Barack was asked at the Saddleback Church Forum to name the three people that would most influence his decisions as president. He named his wife, his grandmother and Ted Kennedy. If Michelle is going to be influencing the President of the United States, we should consider statements like;


"In America in 2008, life is not good: we're a divided country, we're a country that is "just downright mean," we are "guided by fear," we're a nation of cynics, sloths, and complacents." (March 10th New Yorker)

"And Barack Obama will require you to work. He is going to demand that you shed your cynicism, that you put down your division, that you come out of your isolation, that you move out of your comfort zones, that you push yourselves to be better, and that you engage. Barack will never allow you to go back to your lives as usual - uninvolved, uninformed..." (Speech in February, 2008)

"Barack knows that we are going to have to make sacrifices, that we are going to have to change our conversation, we're gonna have to change our traditions, our history, we're gonna have to move into a different place as a nation." (Campaign speech in Puerto Rico)
.

US arrests al-Qaida figure blamed in kidnappings

Baghdad - The U.S. military has announced the arrest of an al-Qaida figure who allegedly planned the 2006 kidnapping of American journalist Jill Carroll. A statement Sunday says Salim Abdullah Ashur al-Shujayri was captured during an Aug. 11 operation. (Snip) The statement also says al-Shujayri's associates were involved in the high-profile kidnappings of Christian peacemakers and British aid worker Margaret Hassan.

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Bush Hatred: The Sequel

With the prospect of a decent outcome in Iraq -- perhaps even the first liberal democracy in the Muslim world -- looming ever more likely, Bush-haters have lately begun to argue that the eight-year presidency of George W. Bush must be considered a moral abomination regardless because the conduct of the war on terror has undermined America's core principles.

To spearhead this new talking point comes a spate of recent books with especially ominous titles: The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals by Jane Mayer; Bush's Law: The Remaking of American Justice by Eric Lichtblau; Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values by Phillipe Sands; and, silliest of all, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder by Vincent Bugiolsi. [snip]

Here's the truth they cannot grasp:

Like every war before it, the war on totalitarian Islam is a nasty, brutish endeavor. It is fraught with obscene excesses and squalid idiocies because, like every war before it, it looses the primordial evils of tribalism and bloodlust to which the human race, even at its current stage of evolution, remains heir. No technological advantage can render war antiseptic. War is always wrong. Which is why its only justification is the conviction that by going to war you're avoiding an even greater wrong down the road.

President Bush felt that conviction, and he acted on it.

If Iraq stabilizes anytime soon, and provides a liberal democratic exemplar that inspires the Muslim Middle East out of the Dark Age in which it has wallowed the last millennium, Bush will eventually be ranked with Lincoln and Roosevelt among our greatest presidents -- for the very reason that he championed American values.

Bush-haters, in turn, will join the long ranks of history's laughingstocks.

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US: Quds, Hezbollah training hit squads in Iran

WASHINGTON -- Iraqi Shiite assassination teams are being trained in at least four locations in Iran by Tehran's elite Quds force and Lebanese Hezbollah and are planning to return to Iraq in the next few months to kill specific Iraqi officials as well as U.S. and Iraqi troops.

The U.S. official acknowledged disclosing the information in an attempt to pressure Iran to suspend the training and prevent the militia fighters from returning to Iraq. The U.S. military also wants the Iraqi government to take steps to protect the targets.

The fighters are expected to return to Iraq between now and October, but the officer said there's no intelligence suggesting they are actually in Iraq yet. The information came from militia fighters captured in Iraq and other sources in the country...

[as they told us: just in time for November...]

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U.N. peacekeepers to remain in Lebanon

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The Security Council voted unanimously Wednesday to keep the U.N. peacekeeping force in Lebanon for another year, calling for stepped-up efforts to achieve a permanent cease-fire and long-term resolution of the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war.

The 13,300-strong U.N. force known as UNIFIL was deployed along Lebanon's border with Israel after the war to help 15,000 Lebanese troops extend their authority into the south for the first time in decades and create a buffer zone free of Hezbollah fighters. [snip]

Ban [Ki-Moon] has alleged that Hezbollah has rearmed with new long-range rockets and missiles since its 2006 war with Israel in violation of a U.N. arms embargo that bans weapons transfers to the militant Islamic group, and that sophisticated weapons from Iran and Syria have passed across the Lebanon-Syria border...

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[that's what the 13,000 blue hats were supposed to be preventing...>



FLASHBACK: NNBrief 7/24/2005 :

UNIFIL and their Hezb'allah Security Blanket

Beset by al-Qaeda backed terrorists who are targeting United Nations troops in Lebanon, the guys in the robins egg blue helmets are turning to the terrorists in Hezb'allah to protect them from the terrorists inspired by Osama Bin Laden:

The growing threat of attack by Sunni radicals apparently spurred the leading European troop-contributing states to seek the Shiite Hizbullah's cooperation. According to UNIFIL sources, intelligence agents from Italy, France, and Spain met with Hizbullah representatives in the southern city of Sidon in April. As a result, some Spanish peacekeepers subsequently "escorted" on some of their patrols by Hizbullah members in civilian vehicles, the UNIFIL sources say.

During last summer's war with Israel, UNIFIL kindly allowed Hezb'allah the cover of one of their outposts to launch rockets into nearby towns in order to kill civilians. At the time, the blue helmets said that they were prevented from interfering by their mandate. Now they've apparently expanded that mandate to make Hezb'llah something of a partner in their peacekeeping duties.

What kind of a quid pro quo do you think Hezb'allah demanded to help "protect" UN troops?

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South Ossetia Isn't Kosovo

[HT:GW]
While it is almost certainly true that Moscow's action in the Ossetian and (for good measure) the Abkhazian enclave of Georgia has been, in a real sense, the revenge for the independence of Kosovo (on Feb. 14 Vladimir Putin said publicly that Western recognition of Kosovar independence would be met by intensified Russian support for irredentism in South Ossetia), it is extremely important to bear in mind that this observation does not permit us the moral sloth of allowing any equivalence between the two dramas.

Whatever Moscow says, there are at least six significant differences between the two situations...

[Recommended > ]

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Cold War tension rises as Putin talks of Black Sea confrontation

A new Cold War between Russia and the West grew steadily closer today after the Kremlin gave a warning about “direct confrontation” between American and Russian warships in the Black Sea. Dmitri Peskov, a spokesman for Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister, declared that Russia was taking “measures of precaution” against American and Nato naval ships.

