 21, 2011 at 12:06:03 PM EDT
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This, friends, is what fracking does:
Officials said thousands of gallons of fluid leaked over farm land and into a creek from a natural gas well in Bradford County.
Now there is a massive operation underway to contain the spill of drilling fluids.
The rupture near Canton happened late Tuesday night, contaminating nearby land and creeks.
The blowout happened on the Morse family farm in LeRoy Township outside Canton, a farming community.
Chesapeake Energy officials said a piece of equipment on the well failed.
Now a major response is underway to stop the leak of frack fluid and get control of the well.
Water is gushing from the earth at the Chesapeake well pad. It has been all hands on deck to put a stop to the leak of fracking fluid that, according to company officials, spilled thousands and thousands of gallons into nearby land and waterways.
"We've been able to limit the flow. We're still doing additional work to regain full control," said Brian Grove of Chesapeake Energy. He added there is no telling yet how much of that extremely salty water mixed with chemicals and sand has impacted the nearby Towanda Creek, but no gas has escaped into the air.
"The biggest thing is the footprint on the environment. Well obviously this is a big footprint," said neighbor Ted Tomlinson. "It's one of those things that happens. Gotta live with it, I guess. Here to stay."
Neighbors like him were asked to leave their homes as a precaution. Some did, and some did not. "Our family's been on this corner a long time and expect to stay and expect a good-faith effort from Chesapeake so that we can live here," Tomlinson added.
His concern is for his drinking water well just several football fields away from the blownout gas well.
"That's typically everyone's concern in the area, is well water," Tomlinson added. We don't want all that other stuff. We want to keep on drinking it."
"It's just one of those things," said farm owner Randy Morse. He leased his property to Chesapeake. His beef cattle will no longer be able to drink from the brook that has been contaminated. Morse is broken up over the whole thing, hoping others don't blame him. "As it looks right now, all the water that ran into that tributary did run into the creek , without adverse affects right now," Morse said.
What exactly is in that stuff that's making these folks lives hell right now? Who knows?
You can thank your state Senate GOP for not letting you know exactly what is in the stuff they want to pump into our land and groundwater.
It's absolutely insane that New York is even considering allowing this to happen. Sheer madness.
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Mon Apr 18, 2011 at 12:50:54 PM EDT
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It's a great saying: "If you can't do the time, don't do the crime". And it applies to nuclear power in major ways, even if the crime of epic-scale poisoning or wasted investment on a massive scale was or was not "intentional". Or if some yahoo uses a nuclear weapon, or a nuke as a weapon, or if a yahoo country does the same. All that money down the drain that was put into a weapon(s) that can't be used unless self destruction of that person, that country (including the people in that country) is seriously considered a possibility. In the case of a nuclear war, the destruction of "our species" has to be considered via a massive "first strike" and/or via the retaliation by those who got nuked, weren't happy about it, and had the means and wherewithal to effect this retaliation. Who would even want to consider crap like that as a template for our future? And what if the crime was intentional? Is there a difference to those rapidly killed by poisoning or eventually by being "cancered", as to whether it was an accident or deliberate?
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Tue Jan 25, 2011 at 13:33:16 PM EST
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Every once in a while a bit of noteworthy science pops up (no, not just the publicity/rare event kind) and here is one I caught from a nifty website called the Cost of Energy (the author coined the famous concept called the Inhofe Scale, which you can Google, yielding as the number 1 result: http://www.grinzo.com/energy_o... Note: a high Inhofe scale reading corresponds to severe scientific ignorance, and that is NOT a good thing, IMHO. The "blogzeprt" can be found here:
http://www.grinzo.com/energy/i...
leading to the article in question here:
http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/...
The 25 page paper is by James Hansen and Makiko Sato, both of whom rate a zero on the Inhofe Scale (which is a GOOD thing, IMHO), discusses the climate perturbations in that last 50 million years, and how they relate to the temperature of our planet's surface. This paper also contains a warning in the initial abstract:
"We conclude that Earth in the warmest interglacial periods was less than 1°C warmer than in the Holocene and that goals of limiting human-made warming to 2°C and CO2 to 450 ppm are prescriptions for disaster."
