October 2009

The upside of the downturn

While the recession is reportedly over, we can’t wax nostalgically about it yet because much of the suffering it caused continues.
Millions remain unemployed, many more are struggling, many who survived just fine have seen their 401ks, their home…

The party of hot air on taxes and the planet

Republican Administrations always raise taxes, either directly , as George “Read My Lips” Bush did, or indirectly through deficit spending and debt, as Ronald Reagan and George “Mission Accomplished” Bush did. So Republican claims to guardianship of…

This weekend the Times of London concluded Barack Obama won’t attend the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen. Why not? Because according to the Times, the conference failed. No matter that it hasn’t taken place yet.
The biggest piece of…

Noose tightens around coal power plants

The Environmental Protection Agency has agreed to reduce toxic pollution from coal and oil burning power plants by 2011, only 21 years after the law passed directing the agency to do so. And the agreement comes just one day before activists worldwide…

If you’re not worried yet about the effect of plastics on the environment, these pictures should do the trick. And if they don’t, you’d better check your heart to make sure it’s not made of plastic.
We’ve written before about the Great Pacific…

Sinatra to Royko: I punch you in the mouth

It’s off-topic Tuesday, sez me, because it enables me to offer you this gem of local color. A Rockford, Ill., woman is auctioning off a 1976 letter from Frank Sinatra to Mike Royko in which the blue-eyed singer takes umbrage to some charges penned by…

On climate change, Obama deserves the prize

The problem with where’s-the-beef commentary is that it often reveals an absence of beef in the head of the commenter.
As the national media frets today that Barack Obama should not have won the Nobel Peace Prize, the Wall Street Journal’s Keith…

Help Sen. Inhofe staff his Copenhagen truth squad

Sen. James Inhofe (R-Okla.) told the National Review recently that he’s going to lead a “truth squad” to the UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen in December. And we know what version of truth he’ll be enforcing: that anthropogenic global warming is…