The environmental impact of owning multiple cars

Grist's "Ask Umbra" on the environmental impact of owning multiple cars... even if you don't drive them all regularly.

If you want to consider alternatives, consider public transportation and car sharing.

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YouTube: Stephen Colbert Mocks Senate Compromise

Stephen Colbert shames the rebel Republicans for their "compromise" with the Bush Administration over enemy combatants.

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AP: Rare bird causes logging frenzy

I am so glad that I could not make sense of this article at first... why, upon discovering an endangered species, would people intentionally cut down their habitat? For money, of course!

Rare Woodpecker Sends a Town Running for Its Chain Saws
(AP)
Landowners in a North Carolina town have been clear-cutting thousands of trees to keep them from becoming homes for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker.

NYT: E.P.A. Chief Rejects Recommendations on Soot

E.P.A. Chief Rejects Recommendations on Soot
By FELICITY BARRINGER
Published: September 22, 2006

WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 — The Environmental Protection Agency’s administrator on Thursday rejected the recommendations of his staff — and an unusual public plea from independent science advisers — choosing instead to tighten only one of two standards regulating the amount of lethal particles of soot in the air.

The short-term daily standard, intended to control acute exposure to the minute particles, was cut nearly in half. But the annual standard, which affects chronic exposure, remains at its original 1997 level.

[Full story at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/22/us/22soot.html ]

NYT: Measures Seek to Restrict Detainees' Access to Courts

I am at a loss to explain why the concept of "innocent until proven guilty" has found so little voice in the conversation about military tribunals and Guantanamo detainees. Instead, we hear about the impact of civil right abrogations on OUR innocents should they be captured abroad!

Did we learn nothing from the internment of Japanese (both US citizens and foreigners) in WWII? Are we so frightened of terrorists that we are willing to risk having innocents detained indefinitely, or forced to defend themselves against secret evidence and hearsay?

Measures Seek to Restrict Detainees' Access to Courts: "WASHINGTON, Sept. 20 — Although the effort has been partly obscured by the highly publicized wrangling over military commissions for war crimes trials, the Bush administration and its allies in Congress are trying to use the same legislation to strip federal courts of their authority to review the detentions of almost all terrorism suspects."

NYT: Iran's Leader Relishes 2nd Chance to Make Waves

Ahmadinejad continues to call the bluffs of the "superpowers," as the full extent of their weakness and inability to cooperate is increasingly exposed.

Iran's Leader Relishes 2nd Chance to Make Waves: "Iran's president sparred with the Council on Foreign Relations, exasperating his questioners and angering the Bush administration and Jewish groups."

NYT: Activism Is in the Eye of the Ideologist

Good to see this coverage in the Times; I've long bemoaned the ignorance on display when partisans complain about judges doing their job -- that is, overturning unconstitutional and porrly-crafted legislation.

"Activism is not necessarily a bad thing. The Supreme Court is supposed to strike down laws that are unconstitutional or otherwise flawed. Clearly, all nine justices, from across the political spectrum, believe this, since they all regularly vote to strike down laws. What is wrong is for one side to pretend its judges are not activist, and turn judicial activism into a partisan talking point, when the numbers show a very different story."

[Full story: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/11/opinion/11mon2.html]