Is that clear enough for you?
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Tue Oct 12, 2010 at 06:41:24 AM EDT
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It's been a while since anyone's heard from NYRI, the New York Regional Interconnect company that wanted to drop a big new power line across New York State to carry power Downstate. Local opposition was strong enough that Governor Pataki signed a 2006 bill limiting their possible use of eminent domain and their application seemed to vanish in the downturn. (Their web site still exists.) The federal government, of course, went ahead and created national sacrifice corridors I mean National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors meant to protect such projects from mere local or regional opposition.
Today, I see on the Google blog and in the New York Times that there's a new plan, far more ambitious at $5 billion than NYRI's $1.6 billion proposal, that would put a power line offshore. It doesn't just serve New York - it extends from New York, NY to Norfolk, VA, though the original connections would be to New Jersey and Delaware.
It's meant as a "transmission backbone" for 6,000 MW of offshore wind turbine capacity, five times NYRI's capacity. NYRI billed itself as a way to get green energy from Upstate to Downstate, but there was no real promise the power used would be green. This also seems to run on the promise of green energy, though the Times notes that.
even before any wind farms were built, the cable would channel existing supplies of electricity from southern Virginia, where it is cheap, to northern New Jersey, where it is costly, bypassing one of the most congested parts of the North American electric grid while lowering energy costs for northern customers.
Perhaps Downstate doesn't need Upstate the same way it used to? And those of us Upstate can maybe breathe a sigh of relief about that?
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Sat Jul 03, 2010 at 14:58:08 PM EDT
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 A battle is brewing between the energy industry and environmentalists about the dangers of removing natural gas from the shale using a process called hydrofracking. There have been reports of exploding houses, poisoned water supplies, and serious health problems as a result of the injection of chemicals, many of them toxic, into rock about a mile below the surface. These compounds can seep into underground and surface water supplies. As we don't even know what ingredients the energy industry is using to extract methane gas, we can only guess as to the long term ramifications of this process.
The Marcellus Shale, which reaches beneath the southern tier of New York and into Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia is one of the largest fossil-fuel reserves in the Western Hemisphere and could yield as much as 20 times as our natural current output of natural gas. You might think that such a large energy reserve seems too good to be true, and perhaps it is. It gets its name from a town in Western New York where there the shale formation juts out above the ground. The region's energy richness has been known for decades. But extracting the natural gas from the pores in the shale in a way that would be cost effective and efficient has always been a problem.
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Tue Dec 29, 2009 at 19:06:35 PM EST
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The following was also posted at GLOWDemocrats.com.
After my post the other day agreeing with Rep. Chris Lee's move on energy efficiency, I got to thinking about the parts of the energy picture, the ones nobody's talking about. Everyone likes to talk about alternative energy in vague terms like "green economy." What does it really mean for an area like ours, where the new natural resources actually are? And what actions do we need to take to make it practical for individuals, families, and small businesses to take advantage of?
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Sun Nov 29, 2009 at 21:10:12 PM EST
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We're diving deep into "geek world" today with a story that combines economic hardball, the periodic table of the elements, and a barely noticed provision of the Defense Authorization Act that seeks to break a monopoly which today gives China near-absolute control over the materials that make cell phones, electric cars, wind turbines, and pretty much every other tool of modern life possible.
If we successfully break the monopoly, we'll be able to create millions of new manufacturing jobs in this country-and if we don't, somebody else owns the 21st Century.
Ironically, the global warming we're trying to fight with new green technologies might be an ally in our efforts to make those very same green technologies happen.
There's a revolution in industrial processing going on, rare earths are at the center of it all...and in today's story, the revolution will be televised.
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Sat Jun 27, 2009 at 02:07:25 AM EDT
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One of the bad things about having a 26-3 delegation is that odd things like this come up:
We had as many Democrats from NY vote against the American Clean Energy bill today as Republicans.
Thanks go out to John McHugh for his intelligent vote against his party, one of only 8 Republican congressmen with the balls to do so.
Jeers to Eric Massa and Mike Arcuri. I want to hear why they voted no on the future of Earth. The bill was so good that it was not only backed by The Nature Conservancy, The Audubon Society, etc., but also Dupont, GE, Ford, Shell, and Dow Chemical.
