California as if it were created by the gods for just such a role to play, is gearing up for the great electricity transition. What it might not be prepared for is the great switch over to nukes; new kinds of nukes, "safer" nukes, no CO2 nukes, smaller, cheaper, and less likely to impact one's viewshed, along with implications that pull an end run around the "no nukes" mentality that used to so characterise the california voter/consumer.

I mean, I'm as opposed to open pit mining the way it's being done now, whether in WV or SD..and if coal soot and other products of combustion actually was shown to be cooling and improving our atmosphere, I'd still be soundly against its practice.

Forget the notion of warming..the mercury and other heavy metals bioaccumulating in our foodchain and the other persistent organic pollutants (not CO2, which I believe will be seen as the benefit it actually is) will disrupt the natural systems far more than a few degrees shift. It's gonna be a sad day when we finally realise that CO2 is not the culprit some claim it to be because the real legitimate and genuine reasons to be eager and avid to see enviromental protection will be seen as just another example of misguided zeal.

Good luck on those windmills and on all forms of alternatives...we will need 'em and hopefully before we are reduced to eating our own.

If Blagojevich is going to get the fair appraisal of his guilt or innocence, I don't see how it can happen without releasing the other tapes on which we might be shocked to hear other politicians who are held in high esteem on both sides of the aisle.

So far as I can tell at this point, as much as I don't like the guy, he is beginning to look like a contender, even if a darkhorse, to be the first national leader who really pulls the wool from our eyes.

The sound of jaws hitting the floor might be resounding and resonant in the halls of Capitol Hill.

Like many of the commentors here I find the entire premise of the article to be weak if not outright stupid.

NATO was designed to keep the Soviet Block countries contained, which it did. The Soviet Union is over and so should our current level of participation in it. I'm not saying we shouldn't support it, or be ready to join again if a threat to the North Atlantic region arises again, but one of the dangers of these kinds of treaties is the question of entanglement in business that's really not ours to lead. For one thing the drug war and the history of poppy cultivation in regions like Afghanistan has created a chaotic and paradoxical political landscape that short of complete subjegation of the local people in a most heavy handed and tyrannical way is just never going to bring it to a level where we think it ought to be.

I say legalize the poppy and take away, or at least controll the wealth of who ever is using it...and my guess is that it's still more the domaine of the warlords (our allies) and not much of the Taliban which for all its faults are deadset against the use of opiates as it's against the intent in their holy book's message; to keep one's spirit devoted to the divine mission, which arguably narcotics undermine. Without the money to buy guns the various warlords and the fundamentalist Islamist Taliban will have to figure it out among themselves. The side that offers the most freedom and liberty for its people will be an onside favorite for recieving our help in the future.

One thing a clear perspective on the situation might provide is a path to a point where some enlightening leverage can be applied by our current leader who seems to have a better grasp on the problem (and, yes, it can be a problem) of drugs and does so without moralizing or invoking the divine's will, and that cuts through a lot of apprehension about how realistic a real world solution to the problem just might be. We're way past due for it.

I am going to have one right now!

If there can be only one emperor, let it Emperor Norton!

I hope Obama grants a full pardon, if not an appology to Tommy Chong, while he's at it.

My subject line is the punch line to a quote which was supposedly spoken by bankrobber Clyde Barker when asked why he robbed banks.

So why does the kleptocracy overwhelm DC?

Perhaps Sirota is making he case for smaller government which uses its powers to regulate rather than it's powers to collect revenue to be redistributed according to some overarching plan but in reality travelling through the bank accounts of some very fortunate and well placed individuals, who consequently become very powerful and wealthy and who use that wealth to primarily insure that the river of money always expands in their direction.

And how can it be otherwise? It's both history and human nature. No doubt we've achieved incredible things, but nothing has been as noteworthy as a society that has unparalelled freedoms, security, access to information, and still has some influence over the laws that rule over them. The rest, like military might, monuments to greatness, and economic prestige is just frosting and will soon be gone, most likely eaten by those who have the most priveledged access to it.

Argument regarding how heroic or lucky or unhappy aside, it's interesting to get your inside perspectives.

One I'd like to hear is how you think "the highway in the sky" concept, and the ascendency of small shuttle systems will affect the efficiency of the industry and the proficiency of the pilots and crews? Cheers.