Blog R&D ?

Oil depletion concerns have spun up many of the denizens at DailyKos into either widespread panic or delusions of grandeur; I can't really tell which.

1. Jerome suggests investing in a dKos-branded wind farm. Out of over 500 votes, only 5% of the Kossacks frowned on the idea.
2. Scientist Todd Johnston counters with an alternate strategy: 'Instead of a branded "wind farm," why not raise money for a dKos Alternative Energy Research Foundation?'

Too many comments, not enough time to separate the wheat from the chaff on this train of thought....... But wait a second, whenever I see ideas like this volunteered I subconsciously think back to Mr. Torvalds and his initial pleadings to support him in his quest for a community-developed open-source operating system. I do remember browsing through Linus's posts to various UseNet newsgroup forums in the early 90's and really thought it a typical tilting-at-windmills exercise. Like many suggestions of this sort, early adopters will often get burned, but then again you never know.

I did watch the first hour of the Bill Clinton/Ted Turner panel session on our energy and security future (via FTM). Impressive and informative, Clinton still has it and appears to understand all the details; Turner provided some additional good down-home sounding wisdom (C-Span archive available now). Put the big-name politics together with the grass-roots and we will probably get where we want to go a bit more quickly.