If the bill is good enough to be loved by hippies and big oil and chemical companies alike, why isn't it good enough for Arcuri and Massa? The final vote was only a 7 vote win - it should never have been that close
Call Senator Schumer and Senator Gillibrand. Lets make sure that this isn't close in the Senate.
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Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 10:07:34 AM EDT
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You heard yesterday about the parts of Chris Lee's "energy plan" that he didn't feel like talking too much about, the parts lifted straight from George Bush and last year's failed Republican strategy for expanding big oil.
Now, let's have a look at what Lee did see fit to talk up. What follows are a few excerpts from the "plan summary" on Lee's official website, along with my comments.
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Wed Jun 24, 2009 at 15:15:59 PM EDT
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Congressman Chris Lee announced his "energy solutions" plan yesterday at a press conference in front of a local ethanol plant. Of course it's not really his plan: it's the "American Energy Act" put forward by the House Republicans. I'm not sure whether Lee is ashamed of carrying water for the far right wing of his party, or if he simply doesn't want people to find out the actual details of the "plan" he's pushing. For instance, the fact that it would legally ban any attempts to prevent or regulate climate change and global warming. Or that it gives billions of dollars in new subsidies to the oil and coal industries.
Of course, Lee doesn't admit to any of that on his website, not even the fact that this is a rehash of the same old game. He's out there pushing it as his own, right down to using the same "all of the above" talking point that the GOP sent out with the folders.
If it sounds like "more of the same" would have been a better description, you're not wrong. In fact, the "new" plan is the same one that the Republicans were pushing last year, written by Indiana Congressman Mike Pence: a prominent science denier, and a supporter of the Bush energy plan that gave free ride to strip-miners and oil companies. Even the central theme of their "clean energy" ideas are unchanged from a year ago--drill for more oil off the US coast, drill in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, give more sweetheart deals to big oil, and assume that it'll work out as well as the deals which gave us $4 a gallon gas.
And when that doesn't work, start strip-mining our national parks for oil shale, even though it's known to poison the air and water.
In fact, somebody did a study and determined that this sort of pro-conglomerate energy plan, when it was used by the Bush administration, ended up costing the average American household an extra $1,100 a year in energy costs: $170 for electricity and $960 for gas. I for one don't have that kind of cash laying around, particularly since the Bush economic plan (which Chris Lee also believes in) cost me my last job. I can't afford more of the system Chris Lee supports.
Indeed, you'd be hard pressed to name the difference between the Lee/Republicans "American Energy Act" and the Bush administration's energy policy. Token words directed at clean energy and green jobs, while funneling taxpayer dollars into the maw of big oil and coal companies. Unless it's the fact that the Bush administration's policy almost looks good in comparison to the even more extreme version that Lee and company are pushing.
Tomorrow I'll dissect some of the public statements on Chris Lee's website, and see how they stack up to the facts.
Act Blue NY-26 Democratic Nominee Fund
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Mon Dec 29, 2008 at 11:22:18 AM EST
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Today's New York Times has an article on one of my favorite aspects of New York State government: the work it does to reduce energy consumption, funded by the System Benefits Charge (SBC) and Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) on our electric bills. NYSERDA, the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency, runs a variety of programs for reducing government, residential, and commercial energy consumption.
I personally took advantage of a 10% NYSERDA rebate when we did energy renovations to my 1929 house - sealing it up, insulating it, and replacing the furnace. That cut my gas bills by almost 2/3, which was both awesome and necessary for me to keep living here. The most impressive part of it all, though, wasn't the rebate - it was the emphasis on making sure that the contractors knew what they were doing, and even sending an auditor out to check the results.
Normally, I'm not excited about dedicated funds. Dedicating the federal gas tax to highways created a monster that just kept building new highways and starving out other forms of transportation. However, this tax is a little more interesting, working in reverse of the highway tax. It's a tax on energy that encourages us to use less energy, not more. That's something I can get behind.