“Let’s hope we do not see any direct confrontation in that,”

he said.

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McCain: Keep Shuttle flying, don't trust Russia

Presidential contender John McCain and two other bigshot Republican senators have written to George Bush urging that NASA keep the Space Shuttle fleet alive beyond 2010. The politicians are concerned about US reliance on Russia for manned space transport in the early years of the next decade. (Snip)

''At a minimum, we request that you direct NASA to take no action for at least one year from now that would preclude the extended use of the space shuttle beyond 2010,''

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>FLASHBACK: NNBrief 8/14/2008:

Russia's actions could hurt US space presence
[snip]

... The Russian Soyuz vehicle will be the only option available for NASA to send crew and cargo to the space station until the shuttle's replacement becomes available for manned missions in 2015...

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> FLASHBACK: NNBrief 5/15/2008:

Obama's Plan for NASA
[snip]

The early education plan will be paid for by delaying the NASA Constellation Program for five [more] years...

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.

Advancing Hysteria by Editing Skeptical Views of Global Warming

Well, a Stanford social psychologist has recently done a study of how people's opinions about global warming change if skeptical views are edited out of news stories, and the results, though not surprising, should scare the heck out of free thinkers around the country. As reported by USA Today on August 13:

Armed with new research into what makes some people environmentally conscious and others less so, the 148,000-member American Psychological Association is stepping up efforts to 'foster' a broader sense of eco-sensitivity that the group believes will translate into more public action to protect the planet.

News stories that provided a balanced view of climate change reduced people's beliefs that humans are at fault and also reduced the number of people who thought climate change would be bad, according to research by Stanford social psychologist Jon Krosnick. [...]

American Psychological Association leaders say they want to launch a national initiative specifically targeting behavior changes, including developing media messages that will help people reduce their carbon footprint and pay more attention to ways they can conserve. They want to work with other organizations and enlist congressional support to help fund the effort.

Wow. So, the APA wants to work with media to brainwash citizens, and it's going to ask Congress to fund their efforts.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. [at a minimum, be aware of agendas]

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Boone Doggle

Boone Pickens may be a fine man, and has played a colorful and useful role on the American stage for decades. But his "energy plan," which he's spending a fortune to promote on cable TV, is not a plan. Asserting that something would be good to do is not "a plan." Saying how to do it is "a plan." By this standard, what the legendary oil man is devoting $58 million to pitch hardly amounts to a decent slogan...[snip]

He would replace natural gas in electricity production with wind, and use the natural gas to power cars. He fails to mention any practical theory of how to get there -- that would really be "a plan." Instead, he relies on the deus ex machina of Congress, waving a legislative wand to make people do things they would choose not to do, given the extravagant and unjustified costs involved...

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CBS News Portrays $7 Gas as Positive

[HT:JK]
Economists from Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC) (NYSE:CM) foretasted $7-a-gallon gas prices by 2010, which according to some analysts would force 10 million vehicles off U.S. roads over four years. CIBC based its prediction on $200-per-barrel oil by 2010.

"In fact, by 2012, higher prices could send an additional 10 million vehicles off the road," CBS correspondent Priya David said. Although $7 gas would do the most harm to low-income Americans, David praised the effects it would have in easing congestion.

"It would certainly ease congestion. Having that many cars come off the road would be like permanently parking twice as many cars as there are in the state of New Jersey," David said. "Some look to Europe for solutions to the skyrocketing gas prices."

[Europe's 2/3 scale old cities aren't suited to cars - our society is built around it and has a higher standard of living as a result (fewer of as climb stairs to apartments and we enjoy yards because we commute to the 'burbs' - anytime we want with whatever stuff we want {Carlin would be proud}. Let's look to ourselves for our own 'solutions'.]

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BRITAIN'S HEALTH CARE SYSTEM COSTS PATIENTS AND BUSINESSES BILLIONS

Government-run health care in Great Britain has imposed huge costs on patients and businesses by denying treatments and medications.

According to the National Center for Policy Analysis:

• Great Britain lost a total of $208 billion in the overall economy to illness and treatment.
• This figure includes $127 billion in potential earnings based on productivity, $81 billion in paid mental health leave and $50 billion in direct costs to friends and family members tasked with caring for the ill.

NHS's negative effect on the British economy is causing tension within the government and among British citizens:

• An April Gallup poll showed only 7 percent of British citizens were very satisfied with their health care system.
• Twenty-five percent of those polled said they were extremely dissatisfied with their care.
• Another 27 percent were somewhat dissatisfied. [that makes over half, i.e. most]

Analysts credit the more incentive-based American system for the lower overall cost and higher productivity found in U.S. health care, particularly in comparison to the government-centered British health care apparatus...

[summary: our way works better, warts and all - let's not throw out the baby with the bathwater by going from however-bad-you-think-it-is to unavoidably-worse just to register some dissatisfaction - you'll pay for it.]

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ABC's Plan for Deficit? Donate to Government

"Good Morning America" correspondent Claire Shipman on Tuesday actually suggested that Americans "pitch in" $2000 to help pay off the deficit or even give up their lattes. Reporting on the news that the U.S. federal deficit is projected to rise to $482 billion in 2009, Shipman seriously proposed:

"Now, we came up with a few GMA solutions to try to put this in perspective. If every American were to pitch in $2,000, we could pay off this year's deficit."

Continuing the absurd "solutions," Shipman elaborated, "Or, if we handed over, each of us, 500 gallons of gasoline we could pay off this year's deficit."

There was one piece of advice left out of the ABC reporter's piece: At no point did she talk about wasteful government spending or the possibility of cutting back on entitlement programs.

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Bringing Back the Union Label?

Barely 12% of today's workers belong to a union ... most union workers today don't work in factories, mines, shipyards, on the railroads or driving trucks - most of them are federal and state civil servants and public school teachers... [snip]

... here comes HR 800, proposed federal legislation carrying the misleading title "Employee Free Choice Act". It was passed by the House in March 2007, but denied by the Senate. The Heritage Foundation has provided a superb summary of the Act and its pernicious effects on both employers and employees...[snip]

... even George McGovern, the aging liberal lion-in-winter writing in the Wall Street Journal, knows the most dangerous consequences from this toxic bill are the assault on free speech and denial of fundamental tenets of a democracy-- and virtually guarantees worker intimidation and, would force an employer to recognize the union with no recourse. [snip]

Certainly before the 2010 midterm Congressional elections, the union ranks would swell by the hundreds of thousands if not millions.

