Well, the amazingly-entertaining race for New York's 23rd Congressional District ends today, and it has brought out some truly enlightening facts. The most important one, to me, is how the two major parties deal with apostates.

Ever since the 1970's one of the main goals of the Democratic party has been to reduce the amount energy consumed by the United States. This is not a bad idea in and of itself, but its urgency has always been ideological, rather than market-based. Cheap oil prices and Reagan-era deregulation foiled the Democrats' original efforts, but now, "global warming" has provided a convenient reason to continue, and expand, this effort.