So what's the twist? Well, it's budget season, and once again lawmakers are ravenous. It's funny though - I can't ever find legislators who actually criticize what NYSERDA does. They just want control over the money, and are happy to deploy whatever mix of good government and budgetary language they think will get them control:
"It has become larger and far more significant, which is why I thought it should be on budget," said Assemblyman Kevin A. Cahill, a Democrat representing Dutchess and Ulster Counties who is chairman of the energy committee and said he plans to introduce legislation to that effect next year. "We've reached a point where larger policy considerations should be considered. It shouldn't be a mini-pork barrel."
Right - it shouldn't be a "mini-pork barrel". It should be part of the massive pork barrel that gets chopped up every year in the budget process, by our usual team of three men in a room responding to whatever donors or blocs shout the loudest.
In NYSERDA's case, this is all work that could be done later, right? Of course a year's delay in any of this work wouldn't help, and how many people would really notice? And that $350 million is just kind of sitting there, right?
While I regularly despair of New York's labyrinth of authorities, I think it's safe for me to say that at this point I trust NYSERDA far more than I trust our legislators and their hunger for cash to fuel their perpetual re-election machine.
This isn't the first time this has come up, either. Here's a story on the 2005 grab, and a response from my Assemblywoman, enthusiastically supporting it.
Fortunately - and it pains me to say this - Governor Pataki vetoed that last attempt. We'll see what happens in 2009.
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Mon Sep 08, 2008 at 13:46:50 PM EDT
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In an obvious display of desperation, State Senator Neil Breslin called a press conference yesterday to urge the passage of a new energy plan. This resulted in the only Capital Region section front page report on the race in today's Times Union, one of only two headline articles published on the first primary challenge faced by the Senator in his 12 years in office.
From the first paragraph, and based on the questionable policy details of the plan, it's clear that Sen. Breslin made the announcement only because his primary opponent, David Weiss, is a nationally recognized expert on renewable expert and has made it the key part of his platform in his incredibly strong grassroots challenge. David Weiss responds to the ploy in the article as well after the fold:
ALBANY -- Facing his first ever primary challenge this week, Democratic state Sen. Neil Breslin on Sunday urged Senate Republicans to return to Albany to pass an energy plan that would give money to families earning up to $85,000 a year.
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But Weiss, 51, a wind power advocate, suggested there is money to pay for the program -- contrary to Republican beliefs. "The senators should not take their 200 million dollars of line items ... there is money."
More below this fold on why Senator Breslin's plan is political pandering and David Weiss's platform is necessary to change our State's energy policy for real...
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Tue Jul 29, 2008 at 12:24:36 PM EDT
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(Excellent. - promoted by phillip anderson)
Robert Harding and I trekked out to North Tonawanda last night to attend a meet and greet for Jon Powers, the second in a series of meet and greets planned by the campaign, the first of which started in Lockport (posted on the Powers website). These are all part of the ongoing conversation with the district Powers started a year ago with 30 house parties in 30 days aimed at getting as many people as possible to join the conversation. While there we were able to secure an interview with the grassroots candidate and Harding will upload video of that today.
On the way to the cafe we came upon a sign in a store front that said "Jack's Back!" along with an old sign that read "Jack Davis for Congress." It was a reminder that Davis has had his chance---twice---and the voters did not choose him either time. Harding and I were walking toward the future, and that future is Jon Powers.
There were about 50 supporters in attendance, including a few who found out about Jon Powers from his Facebook page. I chatted with one of them, Mike Martino, a young man who was very enthusiastic about Powers' candidacy. I asked him why he was here and he said "I think it's nice to see him [Powers] out here, doing the small things, the grassroots." I asked Martino if he had ever volunteered for a campaign before and he said "No." I asked him if, after having just heard Powers speak, he was going to volunteer for Powers' campaign and he said "Yes."
For TAP's exclusive interview with Jon Powers, come over the fold...
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Fri Jun 27, 2008 at 21:53:45 PM EDT
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I haven't had time to blog much lately, and I'm kind of sneaking this in, but I've been following the flow of comments through this site and news elsewhere. There are some battles over various races, but the NY-21 Congressional primary really stands out.
Partly it stands out because it's a loud conversation, with lots of back and forth, and that's exactly what a primary should be. I know there are folks who decry the ugliness of blogs, but honestly I've learned a lot from the conversations. Having these conversations where people can see them is a huge improvement over the usual quiet conversations where even the people involved in the campaign aren't sure what's being said out there.