And what would be the consequences in addition to more Democrats easily winning re-election? Higher costs to consumers, companies less globally competitive and more jobs shipped to China. And higher taxes for those who remain to fund more unemployment benefits, free health care, and abstract environmental regulations having little tangible benefit to anyone.

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> "HR 800; Employee Free Choice Act"
Email Your Congressman > https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml


> FLASHBACK: NNBrief 6/13/2008:

LOOK FOR THE UNION LABEL

What do the farm bill, the cap-and-trade global warming bill, the clean water bill, the housing bailout bill and the school construction bill all have in common?

In each one and countless others the Democratic majority in Congress has inserted "prevailing-wage" requirements [via Davis-Bacon requirements] that amount to a super-minimum wage, says the Wall Street Journal.

Barack Obama has proposed a new taxpayer-supported $60 billion infrastructure bank that would siphon billions off to his union friends by mandating Davis-Bacon...

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Court rules S.F. teen illegal needs services

California

SAN FRANCISCO - A San Francisco court set aside a drug-trafficking case Monday against a 14-year-old Honduran immigrant - a ruling that juvenile justice officials fear will undermine Mayor Gavin Newsom's new policy requiring that such offenders be held for possible deportation. Juvenile Court Commissioner Abby Abinanti concluded that the youth, identified only as Francisco G. because of his age, should be treated within the social welfare system...

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Howard Dean Plays Race Card, Media Folds

Howard Dean. in a recent interview, Dean has once again called the GOP a "white party" attempting to make this campaign about race issues instead of candidates and platforms.

This is the sort of cynical, hate-filled garbage that Democrats have universally parlayed as campaign rhetoric since the 1960s. The response by the Old Media to the ease with which Democrats resort to race baiting, though, also shows the impunity that Democrats enjoy on the issue.

That Dean knows he can say such a thing and not feel he'd be taken to task for it proves not only that the Democrats are dividers and not uniters, but that the Old Media can be relied on to give them a complete pass on their divisiveness.

**Video Below the Fold**

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[a little late but I've been meaning to post:]


Don't call it bravery

A year before his lousy heart hustled him into the grave, my old man -- craggy, cranky, emphysemic -- ran the town bully out of a coffee shop in some pissant Ontario burg.

This thug walked up to two suits in their 30s at the counter. The bully was not small. He jabbed his thumb into one businessman's doughnut, scooped out the cream and licked it off. Then he did it to the second. The waitress froze. The suits backed away and walked out. As the old man put it, "They ran away slow."

Then they guy came over to my dad's table. Grinned. Bad teeth. He looked like this was the most fun he'd had all day.

My father -- past 70 and walking around in a failing body that would kill him in less than 12 months -- looked up. He had it worked out. If things went south, his coffee had been poured just moments before, lawsuit hot. Coffee in the guy's eyes, get off the one good punch he figured he still had in him after all these years, and then, wheezing for breath and trying to get a nitroglycerin pill under his tongue, "Hope for the best."

He said to the bully: "Do it and it just might be the last thing you do." The bully's smile went away and he looked at the old man and laughed.

But he left.

Mom was furious. "Risked his life over a doughnut." With the weariness of a man who has been explaining himself without much result to the same woman for more than half a century, the old man said, "It wasn't about the doughnut. It was about me." [snip]

Which brings us to the events that transpired last week on a Greyhound bus in Manitoba. A sleeping man was attacked with a large knife and decapitated. The passengers and driver fled. A passenger and a trucker who'd pulled over -- the heroes of the piece -- armed themselves with a crowbar and a hammer and kept the suspect in the bus.

A psychologist interviewed by Sun Media hit the proverbial nail square and true when he said:

"This isn't like Texas where an old lady can pull out a gun and defend herself."

That's right. It isn't like Texas, or most of the U.S., where the right to self-defence is considered a divine gift.

In Canada, whenever some Good Samaritan tackles a fleeing rapist or mugger, the police utter the politically correct, nonsensical boilerplate: "It's important citizens don't take the law into their own hands ... bystanders should be careful not to get injured ... blah, blah, blah."

No wonder the people on that bus fled before one turned back once armed. They did as they were trained to do, they met fully the responsibilities to one another that have been driven into them. And a police officer, in phraseology worthy of Big Brother, said: "They were very brave [?]. They reacted swiftly and calmly in exiting the bus and as a result nobody else was injured."

No one knows if they'd react bravely in such a situation. I'm not willing to sit in judgment on those who fled. But I'm not willing to laud them for bravery, either. But am I wrong in assuming that somehow they quit making people like my old man?

Yes I am: Brave was the guy with the crowbar and the guy with the hammer.

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Iraq soccer final before sellout crowd

Baghdad - Tens of thousands of Baghdad soccer fans cheered on their club in the top league's final game, the largest sports crowd the city has seen since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The Baghdad club, al-Zawraa, lost 0-1 in overtime Sunday to a team from Irbil in northern Iraq. But the game was not marred by crowd violence or a terrorist attack, a sign that security forces are asserting more control in the capital.

[that the soccer game featured only a soccer game is good news is, well, less than stellar - but we'll take it. besides, it's better than Britain usually manages...]

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Loving the Troops, Hating Their Mission

Obama wants to have it both ways on Iraq.

Senator Barack Obama has done his best to make it appear as if he has embraced the surge, noting in his VFW speech last week, that “gains have been made in lowering the level of violence”. Yet when actually pressed on the subject he continues to insist that the surge has not worked. He is effectively embracing the surge without embracing it at all.

Obama has gone so far as to insist — when pressed by Katie Couric last month — that if given the opportunity to support or oppose the surge again, ["knowing what we know now"] he would still oppose it. So, on one hand, Obama recognizes success in Iraq. But on the other hand, he still opposes the American policy that fostered that success. In Obama’s mind, this is not a contradiction.

The reason why is that Obama won’t admit that the gains we’ve seen in Iraq are at all related to the surge. He knows things have improved in Iraq — even on the political front — but credits everything but the surge strategy and U.S. troops for those improvements. Sure, he’ll say on the stump that “our troops have accomplished every mission” and “they have performed brilliantly.” But in the very next breath, he’ll deny that they were responsible for the success (remember: “gains have been made”).

It seems as if nothing good can possibly have come from U.S. military policy in Iraq simply because it went ahead without Obama’s blessing.

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Twofer...

