Turn off the AirCon or you might vote Republican

[Shanti Mama]

From Salon via www.treehugger.com. I think this is brilliant and sadly funny.

We have written often how electricity-sucking air conditioners caused the massive post-war transfer of people and votes to the sunbelt; Edward McClelland of Salon thinks that air conditioners make people vote Republican.

"Air conditioning offends my sense of Northern pride. They have a saying in Maine: "If you can't stand the winters, you don't deserve the summers." But the air conditioner allows Arizonans to enjoy a cool, lakelike breeze in the comfort of their living rooms, without ever having to buy snow tires. As one who has seen firsthand how the Sun Belt created a poor Yankee cousin called the Rust Belt, I blame the air conditioner for the decay of Detroit, Cleveland and Buffalo, N.Y. I blame it for the decline of the American labor movement. And I blame it for the election of George W. Bush, as well as the fact that we haven't elected a Yankee president in nearly 50 years. Honestly, I don't want something like that in my house. Especially if I have to pay for it." ::Salon