Only one, as long as it's Moe Lane.
Today, Mr. Lane takes note of a New York Times report that retailing giant Wal-Mart intends to use its enormous economic muscle to foster a transition to environmentally friendly, energy-saving compact florescent light bulbs in American homes.
That's good, isn't it?
Why, yes it is. Here's how it came to pass, according to the Times:
"In September 2005, [Wal-Mart Chief Executive H. Lee] Scott and Andy Ruben, Wal-Mart’s vice president for strategy and sustainability, drove 6,000 feet to the Mount Washington Observatory in New Hampshire with Steve Hamburg, an environmental studies professor at Brown University, and Fred Krupp, the president of the advocacy group Environmental Defense.
"At the summit, where scientists measure climate change 24 hours a day, the men discussed global warming, acid rain, the hole in the ozone layer and what Wal-Mart could do about them.
"'You need to look at what is being sold on the shelf,' Mr. Hamburg recalled telling Mr. Scott over a dinner of turkey and mashed potatoes. He began talking excitedly about compact fluorescent bulbs. 'Very few products,' he said, 'are such a clear winner' for consumers and the environment."
But as quick as you can say "Yes, but environmentalists are all a buncha smelly hippies," Mr. Lane changes the light bulb story into another vehicle for bashing liberals.
Wal-Mart is meeting plenty of resistance in this effort--but not, accoriding to the article, from environmentalists. It seems that light bulb manufacturers have been dragging their heels because they're still geared up for producing old-fashioned incandecant bulbs.
Ah, but never mind that. Mr. Lane (who confesses he does not shop at Wal-Mart himself--no reason given) stalks the real villains:
"There's also the minor issue that in the great Venn Diagram of American political life there's a large overlap between the environmental movement and the progressive movement. The latter is rather hostile to Wal-Mart*; whether this will influence the former is going to be... interesting. In an ideal world, it wouldn't; but if it does it, I won't be surprised. It wouldn't be the first time that faction politics has overruled good sense."
The asterisk? That takes Mr. Lane's reader to this footnote:
*When they're not buying Playstations from them, that is: fire your idiot staffer yet, former Senator Edwards?
Clever, isn't he? Let's follow the steps:
1) Environmentalists work with Wal-Mart to market an energy-saving light bulb
2) But all environmentalists are progressives
3) And progressives hate Wal-Mart
4) Wal-Mart? Progressives? John Edwards! Playstation! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
This may seem like a painful stretch, even for a Redstate contributor. Not to worry. Mr. Lane, gazes into the future to find out why this effort will win no new friends for Wal-Mart among progressives, and unwittingly offers an amusingly self-revealing explanation:
"...human beings seem to have this odd reluctance to give up their devil figures - even when it'd be a really, really good idea to do so. There's a sociology paper in that, I suppose..."
In the title of his post, Mr. Lane admits to being undercaffeinated. Perhaps that explains the unintended irony.
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