Namely, the urgent need to demonize China. The right still thinks of China as being 'Communist', while friends who have spent a lot of time there tell me they haven't seen an actual Communist in years. The left, meanwhile, hates China because it is capitalist and rapidly industrializing. The people who killed off industry here in the US would love to get their filthy little mitts on the Chinese economy. The same people who loved China in the days when its students rampaged through the streets massacring intellectuals now hate it for the same reasons they hated America when it smelted steel.

"Imagine the next 50 generations suffering from global warming of 10°F, sea levels rising 1 or 2 inches a year, dust bowls over one-third of the habited land, loss of more than half the species and oceans turned into hot, acidic dead zones. "

If this actually happens, it will be because pinheads like Romm stood in the way of substituting baseload carbon-free energy technology for coal. If Obama wants a governmental way of pushing clean energy, there is no need for him to spend another trillion in public funds on it. All he has to do is reform the legal system to prevent know-nothings like Romm from interfering with private energy projects of standard design.

The problem with the 'priorities' argument against space programs is that it could have been raised at any point in our history - or that of any other country. Why did we send Lewis and Clark west when not every single American of 1803 was wealthy and well fed?

"By 2010 the US will end all manned spaceflight forever."

If this happens, it will not be the end of manned spaceflight, but just the beginning of an era when the US will be spectators, not participants. Mars, and all beyond it, will belong to China.

"How about NEVER?! I don't understand this obsession with trying to keep the human race going. How about we live on Earth for as long as possible and when the end comes we just close our eyes and sleep peacefully. The environmental issue can summed up like this: "Humans/Americans caring only about themselves and nobody else"."

Thanks for distilling for me the heart of the Green movement's philosophic outlook. When it comes to long-term survival, I care about the future of the human species above all others in our corner of the universe. When a spotted owl writes a symphony, I will gladly expand my focus of concern accordingly.

If you really feel this way, just don't have children to influence. May your Unabomber outlook on the universe die with you.

"If you had to boycott every company that did some wrong, no matter how slight, you would be living naked in a cave, digging for grubs."

In short, you would be a Green. Welcome to the wonderful world of "progressivism".

"Let's just take the orbiting solar power plants for starters.

How does the electricity get from orbit to the ground?"

First, we put all the energy into lasers aimed directly at trial lawyers, as many as we can find. After that, getting energy from space into the grid is just a combination of daring and engineering.

"Have a breakfast bun and a bourbon and lemonade at the ferry landing, and take the cable car up to town. Then get in a taxi to Oia, and rest and explore gently. Then be sure to see the sunset from Oia.:

And don't miss the domed churches, and the cats stretched out on the tops of whitewashed garden walls. All this in a village that teeters on the edge of instant destruction. If people can live here, living the relaxed Greek life, they can live anywhere.

Actually, it's the other way around. Industrial workmanship suffers at the peak of the economic cycle, when stressed workers are pushed to do a slapdash job. At the peak of the housing boom, for just one example, builders in this state had run out of skilled workers and were posting hand-lettered signs in Spanish at the entrances to their tracts advertising for electricians. As homeowners bought at the top and moved in, Phoenix TV consumer help line shows were swamped with complaints of bad workmanship. Today, those are the houses that stand abandoned, empty and worthless.

Now, after all those waves of recessionary layoffs, companies have whittled down to their essential core of best workers. If you want something that lasts, buy it now.

"So Ben's automatically guilty because the woman says he is, even though there have been no criminal charges filed."

You need to add: Is the perp white? Yes=guilty; No=benefit of doubt.

"...if you're left/liberal leaning, you assume Gates is right.

...if you're right/conservative leaning, you assume Crowley is right."

This conservative is glad that Obama called the cops out on this one. Cop culture has become increasingly arrogant in recent years. I love the stunned, stung police reaction from around the country to the lash of a critic that, for once, they can't just tase into submission.

My one concern is that Obama is primarily interested in the racial profiling issue. This certainly exists, but the cop culture problem is a lot more general than that. I would have loved to see Obama rip into the Prince Georges County, MD, porkers after the Berwyn Heights debacle or use the Tehana incident as an illustration of abuse of those oh-so-general seizure rights.

You know, the one consisting of "still no nukes, and the lawyers stay in control."

If his health program makes the cost of medicine shoot up in the same way his energy plan made the cost of oil shoot up once again, our only hope will be that health care will be so unaffordable that even the corporatist Republicans will finally let us have a free market in health care.

...Is to eat only farm-raised fish. I like my sushi, so let's hope the new Japanese initiative to farm bluefin will work.