It also stands out for me because I'm surprised. I'm not surprised by the scrum - New York has way too few open seats at any given time, so when opportunities open, lots of people jump on them.
So why am I surprised? Because Paul Tonko hasn't already wrapped this up. News stories when he was deciding whether or not to run gave me the distinct impression that it would be hard for others to survive at all with him in the race. I'm sure he won't have any trouble getting his petitions completed, but at the same time I don't get any sense that he's dominating the race except in name recognition.
Tonko's name was familiar even to me, well to the west, because of his work on energy issues and because his name came up pretty regularly in conversations about effective Assemblymen, people who might just improve the body they served in.
Right now, though, I'm wondering if coming from the Assembly (even by way of NYSERDA) isn't necessarily a plus. True, he's received endorsements from some of the Assembly majority's closest allies, and those will help, as will the name recognition. On the other hand, his identification with energy issues is probably not a great thing at this point in time, no matter how much supporters blame the Republicans.
I'll be very curious to see how this plays out.
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Thu Jun 26, 2008 at 13:01:04 PM EDT
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Unlike Jack Davis, whose energy plan is to invest in fossil fuels and to own stocks in these companies, NY-26 endorsed Democratic candidate Jon Powers has a real energy plan focused on creating an energy independent America.
Here is the plan presented today by Powers:
- An Energy Bill that Invests in Our Future - Provide tax credits to investors who empower scientists to develop renewable energy. Instead of giving away billions to Big Oil, we should provide funding to scientists and engineers to develop renewable energies. As of right now, Congress only provides an advancement of one year to investors who want to develop renewable energies while they provide billions to Big Oil. We need to extend these credits to 10 year allotments in order to provide scientists and engineers with the funds necessary to cure America's oil addiction and make our Country safe.
· A Menu of Options - There is no silver bullet solution to the energy crisis. The United States must not limit Americans to any one particular form of renewable energy, but provide several options in order to protect against future monopolies such as the one oil currently holds.
· Apollo Sized Ambitions - When we come together as a nation, we can accomplish anything. The United States had a vision to get to the moon; we made the commitment and accomplished the task. If we are truly going to be energy independent, Congress must set firm goals of when America will be powered by renewable energy and then commit ourselves to making sure this happens.
· A Government that Leads by Example - Jon Powers will support legislation that requires all newly purchased nonmilitary federal vehicles (including Postal vehicles) to be American made and use hybrid technology or E85 fuel within five years. We must also provide state and local governments incentives to move all non law enforcement vehicles to do the same.
· Helping the Consumer Lead by Example - The federal government allows for a tax credit of up to $3,400 on hybrid vehicles. This incentive is only given to the first 60,000 models of each car sold. Jon Powers will work to make sure that all hybrid vehicles receive this tax credit until hybrids and other clean cars make up a majority of all vehicles sold. Jon Powers also supports housing tax credits for homeowners who invest in making their home more energy efficient.
· Stopping Corporate Greed by closing the Enron Loop-Hole - Special Interest groups and Big Oil have created a loophole in the law that allows speculators to manipulate the price of oil and inflate it by $30-$50 per barrel. While Americans pay over four dollars per gallon of gasoline, Big Oil is making record profits. Jon Powers supports closing the loophole and forcing speculators to provide realistic estimates so our gasoline prices will go down.
The rest of the plan below the fold.
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Fri Jun 06, 2008 at 21:48:43 PM EDT
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It turns out the packed Democratic primary in the Capital District is gaining some attention in Central New York thanks to candidate Paul Tonko having years of connections as a former Assemblyman and recently resigned NYSERDA President.
From the Syracuse Post-Standard under the headline Key lawmaker milks the system for his backyard:
For 15 years, Paul Tonko could be counted on to criticize state energy policy and National Grid's prices.
At the same time, the chairman of the Assembly Energy Committee quietly asked the state's energy agencies and the utility for a favor:
A breakdown of an investigation into Paul Tonko's energy record below the fold.
