It would be wonderful if you were really an environmentalist. Sadly, since you are addicted to a car you, like the Sierra Club, are no environmentalist. We are not facing a carbon constrained future, we have a carbon constrained present that we ignore at the future's peril.

Barack Obama is still the smartest person who stepped up for the job. His policies will never be as enlightened as Kucinich, but he will definitely move us in the right direction. Let's wait until he sets some bad policies before we jump all over him. Meanwhile, give him some room and air-space to grow into the job of trying to salvage both our nation and the ecosphere from thirty years of Republican-led ravaging.

"But any climate activist will tell you: It's going to take serious government action to actually make a major dent in our growing greenhouse-gas emissions."

If a majority of Americans are on board for the necessity of reducing our GHG emissions, why do we need big brother to make us do it? We are like a bunch of schoolchildren at a swimming hole, all waiting for the first brave soul to jump in for the fun to begin.

People, stop blaming the government for YOUR emissions. Are you eating meat? Reduce it until you can eliminate it (I know, some people have health conditions that require it, but that is a very few of us). Using a car regularly? Ditch it and watch your health improve. How about that thermostat? Set it to 50 F or lower in the winter and get an adequate attic fan for summer cooling (air conditioning is for frail people).

Really, we don't need federal government support to make a substantial dent in the problem, we just need real commitment by ordinary citizens.

but we could use extraordinary rendition to deliver him to Spain for a war crimes trial. He might even be exposed to those quaint Geneva Conventions.

Graner is receiving exactly what he doled out: torture. He is most certainly not being treated unfairly. However, he should have some company (about half of the Bush crime family should be keeping him company).

That said, giving him eye-for-an-eye "justice" should be beneath us. Torture should be beneath us. Selective prosecution should be beneath us. Maybe a certain new President will inspire us to leave the dark ages behind and rejoin the enlightenment. It will be a sweet day when our prisons are used for rehabilitation rather than revenge and the rule of law applies to all, regardless of circumstances.

I, for one, would like to see RFK Jr. appointed to his dad's (now HRC's) Senate seat. It would be nice to have a real environmentalist in the Senate. (Okay, I am being a little unfair to the other two.)

...what we don't need is for the feds to hand over the money to local jurisdictions and expect them to build new infrastructure. Where I live, that would just mean handing out contracts to the same ten families who benefited from the Republican-era tax cuts. It would be far better to train and employ PEOPLE in a coordinated rebuilding of America.

The first "bike" was a velocipede. Invented in Germany in 1807 (in response to an energy shortage, bad oat harvests for horse-feed), it had no pedals. People were amazed that they could travel 8 mph under their own power all day long. It actually took another 60 years for someone (a Frenchman, of course) to put pedals on these two-wheeled wonders.

For many years my parenting friends have been removing the crank sets from their children's first bikes because it makes it easier to learn to ride them. This approach has the advantage of being cheap, and when the wee ones have learned to balance you can put the cranks and pedals back on and you still have a useful bike.

I have to add one more unrelated piece of bike history. An article in the NY Times from around 1895 advised bicycle enthusiasts to only venture out in groups as they were otherwise likely to be physically attacked (unlike Europe where cyclists were greeted with smiles). From my experiences, some things just never change.

Interesting how the christianists always forget how American slavery was justified by their reading of their bible. How many tens of millions died during transit? Nice theology you folks have got there.

...I don't think you have to be a resident of a state to run for the U.S Senate from that state. Remember the wingnut from MD who ran against Obama in 2004 for the IL Senate seat? Still, Matthews may want to establish residency to blunt some of the carpetbagger criticisms.

So everyone agrees that a Hummer is not a sustainable way to move around the neighborhood. Get real. Is any car truly sustainable? Clearly not. If we persist in using them, we can't really claim the moral high ground, but we can claim a seat in the cancer ward, the diabetes clinic, the heart surgery suite and the low I.Q. children club (particulates are as harmful as lead).

Twenty years from now we won't be building cars of any kind, unless we are willing to look our kids and grandchildren in the eyes and tell them we love driving cars more than we love them. So, because of climate change issues and energy availability there really is no long term solution to the problems of the Big Three. As auto makers, they are going to fail.

Rather than throw them money to keep them afloat temporarily, would it not be wiser to throw them money to build something else? (I would enjoy the irony of GM building electric trolleys.) We have a lot of twenty-first century infrastructure to build and now seems like the best time to put our growing number of idle hands to work building it rather than rebuilding twentieth century icons.