.
Pakistan coalition in major split

Former Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has pulled his PML-N party - the country's second biggest - out of the multi-party governing coalition. He has been in dispute with the country's biggest party, the PPP, on the reinstatement of judges sacked by former President Pervez Musharraf. The two sides also disagree over who should be the next president. The move throws Pakistan into further turmoil at a time of economic gloom and growing threats...

[as predicted: we're going to miss Musharraf]

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Pakistan turmoil deepens

Islamabad - Pakistan's political turmoil deepened on Tuesday after the two main parties in the ruling coalition split, weakening the fragile government just a week after president Pervez Musharraf resigned. The world's only nuclear-armed Islamic nation, already facing a fresh campaign of bombings by a resurgent militant movement, now faces the prospect of a bitter political battle over the choice of Musharraf's successor.

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Security Zones and Check Points

Points of views vary regarding military withdrawal from Georgia, because the Russian government states it is in compliance, while Georgia and the US at the very least, do not concur. [snip]

It's been said that an aggressor always sets the terms, but an added rub is "the extraordinary vagueness of the EU-brokered ceasefire deal" [snip]

In South Ossetia, Russian troops erected 18 peacekeeping posts in the "security zone" and planned to build another 18 peacekeeping posts around Abkhazia. A total of 2,600 heavily armed troops the Russians call peacekeepers will be deployed in those regions.

Russia is staking out positions far beyond the bounders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

A top Russian general on Saturday said his country's forces will continue to patrol a key Georgian Black Sea port even though the city lies outside the 'security zones" where Russia claims it has the right to station soldiers in Georgia.

If setting up multiple check points and categorizing large swaths of land as security zones is the Russian government's interpretation of compliance, the US and the West better start advancing their own game of compliance before Georgia is "complianced" out of existence.

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Russia to halt Nato visits

Moscow - Russia plans to halt visits by senior Nato officials and joint military exercises with the alliance, Moscow's envoy to Nato announced on Tuesday.

"There will be no joint military exercises," Dmitry Rogozin told a Moscow news conference, adding that an upcoming visit to Moscow by Nato Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer would also be postponed.

Rogozin listed 10 areas where Russia would limit, halt or suspend its cooperation with Nato: [snip]

"If they (Nato) start smashing the dinnerware, then we can add more to the list," Rogozin said.

[my take: Russia (and others) watched the EUNuchs' systemic incompetence and learned from Iran that belligerence works. They obviously expect the West to cave...]

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'Troop surge' strategist Fred Kagan calls for beefed-up Baltic defences against Russia

Fred Kagan, the intellectual author of the successful US "troop surge" plan in Iraq, believes Nato's presence in the Baltics must be massively strengthened to pre-empt the risk of them being invaded in the same way as Georgia

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Tunnels to Egypt Keep Hamas in Business

One year after assuming total power over the Gaza Strip, Hamas is stronger than ever. Its weapons caches are overflowing and its control over daily life is secure. The Islamists can go about their business largely thanks to the supplies that get in via the tunnels connecting Gaza to Egypt.

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Democrats: It's not easy being green

Throwing the "greenest national political convention to date" is easier said than done, as Democrats are learning the hard way... [snip]

The biggest environmental disaster to befall the convention hit two weeks ago, when the Barack Obama campaign announced that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee would make his acceptance speech at Invesco Field at Mile High stadium.

The decision to move to the stadium threw a Chernobyl-sized wrench into the sustainability plan. Switching the venue from the Pepsi Center, which seats fewer than 20,000, to Invesco, which holds 78,000, threatens to saddle the convention with the Shaquille O'Neal of carbon footprints...

[ah, but their punitive enviro-moralism measures are meant to control our actions, not theirs...]

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BTW...

Gore's call to replace America's electric plants with windmills and the like in the next 10 years is a lawyer's delight.

Billions would be spent on litigation and on public hearings. Eco-protesters would use every stalling tactic possible to fight the installation of each and every turbine.

I say that because that is what they are doing now...

Don Surber
.

Idle leases or just addled minds?

Liberal Democrats who oppose producing more American oil are in a bind.

They know voters are suffering from high energy prices and overwhelmingly want more American oil production. But they can't side with angry citizens and risk upsetting their left-wing base. So they need to make us think they support more drilling—while effectively preventing us from drilling any new wells.

They think they've found a way out: a proposed "use it or lose it" law for energy exploration. Drilling opponents accuse the oil industry of "sitting on" 68 million acres of "non-producing" leased land—and say energy companies must "use" this leased land within 10 years, or lose exploration and drilling rights... [snip]

The proposed legislation rely on the absurd assumption that every acre of leased land contains oil. Obviously, they don't. And the lease law agreements already require that energy companies explore expeditiously, or risk forfeiture of the lease. The Democrats' "solution" would just duplicate these requirements... [snip]

We don't need a "use it or lose it" law—or more big-oil conspiracy theories. Congress simply needs to allow drilling on the 60 percent of onshore federal oil and gas prospects and 85 percent of Outer Continental Shelf prospects that it has placed off-limits...

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Seven Protesters for MoveOn Get Coverage

The call to arms is emotional: ‘We need a President who will stand up to Big Oil!’

The impact is nationwide: ‘National Day of Action for an Oil Free President… At gas stations across the country…’

The movement is massive: ‘American people need an Oil-Free President!’

And the Albany Times Union took a photo-op to demonstrate the fury of the numerous protesters

– all 7 of them.

[no media manipulation here...]

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Bad Labor Law Is a Path to Economic Ruin

I recently said that America "would become France" if a certain bill now in Congress -- which would virtually guarantee that every company becomes unionized -- ever became law.

Deceptively named the Employee Free Choice Act, this bill would in most cases take away an employee's right to a secret ballot in a union election and give unions the option to have federal arbitrators set the wages, benefits, hours and all other terms and conditions of employment.

Countries other than France have suffered the consequences of bad labor laws. When I was CEO of Handy Dan, the precursor to Home Depot, I traveled to England in the 1970s to take a look at a chain of stores we were considering for acquisition. When I arrived in London, the airport workers, bus drivers and garbage collectors were all on strike. The major shareholder of the company asked me to interview three employees. He informed me afterward that he wanted me to hire them at Handy Dan "because the U.K. was finished." He explained that his tax rate was 75% and there were no incentives to grow.

When I asked what he and his company were doing about it, he told me that the media would attack the company if it got involved politically. I jumped all over him and the company's CEO for letting this happen without a fight.

Needless to say, Handy Dan did not buy these stores. Fortunately for Britain and thanks to the courage of Margaret Thatcher, both tax rates and the power of labor unions were reduced in later years.