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Thu Apr 10, 2008 at 15:57:53 PM EDT
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Governor David Paterson issued a press release today discussing downstate energy concerns and expressing his opposition to the Broadwater Liquefied Natural Gas project.
Governor David A. Paterson today outlined the initial steps his administration will take to meet the growing demand for energy on Long Island and the New York City metropolitan region. He also made public his opposition to the Broadwater Liquefied Natural Gas project proposed for Long Island Sound. Governor Paterson made his remarks today to a bipartisan group of elected officials, energy industry representatives and environmental and civic leaders.
"One of my goals as Governor is to protect Long Island Sound, by preserving it as a valuable estuary, an economic engine for the region, and a key component to making Long Island's quality of life one of the best in the country," said Governor Paterson. "Broadwater does not pass that test. Shame on us if we can't develop a responsible energy policy without sacrificing one of our greatest natural and economic resources."
The Broadwater debate has not only impacted Long Island and New York, but also other nearby states. Connecticut officials oppose the Broadwater plan.
For more on Paterson's energy outline, come over the flip.
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Mon Mar 10, 2008 at 01:01:30 AM EDT
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I'm starting to feel optimistic, for the first time in a very long time, about New York State politics. It's frightening to be feeling optimistic, maybe echoing my feelings every time I cheer for the Buffalo Bills in the Superbowl - but I see good reason for it.
My title probably has some Clintonistas worried, and a lot of people mumbling "but Obama lost here." I'm not actually that concerned about the Presidential race, though, but rather something that's feeding into it and feeding on it.
I had lunch Sunday with a friend who was a precinct captain for Obama in Texas. He talked about the thrill of seeing lines out the door of people who'd come together for a caucus to vote. Caucuses, though they have downsides, have the bonus that the people involved actually get to see each other, talk with each other, and maybe even get to know each other. There's a sense of coming together that's hard to achieve when voters jump into a shrouded booth and then come out again, their position a secret. It wasn't just the Obama folks who got to enjoy the spectacle, though - the party regulars, the people who'd kept the system running even when voters weren't that excited, got to see what energized voters can look like.
Mixed signs (in Austin, TX).
This year's race has people talking, even here in New York, where Hillary Clinton was the obvious favorite and we all vote quietly and privately. I'm kind of wishing, in contrast to my earlier writing, that New York had voted later, but the conversations I'm hearing haven't shown any sign of stopping.
And what's in those conversations? Yes, some sniping about which candidate is better, but also a sense that, whatever his other failings or merits, Barack Obama is getting one thing right: we need to talk about what "we" can do, not only about what "they," the candidates, can do.
I've recently seen Dryden residents come together and build a new community center cafe, in a diner that was an icon of Upstate gloom in Spitzer's very first campaign commercial.
New signs (in Dryden, NY).
There's a line in that Spitzer commercial worth re-thinking, contrasting with the action that citizens took on themselves to make that diner a sign of hope:
For every New Yorker who's been ignored, left out, who's been told, 'you can't fight City Hall,' so many times they've come to believe it. For every New Yorker without a voice, listen: there's one strong enough for all of us.
[text: Spitzer for Governor]
Spitzer: "I represent the people of the State of New York."
The message here was representation by a strong leader, not voters coming together to make change themselves, and that's proven to be a problematic solution to the problems we face here.
However, I look at our most recent cause for Democrats to celebrate in New York, and I see an ad where voters are running for State Senate, where the claim for the candidate is that "because Darrel Aubertine is running for State Senate, we all are."
That's not quite "Yes, We Can", but it's not that far away. (And yes, some of his ads were more conventional.)
I suspect that pretty much all of New York's elected leadership would prefer to lead. "Yes, We Can" is more than just a friendly claim, a slogan for a single campaign - it's a threat to the folks who depend on voters paying minimal attention to what's going on and having minimal hope that they can do something to change it. It's also a wakeup call to "every New Yorker who's been ignored, left out, who's been told, 'you can't fight City Hall,' so many times they've come to believe it."
Whatever happens in the national election, I see new energy and a different attitude rising to the surface among our citizens. Is it enough to melt the Albany iceberg? That's still difficult, no question, but reminding voters that their voices and their actions matter is a huge first step toward helping ourselves out of these snarls.
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