Ron Wyden has to put on a good progressive show here. He knows he is going to have trouble getting the foot-soldiers that propelled Jeff Merkley to his Senate seat last year and campaign dollars are somewhat scarce in a third-world state like OR. He reminds me of former Senator Gordon Smith: every six years he acts less right-wing than he is and counts on his base having no one else to turn to.

Revealing shrub's private thoughts is a bit like auditing my billion-dollar stock portfolio.

The late Jesse Unruh would certainly know how to handle this. As treasurer of CA (back when CA was solvent, before decades of Rs as govs), he realized that he controlled a substantial stock portfolio and decided to stop asking Wall Street and begin telling them what to do. I miss politicians who have both courage and morals. We just don't seem to be making Democrats like that anymore.

It is true that menacing strangers and child molesters are somewhat rare (though not rare enough). However, how can parents let their children walk the streets alone when none of the drivers, including the parents, drive safely. If they aren't texting or talking on their phones (with their minds as far away as the person they are talking to) they are "in a rush" and thus don't need to stop at red lights or stop signs unless another car is in their way.

In my town we recently had two bicyclists killed by motorists who were blatantly breaking the law. Neither killer was even issued a citation. Pedestrians and cyclists are many times more likely to be killed than occupants of motor vehicles for the simple reason that the drivers refuse to drive safely. While there never was a golden age, at least where I grew up people didn't race obliviously through residential neighborhoods and school zones. Real terrorists use car keys.

You may not be a vegetarian now, but CAFOs exist for chicken, farmed fish and cattle as well as pigs. Welcome to the vegetarian world. You'll be amazed at the many varieties of beans and rice, all quite nice with the right spice.

I'm not so surprised at Democrats with missing genitalia, but I often wonder how so many politicians of all stripes survive without appearing to have any heart. They have gotten theirs, screw all others.

I don't know if there is enough of whatever rare-earth element is needed for 9 billion people to drive hybrids, whether plug-in or not. I do know that there are not enough carbon sinks to absorb all of the resulting greenhouse gasses for more than a couple of hundred million to do so. We are long overdue for an elevation to walking, cycling and mass transit as our means of traveling from point A to point B.

It is so sad to see the Obama administration violating the Convention Against Torture treaty and thus become war criminals themselves. There is still time to prosecute the credible allegations of torture and approval of torture as required by law, but the clock is ticking to midnight.

Brother, you need some professional help. Maybe your employer has some sort of employee assistance program to help you deal with your mental health issues.

If he really said that only one country should have nuclear weapons, maybe we should consider it. We need to carefully select a country that is resistant to fascism, respects human rights and is a good environmental steward. Obviously the U.S. is out. Maybe Sweden or Denmark would agree to be the lone nuclear nation.

Some twenty-odd years ago a couple of young men sued one of the Cal. State campuses in SoCal. It seems they were offered a college education in return for playing on the school's basketball team. They enrolled in and passed all of the classes the athletic department recommended (with a little "help" from their tutors) and were surprised to find that after four years of doing as they were told they were nowhere near a diploma. To make matters worse, it seems that neither of them could read at an eighth grade level. Their lawyers contended that the University had a legal obligation to continue their scholarships until they graduated, or at least until they had a reasonable level of education. Sadly, they were crushed in court. It is not just the "for profit" diploma mills that lack integrity.

"...[T]hat may even result in marginal environmental benefits." I'm not buying it, in more ways than one. Embodied CO2 emissions are still emissions (one of the reasons it does not make sense to scrape an average-emissions vehicle for a new Prius). From the article you sourced: "The current U.S. cash for clunkers program is (a) not targeted only at older vehicles (vehicles more than 25 years old aren't even eligible) and is (b) a cash-for-replacement scheme. So it probably can't stand on its own as a positive environmental step, even though the gas mileage of the new vehicles purchased so far has been encouragingly high."

Add in the likelihood that people who purchase a new car will suddenly discover several new driving "needs", and we are really moving in the wrong direction. For example, my neighbor bought a new car and now "needs" to drive to the garden/park at the end of the street on a regular basis. Funny how she would walk the one-fifth mile before her purchase.

The end of cheap oil can't happen soon enough.