My advice today about the Employee Free Choice Act is the same as I gave in England: You better fight to stop this undemocratic bill...

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ABC: 'Is The Recession All In Your Head?'

In the wake of former Sen. Phil Gramm's statements earlier this week about this being a nation full of whiners, the good folks at ABC's "Good Morning America" brought on a consumer psychologist Sunday to discuss whether or not the McCain advisor had a point.

Shockingly, not only did Kit Yarrow tell host Kate Snow that "the way consumers feel about things is very emotional," but also these "emotions are trumping reality" thereby creating a snowball which makes the economy worse.

Yarrow not only believes that things are "not as bad as consumers feel like it is," but also that the media are at fault because "everything is described as a crisis."

What follows is a partial transcript of this rather shocking and refreshing exchange (video available here),

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U.S. Hospitals Take Mexican Drug Casualties

Mexico's war on drugs is costing American taxpayers big bucks, as the U.S. government is bringing Mexican casualties from the conflict to hospitals north of the border and paying for medical treatment.

According to The Los Angeles Times, El Paso’s Thomason Hospital has treated 28 victims of the Mexican drug war this year, at a cost of about $1 million. The costs are not confined to medical treatment. With the border area becoming a battle zone where drug gangs, seeking to finish the job by pursuing their victims even into hospitals, Thomason has had on occasion been turned into an armed camp.

The Times reported that on three occasions this year, the hospital was placed under maximum security, with local law enforcement providing additional protection for patients, visitors, and employees at the hospital.

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MSNBC:'People Get Stupider and Stupider Every Election Cycle' During MSNBC's convention coverage on Monday night, Bill Maher explained to Chris Matthews and Keith Olbermann that American politics "seem to be getting worse because, sorry to say it, people get stupider and stupider every election cycle."

Maher's evidence of Americans' stupidity is found in the fact that "they think off-shore drilling is gonna lower the price of gas and they think Obama, the black guy from the single mother, somehow is the elitist."

[amazing]

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Joe Biden is wrong on missile defense

Joe Biden is supposed to add foreign policy credibility to the Obama ticket. But Senator Biden has been consistently wrong on at least one crucial national security issue: The steadily spreading danger of strategic missiles and nuclear weapons.

(Snip) In the US Senate, Joe Biden consistently resisted missile defenses, a position that seems more and more reckless with every passing month.

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US needs missile defense

Borrowing a theme from the presidential contest, Vice President Dick
Cheney said Tuesday that the possibility of a 3 a.m. emergency call to
the White House is all the more reason for the next commander in chief
to follow through on President Bush's plans for a national missile
defense.

"It's plain to see that the world around us gives ample reason to continue working on missile defense," ... "In 1972, nine countries had ballistic missiles, today, it is at least 27. And that includes hostile regimes that oppress their own people, seek to intimidate and dominate their neighbors and actively support terrorist groups."

Bush has set in motion a more modest version of Reagan's original plan.

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Iran to Get Russian Anti-Missile Defense

Russia is preparing to equip Iran with a powerful new air defense system that would dramatically increase its ability to repel an attack, Iran's defense minister said Wednesday. The S-300 anti-aircraft missile defense system is capable of shooting down aircraft, cruise missiles and ballistic missile warheads at ranges of over 90 miles and at altitudes of about 90,000 feet.

Russian military officials boast that its capabilities outstrip the U.S. Patriot missile system.

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Russian meddling not over

Moscow - Russia's parliament unanimously approved resolutions on Monday calling for the recognition of two rebel regions of Georgia as independent states, a move likely to worsen already strained relations with the West.

(Snip) Both houses of parliament, which are controlled by Kremlin loyalists, swiftly approved non-binding resolutions calling on President Dmitry Medvedev to recognise the pro-Moscow breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia are internationally recognised as part of Georgia.

[that only counts if the 'international community' is willing to do something]

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Europe Betrays Itself in Georgia

Europe has been the cause and battleground for all three World Wars of the 20th century. For that reason there has been one supreme question in world affairs since Hitler and Stalin: Can Europe ever learn to avoid repeating its own suicidal history? [snip]

Yet today, Europe has flopped itself into an abject kow-towing posture toward Moscow. Former German Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder --- by far the worst German leader in six decades --- has just blamed Georgia for getting itself invaded by Russia. [snip]

NATO is a mutual defense pact, which translates as "we help you and you help us." NATO has kept Europe secure for sixty years. But it's all been one-way -- we've defended them with the Berlin Airlift, by building up European armies, in proxy wars in the Middle East, Korea and Vietnam, and in finally by getting the Soviets to let go of their European colonies.

We've done our share. What did Europe do after 9/11? Other than raging at the victim? George W. got ripped by our good 'friends' in Europe. It wasn't just a lot of screaming and yelling. Europe's military response to 9/11 was pathetic beyond belief. It still is.

Well, here's an honest European's opinion, Matthias Doepfner, the CEO of the Axel-Springer publishing group:

"These days, Europe reminds me of an old woman who, with shaking hands, frantically hides her last pieces of jewellery when she notices a robber breaking into a neighbour's house. Appeasement? That is just the start of it. Europe, thy name is Cowardice."

This is the biggest international development since the end of the Cold War. The West has knowingly junked the most important policy lesson of the 20th century: Don't give in to armed bullies. This failure will come back to bite us.

You can bet on it.

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China's totalitarian games

CHINA, THE world's largest dictatorship, ruthlessly represses freedom at home while abetting the vilest tyrannies abroad. Letting such a regime host the Olympic Games, many people warned, would prove a mockery of the Olympic charter, which is dedicated to the goal of "promoting a peaceful society concerned with the preservation of human dignity."

The International Olympic Committee repeatedly seconded that motion. "We are convinced," IOC president Jacques Rogge assured one interviewer, "that the Olympic Games will improve human rights in China." He told another: "We believe that the Olympic Games will have definitely a positive, lasting effect on Chinese society."

Well, the Games have certainly had a lasting effect on one part of Chinese society - the 1.5 million men, women, and children expelled from their homes in Beijing to make room for the construction of Olympic facilities and urban beautification projects. To clear them out, the Geneva-based Center on Housing Rights and Evictions found, Chinese authorities resorted to "harassment, repression, imprisonment, and even violence."

