PS&G in Jersey (almost the same letters, but a different company)) is also plugging a carbon-offset program - they're building wind farms. For a 3-5% increase on your bill, you can get 100% of your power from wind, or use a combination of wind, hydro and biofuel. The more people sign up, the more incentive they have to build more windmills, and the less incentive they have to burn coal. Now that makes an impact.

The airplane thing is huge - is there any reason this country shouldn't have high-speed rail like they do in Europe? Fuck Amtrak - lets get some of these trains that go 300 mph. For short or mid-range trips, it's faster than flying if you factor in getting there 2 hours early for security, the inevitable hour or two of delay, and the gamble that Northwestern isn't going to cancel your flight because they forgot to line up a crew. Build some old-school trains with comfort and style, figure out how to serve decent food, and you can still provide a better product than the airlines at a lower price. Not dumping tons of carbon into the air and fucking up the gulf stream is just a bonus.

As for this "you're evil for having kids" crap, the average American woman gives birth to less than 2 kids in her lifetime - in other words, our population is declining except for immigration. So we're doing our part - stop scolding us. Besides, if you really want to make a difference, you should just kill yourself and your whole family today - then you won't produce any carbon! A solution? Yes. One people are going to embrace? Probably not.

Also, unbelievably frightening. For the same reason.

Bringing up Putin's fascism and indifference to human life, so you can excoriate him for... taking control of his country's oil revenues? Are you kidding? Stalin murdered millions, Putin... stuck it to some insanely wealthy oil companies. Yeah, pretty much the same thing. Granted, Putin's done some awful things, but from Leonard's article, you'd think not letting Russia continue to give away her natural resources was the worst of the lot.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to plan the BP Executives' Lost Stock Price Memorial on the Washington Mall - I think we can wedge it in between Vietnam and the Holocaust Museum.

This isn't a response to the article so much as "anonymous'" bullshit:

>This tragedy is not about "guns" and "gun control." It's about a sick kid who didn't get the help he needed.

No, it's about both. There are sick kids in every country in the world. There aren't gun rampages in other industrialized nations because they don't leave guns just lying around for any idiot to pick up and use. Yes, Cho could have built a bomb, but bombs are hard to make and he could have just as easily blown himself up in the process. Plus, you need to secure materials to build a bomb, which arouses suspicion, which leads to him getting caught. He could have poisoned the cafeteria food, but he'd have to do so right under the noses of the cafeteria workers - every method you described is far more difficult to commit murder with than just pulling out a gun and unloading. Which is why you don't hear about some psycho in Canada committing a mass poisoning, but there's a gun-toting nut on a rampage every few months in this country.

> That's the only problem with guns in this country - rap's glorification of guns' use in killing people.)

Of course, because gun violence didn't exist before rap music was invented. Or was Al Capone blasting Dr. Dre on his iPod? What a bunch of racist bullshit. I'd imagine anonymous doesn't have a problem with John Wayne or Sam Peckinpaugh glorifying gun violence.

There's a guy who's smarter than you (at least about baseball - and no disrespect, he just knows all) and makes more money than you, King - Joe Morgan, of the Big Red Machine. He did an interview with SI a few years back that convinced me that, in an ideal world, he'd be commissioner and Bud Selig would just be a mediocre owner of a mediocre franchise.

Morgan pointed out how much MLB has invested in recruiting overseas players, particularly in the Carribean and Latin America, and asked why the league doesn't do the same thing in the US. Because it's not just black kids who aren't playing baseball - it's American kids who aren't into baseball the way their grandparents' generation was. Football's king, followed by basketball, followed by a big gap.

Baseball spends a ton of money setting up training centers, amateur leagues, recruitment system, etc., in places like the Dominican Republic. Why can't they do the same thing in Detroit? It's cheaper to fly the scouts back and forth, and even the kids who only play for a year or two are more likely to spend a day at the ballpark, or watching a game on TV even, than a kid who never put on a glove. Baseball doesn't just need to go back to recruiting American players; they need to recruit an American audience. And getting more African-Americans into the game is just a part of that (and not an unimportant one, but not the whole story).