Here's a link and info on an air pollution/I.Q. study:

http://aje.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/167/3/280?eaf

Suglia et al. Association of Black Carbon with Cognition among Children in a Prospective Birth Cohort Study. American Journal of Epidemiology 2007; 167:280-6

If one's right to swing one's fist ends before it strikes one's neighbor's nose, where does one's right to dump toxins end? I would argue it ends before they enter one's neighbor's body.

I lived in a town where the water was so bad we used to joke that the sewer pipes and the water pipes were one and the same. One fine summer, everyone we knew got sick (gastritis) and our countertop carbon water filter began to smell something awful. The county came out and tested our water. Shortly thereafter, the city began to chlorinate the water supply because of a chronic fecal coliform contamination. So, it turns out our water supply and a sewer really were commingling.

I have had a reverse osmosis unit ever since. Also, the soda club is a great way to get carbonated water.

Just because a technology shows some promise does not mean the benefits outweigh the risks. We allowed the propaganda of the nascent nuclear industry (too cheap to meter) to distract us from the need for an intelligent look at the pros and cons of nuclear power; that got us a pile of waste that no state will take and leaking sites like Hanford.

There are some huge risks associated with transgenic mammals being used to supply biologically active material and activating unknown retroviruses is just the beginning. Consider that forty years ago any competent biologist would have told you that retroviruses could not exist since their life-cycle violates the central dogma of molecular biology; three or four Nobel prizes later and they seem like old hat, but any prudent reading of the history of virology would dictate a go-slow approach to approving meds from pharm animals. We need to take particular care in the disposal of "used" animals and handing them off to another corporation is B.S. The company that is profiting from their creation needs to accept full responsibility for their destruction, including constant custody.

Acknowledging the possibility of harm from these pharm animals is not the same as wanting to return to pre-Pasteur times. Let's have a rational discussion of the pros and cons without belittling those who are reasonably cautious.

"Expand the Earned Income Tax Credit by ...adding a "third tier" for families with three or more children."

What a grand idea. Let's create more incentives to overbreed. At a time when the biosphere is being destroyed and Americans are the parties primarily responsible, let's definitely do everything we can to encourage large families.

With our 4% of the global population we generate, onsite, 25% of all climate changing emissions and something like another 20% of all emissions are generated for us in other countries. We are quite literally f***ing and shopping ourselves into extinction.

The hot new thing in Eugene Oregon is "community gardens". Hundreds of people enter a city-run lottery for precious 400 square foot garden plots. They all rave about "growing really local food" and fighting climate change.

These people suffer from the same lack of quantitative thought as some of the rest of the locavore fad. I collected some data on my local "community gardeners" and what I found was very disturbing. Ninety percent of the trips to these gardens are by car. With a few reasonable assumptions on yields and distances driven, I calculated that each garden plot results in a 500-fold larger carbon footprint than would be generated by the same produce being purchased at a grocery store after being trucked up from Central California.

Of course, if the gardeners would leave their fossil-fool powered wheelchairs at home and walk, bus or bicycle to the gardens then they would truly be doing something to reduce their impact on our much-abused planet. (All of the gardens are located along bike paths.)

Our cities and suburbs are so loud that the birds are not only singing louder, they are changing pitch, timing and duration of songs. It is so extreme that it looks like we are witnessing species separation between rural and urban/suburban songbirds.

Since almost all of the noise is due to motor vehicles, maybe if McCain gets elected to Bush's third term he can help triple the cost of gasoline again and we might get some peace and quiet.

A genetic predisposition is not magic; it refers to interactions with the environment. In the case of cancer, almost all cancers are caused by exposure to CARcinogens. People of varying genetic make-ups have differing abilities to deal with the environmental insults.

Genetic screens would be a small help, but we really need to get to work reducing exposure to CARcinogenic material. Fortunately, rising global oil prices may do some of that for us.

If we cut off the hands of thieves, then how are Republicans going to vote?

If you were investing from Europe, you might not think that the price of oil has increased all that dramatically. Remember when the Euro debuted at $0.87 early in the decade? Well, it's at $1.56 now. That translates into $79/barrel from a European perspective.

Perhaps our willingness to off-shore our production capacity while still purchasing too many toys from China is the real culprit here.