When thugs host the Olympics, thuggish behavior can be expected. According to Reporters Without Borders, 22 foreign journalists were attacked or arrested during the Games. At least 50 human-rights activists were arrested, harassed, or forced to leave Beijing. Scores of websites related to human rights, Tibet, and Darfut were blocked or digitally attacked. Far from easing up, Beijing turned the Olympics into an opportunity to intensify its crackdown on dissent.

As in 1936 and 1980, the 2008 Games were a showcase for a dictatorship. In such a travesty, Americans should have played no part.

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2 Chinese protesters ordered to year in labor camp

Beijing - Two elderly Chinese women who applied during the Olympic Games to protest the loss of their homes have been ordered to spend a year in a labor camp, a relative said Wednesday, as more foreign activists were detained. The women were still at home three days after being officially notified they would have to serve a yearlong term of reeducation through labor, but were under surveillance by a neighborhood watch group...

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The Real Population Bomb

It's been 40 years since Stanford University population biologist Paul Ehrlich warned of imminent global catastrophe in his book "The Population Bomb." As it turns out, the book was aptly, though ironically, named.

Ehrlich predicted that, "In the 1970's, the world will undergo famines hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death. Forty years later, no such mass starvation has come to pass. In fact, global deaths due to starvation have been halved despite the global population having more than doubled.

Ehrlich also fretted that we were depleting the world oxygen supply by paving terrestrial areas, burning fossil fuels and clearing tropical forests...

Ehrlich also warned that manmade global warming would melt the polar ice caps and raise sea level by 250 feet...(even out fear-mongering ’20-foot tidal wave’ Al Gore)...

Ehrlich proposed a Department of Population and Environment to implement population control laws. The goal was to maintain world population at “one or even two billion,” which he suggested “could be sustained in reasonable comfort for 1,000 years if resources were husbanded carefully" [6.6B and counting...][snip]

Given how Ehrlich’s predictions turned out, you might think that he vanished into the dustbin of Chicken Little history or at least revised his ideas, right?

Wrong. The Stanford professor is a member of the prestigious National Academy of Sciences and has been honored by the United Nations, MacArthur Foundation, Sierra Club, World Wildlife Fund, Ecological Society of America and the American Institute of Biological Sciences -- to name just a few.

Worse, he’s still at it...

[hey, scare mongering is more profitable than ever...]

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Free grocery bags targeted for extinction in California

The plastic grocery bag is fighting for its crinkly life. From the city of San Francisco to Los Angeles County, more than a dozen local governments around the state have proposed or passed plastic-bag restrictions, ranging from recycling mandates to outright bans.

Now, a proposal in the Legislature would put a 25-cent fee on all disposable bags – paper or plastic –

[had enough yet?]

Assembly Bill 2769
Your Assemblyman = http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/yourleg.html

[no? ... ]

LET'S DRILL OUR WAY TO LOWER TAXES

Opening our vast domestic resources, both on- and off-shore, to responsible oil and gas development would produce an influx of tax revenue from additional lease sales and royalties, as well as from income and excise taxes, says Andrew Moylan, government affairs manager for the National Taxpayers Union.

While oil and gas development won't fill government's coffers overnight, it will provide a down payment in the near-term, and big windfalls in the out-years that can help deal with some of the most intractable tax problems we face, says Moylan.

[or we could just keep shipping 700 Billion $ a year to our 'friends' supplying us oil. {how do you think Russia is paying for its games in Georgia?}]

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Britain's decay now obvious

... But my goodness the decay is obvious even to those who still live here, which is why for the first time in recorded history more people are leaving the country than coming to it. [snip]

The reasons have little to do with economics. Working families are wealthier, more financially secure and have better material prospects than ever before. ... Yet polls reveal they are less happy and content than were their parents or grandparents... [snip]

... crime has made not only the major cities, but also many of the small towns and backwaters ... It is estimated by moderate experts that 60% of teenagers carry knives and the number of stabbings, often fatal, reflect those figures. And then there's the [police!] no-go areas... [snip]

Taxes are high, soccer is a narcotic, violence is fun, drinking is liberating, national identity is vulgar strutting, religion is for the Yanks, reading books is for losers and reality television and cell phone monologues matter more than mom and dad and self-respect - to say nothing of basic manners... [snip]

One of the consequences of this is that the Muslim population has increasingly rejected British culture, isolating themselves from English secular decay [leading to the police no-go areas] [snip]

It's a lovely place to visit but, unless you are extraordinarily wealthy, a difficult place in which to live. How I wish this wasn't so.
Where did Britain go?

[policy has consequences. bad policies, {such as a welfare state providing wide swaths of the populace idle time and no focus, the promotion of 'multiculturalism' over national societal standards, and recognizing any portion of Sharia law as a parallel to the Rule of Law (sad irony, that last)}, have bad consequences.
We will go this way if the many forces seeking it here aren't thwarted by citizen action.]

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DRUG COMPETITION -- "BIG-BOX STYLE"

Research shows that the price of identical generic drugs is 115 percent higher on average in Canada than in the United States. In September of 2006, U.S.-based Wal-Mart launched an innovative prescription drug plan that allowed customers to buy a 30-day supply of prescription drugs for only $4:

• The Wal-Mart plan covers 361 generic prescription drugs.
• Wal-Mart claims that the $4 prescription drug program has saved consumers and their insurers more than $1 billion nationwide.

Canada cannot reap the benefits of a competitive market for generic prescription drugs because of the reimbursement policies of the government-run, publicly-funded drug plans.

Wal-Mart's drug program should provide Canadian policy makers [and us] with a simple lesson: prescription drug policies that allow price competition through market forces improves consumers access to drugs while lowering their cost.

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A RECIPE FOR RECESSION

If the proposals espoused by candidate Obama ever became law, the American economy would suffer a serious setback, says Michael J. Boskin, a professor of economics at Stanford University and senior fellow with the Hoover Institution. [snip]

• The top 35 percent marginal income tax rate rises to 39.6 percent; adding the state income tax, the Medicare tax, the effect of the deduction phase-out and Obama's new Social Security tax (of up to 12.4 percent) increases the total combined marginal tax rate on additional labor earnings (or small business income) from 44.6 percent to a whopping 62.8 percent.

• People respond to what they get to keep after tax, which the Obama plan reduces from 55.4 cents on the dollar to 37.2 cents -- a reduction of one-third in the after-tax wage!

Despite the rhetoric, that's not just on "rich" individuals, explains Boskin. It's also on a lot of small businesses and two-earner middle-aged middle-class couples in their peak earnings years in high cost-of-living areas. His large increase in energy taxes would disproportionately harm low-income Americans. And, while he says he will not raise taxes on the middle class, he'll need many more tax hikes to pay for his big increase in spending.

