Teabagger power

NYT energy and environment blog:

The White House, which only last month rebuffed a proposal by activists to reinstall one of former President Carter’s solar panels atop the executive mansion, plans to announce Tuesday that it will be adopting solar power after all.

Nancy Sutley, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, and Steven Chu, the energy secretary, will unveil plans to place photovoltaic solar collectors and a solar hot water heater atop 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to heat water and provide a small amount of electricity for the residence.

All well and good as far as it goes, but it's a low-power solution better suited to a smaller house and mostly symbolic. I've got a plan to light up the White House like Las Vegas, and off the grid.

First, a little tech talk straight from the automotive world and Boulder Dam, relatively low-tech and reliable. In those kind of applications, you need three things to make electricity: an electromagnetic force (EMF), a conductor, and relative motion between the two. You can engineer this any way you want for a desired output. L.A. and Vegas are supplied power in this manner, as is your car's battery and electrical system.

I propose we put the Founding Fathers to work. Disinter as many of them as the engineers call for, insert a permanent magnet (the EMF) in each in a manner best left unspoken, ensconce them in copper caskets (the conductor), wire 'em up, and re-bury them on the White House lawn.

Then let the teabaggers ramble incoherently, which is not hard to get them to do. Armey and the Cock Koch Bros can do it with a word and some money. The more they invoke the Constitution and incorrectly second guess the Framers' intent, the faster the Founding Fathers will spin in their graves and Bingo!, the joint will light up!

Come ta think of it, that might generate enough power to light up the whole Eastern Seaboard. Might even have to put in a voltage regulator to keep from blowing every light bulb in the country!

Besides, the chatter in the control room will be hilarious - "Benjie's BO, Adams OK Temp, cuttin' in Hancock".

The teabaggers and Repugs in general waste tons of another renewable energy source: hot air. I propose it be put to use heating the water in gay bathhouses.

The only part I haven't figured out is how to keep the volume down...