What froggy is talking about is called many things: nodal developmant, smart growth, mixed use centers, new urbanism. Unfortunately, what it ends up producing is areas of dense automobile usage. No one voluntarily walks in exhaust fumes, so forget about seeing hordes of pedestrians who have forsaken their cars.

It has the added problem that it creates areas that are so dangerous for cyclists that you very quickly end up with no way out of the sprawl except by car. I watched this happen during the '80s in a city where 90% of all trips were previously done by bike. After a decade of this type of development, there were almost no cyclists left. The net effect of building infrastructure for cars will always be increased car usage (until the oil runs out). We need to be smarter.

Krugman has called the Bush fiasco all the way down the line. I hate to idol worship, but when Paul says Obama's plan has too many tax breaks and too little direct job formation, I think we should alter the plan. Good on those Dems who want understand this.

...then I could use a few hundred thousand today. I guess I'll go rob a local bank. When the cops come, I'll just point out that we are in a place in history where we are all just going to look forward. I'm sure they'll understand.

I see the so-called capitalists have been so good for the environment. It's not like we have any environmental issues to confront now, do we?

Capitalism just socializes things that aren't money. For instance, when there is a south wind I can smell the air pollution from the Baxter Wood Treatment plant at the school where I volunteer. It is so strong you would swear you are in a tank of diesel fuel. Or, I can stroll a few hundred meters from my house to the Willamette river and see the muddy, mercury-tainted water flow towards Portland. It is nearly dead and definitely deadly; all of this was created in the name of making money. None of these polluters has paid for the damage they have done to our common property and our health, and yet, if I were to do the same to their homes, I would most certainly be arrested and made to pay restitution.

If we could get Bubba to stop trying to relive his exaggerated high school glory days and do some real parenting, we would probably have very few high school football teams in existence and the level of refereeing in youth soccer would improve dramatically. I simply do not understand how a parent could not apply the precautionary principle to his/her child's activities. I don't care how "tough" my child is perceived as being at 14; I want them to be at their best during their adult years, not mentally deficient.(Don't forget the physical trauma to knees and spines that occurs in football. Remember Jim Otto.)

I'm watching one of the recently exposed false autobiographers rebuild her life as a nurse. She is working all night, sleeps two hours in her car (her instructor wakes her up on the way to class), and has to find a live-in helper to be at her house while her young daughter sleeps. Tragically, the only fiction in her book was the main character.

I know that in politics we usually see reality take a back seat to profits, but I can't believe Chu actually mentioned plug-in hybrids in a positive light. With over half of our grid supported by coal combustion, a move to any form of electric wheelchairs is the last thing the planet needs. Considering we have less than two decades to reduce our emissions by 80-90%, any form of overweight wheelchairs can have no place in our near-term transportation future. Unless, of course, we are content to be the generation that ends history.

The only problem was, he was far too optimistic about this fiasco.

I would love to know what w thought of those words. Oh, never mind. I forgot one should never use any variation of think and w in the same sentence.

Halting the illegal prosecutions is an excellent start. Now our President needs to close that offensive nightmare down and either prosecute the cases in our courts or set these men free.

He swore to faithfully execute the duties of the office of Pres. The Conventions Against Torture treaty (signed by Reagan) don't give him any wiggle room; he must prosecute the admitted torturers and those who gave approval or hand them over to another country for prosecution. End of story. President Obama will either have the Bush regime prosecuted or he will be a criminal himself. That said, I truly believe that he will go through with the prosecutions as long as his feet are held to the fire.

"The American public -- and media and cognoscenti -- are not prepared for the scale of effort needed to preserve a livable climate."

Since the author continues to advocate for coal-powered cars, I would say he fails the test of being prepared for the scale of effort necessary to prevent a potential catastrophe. Even if we do not build a single coal-fired plant ever again, the current plants in operation (50% of all electricity comes from coal) would nearly guarantee our demise, according to James Hansen.

Bottom line: in order to avoid killing off the only livable planet we have, Americans need to reduce their emissions of GHG by 80-90% over the next fifteen to twenty years. This leaves no room for cars of any sort.

We have already begun to see several climate "tipping points": less absorption of CO2 by the oceans, loss of Arctic ice, methane plumes from Arctic oceans to name a few. Life will change dramatically over the next twenty years. The only question is whether we will change our lifestyles to a mode that will allow us to survive