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Half See Pro-Obama Bias and Say Media Make Economy Seem Worse

More than three times as many Americans see a media tilt in favor of Democrat Barack Obama than toward Republican John McCain. A Rasmussen Reports telephone survey released Monday, of 1,000 likely voters.

Exactly half, 50 percent, “believe the media makes economic conditions appear worse than they really are,” a separate Rasmussen Reports telephone survey posted on Monday determined.

Meanwhile, the “Scapbook” section of the latest (July 28) edition of the Weekly Standard magazine dubbed Newsweek “Obamaweek” and illustrated the media's infatuation with Obama by displaying images of six Newsweek covers featuring Obama, five of them just this year.

[no bias here...]

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‘Economic Disaster’ Brought to You by Obama, News Networks

The American economy is a “disaster.” The media have been singing that song for at least a year. When a presidential candidate recites the refrain, it’s news.

Or it should be.

But in the election of 2008, such a ridiculous claim earned Democratic Sen. Barack Obama compliments from the mainstream media, not well-deserved critique.

In most places, Obama’s comment would simply be laughed at.

“If the economy is in recession, why are business durable-goods orders and shipments booming?” Kudlow asked, noting that non-defense spending is up and concluding: “Business looks pretty healthy to me.” [snip]

The last four years have been a case study of how the media can misrepresent and undermine the economy. Journalists aren’t satisfied with a downturn. They make seemingly endless connections to the Great Depression - more than 70 times in the first six months of the year - and that’s just on the three broadcast networks.

Apparently, that economic delusion worked with Obama and his speechwriter...

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Police: Mexican Cartels Give OK to Hit U.S. Targets

El Paso, Texas - Warring Mexican drug cartels have given their hit men permission to cross into the United States to kill their targets, according to warnings received by U.S. authorities. Police and federal agents told The Associated Press about the warnings Monday, and official along the border are beefing up security.

(Snip) U.S. Customs and Border Protection and Border Patrol officers have also been told about the threat and have ramped up security at border crossings.

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Rendell: Obama coverage was embarrassing

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell was supposed to give “closing remarks” during this afternoon’s Shorenstein Center-sponsored panel discussion with all three Sunday show moderators — NBC’s Tom Brokaw, ABC’s George Stephanopoulous and CBS’s Bob Schieffer — but instead, he opened up a can of worms about bias in 2008 election coverage

"Ladies and gentleman, the coverage of Barack Obama was embarrassing," said Rendell, in the ballroom at Denver's Brown Palace Hotel. "It was embarrassing."

Rendell, who backs Obama in the general election, began debating Brokaw about the campaign coverage, including the on-air comments by Lee Cowan, and when MSNBC came up, Rendell went after the cable network.

“MSNBC was the official network of the Obama campaign," Rendell said, who called their coverage "absolutely embarrassing."

At that point, PBS's Judy Woodruff, who was moderating the moderators event, said:

"Why don’t we let Governor Rendell sit down."

That was met with applause from the crowd of big-time media figures, which included Arianna Huffington, Gwen Ifill, Al Hunt, and Chuck Todd...

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What Democrats believe

The fuzzy language of the actual Democratic platform and the candidate’s recent centrist makeover notwithstanding, it will still be safe to say that he and the vast majority of his fellow Democrats accept, among others, the following propositions:

> That exploring and drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, offshore or just about anywhere is bad. So, too, are nuclear power, coal and any other kind of energy source except windmills.

> That racial preferences must be preserved because assumptions of group entitlement and grievance are central to how most Democrats perceive American society. Group rights are now more important than individual rights as we move toward a new caste system based on race, ethnicity and gender. Anyone alarmed by such trends is racist or sexist.

> That the use of American military power is to be avoided and appeasement of various kinds should be used instead to deal with potential aggressors like Iran and North Korea. Democrats are the doves of American politics and no Democratic president should continence the use of military force without United Nations approval.

> That health care should be reformed by moving toward some version of socialized medicine similar to the British system, or at least Canada’s. Any proposals that would shift health care (or anything else ) in a more market-oriented direction are, accordingly, to be vigorously opposed. Socialism may be dead as a viable ideology, but Democrats realize that the more people dependent upon government for the necessities of life, the more Democrats there will be.

> That the war on terror should be halted because the terrorist threat is overblown. Indeed, the far bigger threat all along has been the Bush administration and its overzealous anti-terrorism policies.

> That all nominees to the federal courts must embrace the idea of a “living” constitution, defined as a constitution flexible enough to mean whatever judges choose it to mean. This way, liberals can achieve through the courts and ideologically congenial judges those things that the Constitution might not permit and / or which elected legislatures won’t enact.

Democrat politicians inwardly agree with all of this, but shrewdly recognize that such a mélange of environment extremism, abortion on demand and blame-America-first pacifism doesn’t appeal much beyond the faculty lounge; hence, the slipping and sliding and obfuscating and repositioning that will occur between Denver and November.

[safe in the knowledge that the Old Media will help keep their secrets]

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/235272/

Ceremony marks 9-11 crash in Pennsylvania

A steel beam from the World Trade Center will be unveiled in Shanksville, Pa., today during a memorial service where Flight 93 crashed on Sept. 11, 2001. Hundreds of current and retired New York City firefighters traveled to from Brooklyn's Floyd Bennett Field on Saturday.The 2-ton, 14-foot long beam will eventually sit on a base shaped like the Pentagon.

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Mourning French lose appetite for war

Paris - President Nicolas Sarkozy's resolve to remain steadfast in Afghanistan was tested at the weekend as a poll indicated a majority of voters want him to pull troops out after the deaths of 10 soldiers in a Taliban ambush.

The findings of the poll in Le Parisien came amid growing debate over France's role in the NATO force in Afghanistan, with Mr Sarkozy accused of getting his country into an unwinnable war...

[three points:
a) it's France.
2) didn't we just go through this 'unwinnable' nonsense?
d) even with Sarkozy, it's still France. ]

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Who Lied About Iraq?

