So instead of just lecturing China on clean energy technologies, why don't we first have a look at the path of environmental destruction we have left in the wake of our heedless progress.-- sunaru

The frustration people feel about China and India is that they've had a few decades now to absorb and understand the mistakes that Western Europe, Japan and the U.S. have made with energy choices. Instead of leap-frogging us all as leaders by embracing clean renewable energy sources, what do they do? They both bet the farm on the two worst and dirtiest sources of energy, coal and nuclear, as well as promoting domestic auto production and consumption. They simply don't give a shit. Development, regardless of the consequences, is paramount.

And by the way, like jumbo-shrimp and military intelligence, clean coal is an oxymoron.

Or maybe her abusive boyfriend beat her up and she decided to do a Susan Smith - it's all on account of that nasty black man.

-- pterosonus

She just added the backwards B.

Seemed to work really well for most of the last 75 years or so.

I've been following the Japanese economy for almost 20 years now. I've lived there twice for a total of seven years. The first time just as the Bubble was expanding, and the second time just as the economy was heading into the so-called lost decade. My master's degree is in Japanese political-economy.

As any student of the Japanese economy knows, it's stock market isn't much like the stock markets in U.S. or Europe. Price to earnings ratios are an almost meaningless gauge of how a company is fairing due to most stock being cross-held by other corporations with the strategy of maximizing market share being just as important as profitability. Pension and investment funds and individual share owners have almost no effect on the market because in total their share of ownership is minuscule compared to the U.S. or Europe.

Japanese companies still seek to maximize profit, but maximizing share value is not a major consideration in company strategy. This is true in part because Japanese boards and impatient major stock holders don't really exercise that much control over companies, and don't live quarter-to-quarter the way, especially, American corporations do. CEOs do not command obscene salaries and when they take a company down the way CEOs have in the U.S., some commit suicide (please take note U.S. corporate titans). At the very least, they will make very public apologies and do not expect gold parachutes for fucking up.

Another thing that helped Japan weather the economic slow down of the 90s, and will again, is the massive individual savings available to keep money moving through the economy. If the U.S. had just half the savings rate as Japan, we'd be in a lot better shape.

During the supposedly slow 90s, there was still a massive amount of commercial construction going on in the major cities. And as how Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya go, so goes the country economically since these three population centers comprise nearly a third of the nation's population.

In short, using the Japanese stock market as the barometer of economic health is getting only a very small part of the story.

. . . it's just the op-ed pages. Otherwise, the straight business and economic reporting is reliable. However, it's early yet in the Murdoch era. He may fuck-up the paper entirely before he's through making changes.

That raises a question: Is the Wall Street Journal really dedicated to economic thought, or is it more a vehicle for economic propaganda? -- Alkaline

This story pretty much fell out of the local papers in Seattle months ago and didn't reappear until she was formerly charged with murder.

It's amazing how we still conflate socialism with Communism in this country when so many other industrialized, wealthy nations have gotten a memo that they're not the same thing! -- siboney

Obama is not my perfect candidate because he's not, publicly at least, nearly progressive enough. He's not even running as a Johnson-style Democrat. He may be too pragmatic to make lasting changes. However, he couldn't run that way and hope to get elected.

We've moved so far to the right in the last fifteen years or so that a moderate like Obama seems frighteningly radical to people who have no memories of either the Great Depression or the Great Society. Too many Americans fear a simple move back to the center as a tectonic shift in American policy.

. . . there are more people in Washington State than there are in all of New Zealand.

Here in New Zealand we have paper and bright orange felt tip pens. Works perfectly well. And it's paper based - easy to audit. -- jmzrbnsn

But I agree with the sentiment that the U.S. needs national standards for presidential and congressional elections. 50 states with I don't know how many different ways of voting is ridiculous. If physical polling is used, all states must have them open the same length of time opening and closing at the same times. Oregon and most of Washington have had great success with all mail in voting. Computer voting is problematic without a credit card purchase-like paper trail. But pick one and make everyone use it.

We also need to make the primaries a federally run process limiting their duration (regional primaries being logical) and the money that can be spent on them. The parties need to be taken completely out of the picture other than promoting candidates.

Hey, a girl can dream.