I would like to invite Joe Klein to kiss my ass

And I'm having a bit of trouble not continuing downhill from there in my opinion of this clown and his distaste for air conditioning. I'm not going to go over this in detail, but I will give you a taste:
I will confess a bias here. I love warm weather, even when it slouches toward humidity. I detest the harsh, slightly metallic quality of the air forced through even the fanciest AC systems. The only air conditioner I own sits, unused, in my car; my home is happily unrefrigerated. But given the energy mess we're in, I can now gild my personal preference with a patina of high-mindedness: air-conditioning is bad for the planet, and for national security, and for our balance-of-payments deficit. Unfortunately, it is not as bad as I'd like it to be — in part because not all of our electricity is provided by fossil fuels (although coal does predominate). And also because air-conditioning represents a relatively small slice of our energy use, an estimated 4%.

Well, Mr. Klein I suggest you haul your nanny-state butt down to Oklahoma, or Texas or Arizona or a number of other places in July(just to pick one month) and see how you like it with no a/c. Does '...warm weather, even when it slouches toward humidity...' include mid-90's with anywhere from 40 to 65% humidity? If not, then shut the hell up, you lecturing little boil on our overheated backsides. A little note for you, since you don't seem to understand something: summer can kill you.

Remember a few years ago, heat wave in Detroit & Chicago? People were dying in droves because they had no a/c in their homes. That kind of weather isn't a heat wave down here; it's normal summer weather. And people, especially older folks, sometimes die from it, fans and all, when they have no a/c.

I'll throw something else out here: people very well understand 'conserving energy': they also understand that they like to be cool enough not to sweat through their clothes in the house, and cool enough to sleep confortably.

So go away, Mr. Klein, and leave us alone.

And by the way: every hotel room I've ever been in, there was one of those thermostat devices: you don't like the temp in the room, turn it up.

Dumbass.