As we head into a Presidential election we should not allow the false story promoted by the lefist media to go unchallenged... [snip]

The False Story

"The United States invaded Iraq based on false premises. The administration orchestrated a public relations drive to prove that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and connections to the 9/11 terrorists - both proved false." USA Today

While these two sentences came from USA Today, they describe the words behind the music of the "Bush lied, people died" meme echoing throughout the media chambers since at least 2004. The lies in just these two sentences are almost Shakespearian in their layered texture. The statement even lays out a false premise in accusing the Bush administration of using false premises. If lying is an art, our media have mastered it... [snip]

The True Story

The Bush administration did not lie. Saddam's Iraq was a threat to the US that demanded the use of military force. That was not just Bush's "cowboy" opinion; that was the written law, passed by huge and bipartisan margins in both houses of Congress. That opinion was supported by both pre-war intelligence and post-war intelligence.

The invasion of Iraq was arguably the most justified case of military action the US has ever taken in its history, based on national defense, validated intelligence and legal authority, not to mention morality.

Articles of impeachment would have made more sense if Bush had not invaded...

[long but Highly Recommended > ]

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Passport to evil

THE News of the World has exposed a gang working inside MOSQUES to sell fake passports to potential terrorists. [snip]

“Because Bulgaria’s in the European community you have full rights in this country. You can live here legally, take advantage of the free NHS, everything. And no one can stop you travelling.”

Across the city at the Central Mosque in Regent’s Park another crew of henchman was peddling the same service. [snip]

The cocky crooks were convinced they were untouchable, knowing police raids could 'inflame racial tension'...

[and indeed, it wasn't any law enforcement entity that busted this ring but a newspaper...]

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The Syrian Gambit

A month ago President Assad of Syria was being fêted in Paris. His country was close to normalising relations with Lebanon and engaged in talks with Israel. A peace treaty seemed possible, and with it an end to Syria's longstanding isolation.

Today, Mr Assad will meet his Russian counterpart, Dmitri Medvedev, in Sochi. By way of preparation he has enthusiastically backed Moscow's invasion of Georgia, signed up for a major new package of Russian defence hardware and ridiculed the failure of Israeli weapons and advisers to prevent the Georgian Army's humiliation. [snip]

Strategically, the Russian Navy gains the prospect of access to two Syrian warm-water ports just as Ukraine attempts to rewrite its rules for Russian use of bases in Crimea. Moscow has also been able to announce the dispatch of Russian air defence systems to Syria on the very day that the US signed a missile defence pact with Poland.

Diplomatically, it sends a signal to Nato that containing the new Russia will take more than merely co-opting its neighbours...

[the ramifications of NATO's failure to react/contain Russia's misbehavior are near infinite - from Syria to China and all the thugs in between...]

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The Future of Nato

The crisis in the Caucasus shows that the North Atlantic alliance needs to evolve faster to protect its members

Russia's Ambassador to Nato, Dmitry Rogozin, wrote last month that “with the demise of communism, reasons for the West and Russia to be in confrontation vanished”.

He would be hard put to stand by his remark when Nato meets tomorrow for an emergency summit forced on its members by Russia's invasion of Georgia, especially given its troops' continued presence there despite two ceasefire deals, its extraordinary [nuclear] threat to Poland last Friday, and reports that it is considering arming its Baltic fleet with nuclear warheads for the first time since the Cold War.

In Europe, polls taken before the August 8 invasion of Georgia found that decreasing numbers of taxpayers thought Nato vital for security. In Brussels, Nato officials are as undecided as their EU counterparts on whether to help work towards an enhanced EU defence capability, and if so how. [snip]

Brussels must address not just the immediate crisis in the Caucasus but the need to streamline NATO command and control systems in conflict zones. Only then will guarantees of territorial integrity for new members serve their ultimate purpose of deterring aggression.

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Think Wikipedia Is Biased? Do Something About It

The liberal bias at Wikipedia isn't like bias at ABC or CBS. These institutions are dominated by liberals, true, but their systematic structure is such that the ability for people on the right to push for fairness is severely limited.

That is not the case with Wikipedia, a participatory medium in which those who are most active enjoy the most influence. It's time for the right to dust off its hands and engage in some old-fashioned activism.

Go out there and make a difference. If you find bias, we'll be more than happy to spread the word.

[well, semi-true: yes anyone can submit post to counter any other - the it's the editing staff at Wiki that's the most egregious offender, and they're 24/7. Conservatives would need 'storms' of posts to have any staying power before they're eventually deleted by wikistaff...

too bad, I was a fan. Luckily, there's



http://www.conservapedia.com/Main_Page ...

Wikipropaganda

Spinning green

Ever wonder how Al Gore, the United Nations, and company continue to get away with their claim of a “scientific consensus” confirming their doomsday view of global warming? Look no farther than Wikipedia for a stunning example of how the global-warming propaganda machine works. [snip]

In theory Wikipedia is a “people’s encyclopedia” written and edited by the people who read it — anyone with an Internet connection. So on controversial topics, one might expect to see a broad range of opinion.

Not on global warming... [snip]

I checked with Peiser, who said he had done no such thing. I then corrected the Wikipedia entry, and advised Peiser that I had done so. Peiser wrote back saying he couldn’t see my corrections on the Wikipedia page.

I made the changes again, and this time confirmed that the changes had been saved. But then, in a twinkle, they were gone again. I made other changes. And others. They all disappeared shortly after they were made...

[Recommended > ]

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IS GREEN U.S. MASS TRANSIT A BIG MYTH?

Mass transit is not a greener form of transportation. Some transit systems take twice as much energy per passenger than private cars do, according to studies from the Department of Energy (DoE).

But how can this be? A full bus or trainload of people is more efficient than private cars, sometimes quite a bit more so, says Brad Templeton, founder of ClariNet Communication Corporation. However:

• Transit systems never consist of full vehicles, but in order to encourage riders, systems offer frequent service which results in emptier vehicles outside of rush hour.

• Transit vehicles tend to stop and start a lot, which eats a lot of energy, even with regenerative braking.

U.S. Transit Energy in Passenger Miles per Gallon

Moreover, transit infrastructure is paid for by state or federal money, while drivers and fuel are paid from local city budgets. This pushes local city transit agencies to get bigger vehicles and fewer drivers...

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Sorry, no more babies. Eco-doctor's orders...

Doctors have called time on big families. A recent editorial in the British Medical Journal talked of discouraging patients, on environmental grounds, from having too many children. The more people, the bigger the drain on global resources.

The editorial advised GPs not to put pressure on patients, but “by providing information on the population and the environment, and appropriate contraception for everyone...doctors should help to bring family size into the arena of environmental ethics, analogous to avoiding patio heaters and high-carbon cars”.

[when you allow government into health care...]

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