No, not Mark Warner. In the credit where credit is due file, the other Warner from Virginia -- that would be the Republican Senator, John Warner -- deserves kudos for touching the third rail (or is it the brake pedal?) of energy politics:

Sen. John Warner, R-Va., asked Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman to look into what speed limit would provide optimum gasoline efficiency given current technology. He said he wants to know if the administration might support efforts in Congress to require a lower speed limit....

Warner cited studies that showed the 55 mph speed limit saved 167,000 barrels of oil a day, or 2 percent of the country's highway fuel consumption, while avoiding up to 4,000 traffic deaths a year.

"Given the significant increase in the number of vehicles on America's highway system from 1974 to 2008, one could assume that the amount of fuel that could be conserved today is far greater," Warner wrote Bodman.

It's amazing the degree to which Obama -- not to mention most of the environmental elite in this country -- are allowing McCain and Gingrich to define the solution to higher gas prices as "drill here, drill now."

Anyone with any understanding of what is really going on knows that that won't make a cent of a difference in the short term -- and only half a cent in the long term.

Yet we have to wait for a Republican to raise conservation as the true solution. Ah, well, no surprise there; I've seen little indication that either Obama, or anyone on his campaign, truly grasps the energy problem before us.

Energy Department spokeswoman Angela Hill said the department will review Warner's letter but added, "If Congress is serious about addressing gasoline prices, they must take action on expanding domestic oil and natural gas production."

Actually, the opposite is true. The only serious way to reduce gas prices is through conservation. But when John friggin' Warner is the only guy even raising that as a possibility, what's the likelihood of that coming to fruition?

Technorati Tags: energy, economy, politics, environment, conservation.

Shares of General Motors are today bouncing off $10, a low not seen since September of 1954.

If you've got a mere $6 billion lying around, the whole company is yours for the taking.

Remember the phrase, "what's good for General Motors is good for the country?"

The fact that GM is essentially bankrupt is telling you something very loudly.

Technorati Tags: General Motors, economy, politics.

Buried at the bottom of Maureen Dowd's column today (which, surprisingly, is itself tolerable for a change) was this little line:

Thomas L. Friedman is off today.

Which explains the contented, at-peace-with-the-world feeling in the air today.

At one time, Chris Cannon was my Congressional Representative in Moab, Utah, before redistricting sent him off to torment other small towns with his insufferable representation.

Yet for over a decade, he was a fixture not just of Utah politics, but increasingly in the Intermountain West as a whole. He is currently the Chairman of the Congressional Western Caucus, a group that, tomorrow, will introduce its latest bill seeking to plunder and pillage the public lands under the guise of "energy security" -- a worn out and delusional rhetorical trope that too many Democrats, including our nominee, unfortunately still embrace.

Nonetheless: last night, in a small primary in the 3rd District of Utah, Chris Cannon got an astounding 20 point kick to the door from voters who overwhelmingly supported former Gov. Hunstman aide Jason Chaffetz's right-wing challenge to Cannon.

If you know anything about Chris Cannon, you know that a right-wing challenge to Cannon has to be far, far to the right. And since Chaffetz is virtually guaranteed to defeat his Democratic opponent in November, the seat will stay Republican, and one right-wing kook will be replaced by another right-wing kook in the congressional delegation of Utah.

As John McCain would say, that's not change.

Still, it's good to see Chris Cannon go, and his crushing defeat is further indication that the Republican party is officially in a political wilderness, and that the disillusionment of its base may soon turn to a fury that radically transforms the face of the party.

And that disarray will make it awfully difficult for them to win national elections anytime in the near future.