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thanks :) ...but you are the wise one.
good try but not quite.
great set of artciles today! thanks for posting them.
don't you love Boxer! :)
getting a pension/retirement is communism? LOL
yeah, it's getting pretty predictatable...
it just amazes me how the ultra priviledge have snowed everyone into thinking it's the hard working american that's the problem with our economy rather than the greedy robber barrons themselves... they're like magicians distracting eyes from what's really happening
I haven't addressed how it should be funded, but it could be done given the right priorities.
I'm all for heavy estate taxes and gift taxes... probably not from the first dollar. We'd want to leave money to at least cover the cost of burials, support of under age children, etc. After that, why not? Shouldn't junior earn his own way?
or make the public sector option more available to the private sector? lol But seriosuly, there are obvious inequities in the retirement system. My view is that anyone who has legitimately worked their butt off for the majority of their lives deserves a decent retirement.
and of course we can argue for days what "legitimately" or "decent" means...
good question. why doesn't everyone deserve a good retirement and especially those who have put their lives on the line for the benefit of society?
Of course when it's an off balance sheet item outside the budget we don't have to pay.
LOL
Supreme Court Takes Up Global Warming Debate
By H. JOSEF HEBERT Associated Press
WASHINGTON -- The Supreme Court plunged on Monday into the acrimonious debate over global warming and whether the government should regulate "greenhouse" gases, especially carbon dioxide from cars. The ruling could be one of the court's most important ever on the environment.
Spurred by states in a pollution battle with the Bush administration, the court said it would decide whether the Environmental Protection Agency is required under the federal clean air law to treat carbon dioxide from automobiles as a pollutant harmful to health.
The decision could determine how the nation addresses global warming.
President Bush has rejected calls by environmentalists and some lawmakers in Congress to regulate carbon dioxide, the leading heat- trapping "greenhouse" gas going into the atmosphere. Bush favors voluntary actions and development of new technologies to curtail such emissions.
But a dozen states argued that carbon dioxide and other heat- trapping chemicals from automobile tailpipes should be treated as unhealthy pollutants. They filed a lawsuit in an effort to force the EPA to curtail such emissions just as it does cancer-causing lead and chemicals that produce smog and acid rain.
The Supreme Court on Monday agreed to take the case after a divided lower court sided with the administration. Arguments will be late this year, with a ruling by next June.
U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said "It is my hope that the U.S. Supreme Court will bring finality to this issue by rejecting this meritless lawsuit."
As chairman of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Inhofe is a key player on such issues in Congress.
He dismisses global warming as hoax.
"For the past 30 years, Congress has addressed and legislated extensively on the highly controversial and complex subject of global climate change," Inhofe said, adding that it has been clear the Clean Air Act was intended to regulate pollution, not emissions of carbon dioxide.
"Unfortunately, those who have failed to impose their draconian ideology through legislation are now trying to use the courts to overturn the will of Congress."
David Bookbinder, an attorney for the Sierra Club, one of a number of environmental groups that join the states in their appeal to the high court, said "This is going to be the first major statement by the Supreme Court on climate change. . . . This is the whole ball of wax."
While the case doesn't specifically involve carbon releases from power plants, environmentalists said a court decision declaring carbon dioxide a harmful pollutant would make it hard for the agency to avoid action involving power plants which account for 40 percent or the carbon dioxide released into the air.
Cars and trucks account for about half that amount.
The EPA said in a statement that the agency "is confident in its decision" not to regulate the chemical under the federal Clean Air Act and plans to argue its case vigorously before the high court
Recently, Bush told reporters he views global warming as a serious problem and has "a plan to be able to deal with greenhouse gases" short of regulating their use. It includes developing new technologies for cleaner burning coal, using alternative motor fuels such as ethanol as substitutes for gasoline and expanding nuclear power to produce electricity.
Critics argue that carbon emissions have continued to increase -- though the rate of increase has declined -- and only regulation of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases will stem the amount going into the atmosphere.
The states involved, which together account for more than a third of the car market, say the Clean Air Act makes clear carbon dioxide is a pollutant that should be regulated if it poses a danger to public health and welfare. They argue it does so by causing a warming of the earth.
The administration maintains that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels is not a dangerous pollutant under the federal law. And, officials argue, even if it is, the EPA has discretion over whether to regulate it, considering the economic costs.
Plaintiffs in the lawsuit were California, Connecticut, Illinois, Maine, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington. They were joined by a number of cities including Baltimore, New York City and Washington D.C., the Pacific island of American Samoa, the Union of Concerned Scientists, Greenpeace, and Friends of the Earth.
In other decisions Monday, justices:
By a 6-3 vote, said Vermont's limits on contributions and spending in political campaigns are too restrictive and improperly hinder the ability of candidates to raise money and speak to voters.
Decided by a 7-2 vote that prosecutors' failure to submit to a jury a factor used in sentencing is not grounds for automatic reversals of convictions.
Ruled 5-4 that defendants are automatically entitled to a new trial if their choice of a privately retained defense lawyer is wrongly blocked.
(c) 2006 Tulsa World. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.
http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/555871/supreme_court_takes_up_global_warming_debate/index.html?...
Global warming among top concerns in 2020: poll
Updated Fri. Jun. 30 2006 11:22 PM ET
Canadian Press
TORONTO -- By the year 2020, a majority of Canadians believe scientists will have found a cure for breast cancer, global warming will be the greatest crisis facing mankind and Quebec may no longer fly the maple leaf, a new poll suggests.
The survey, released Friday by the Dominion Institute, a charitable organization dedicated to educating Canadians about their country, asked poll respondents to imagine the state of their country 14 years from now.
Of the survey's 1,007 participants, 72 per cent said they believe global warming will have become the greatest crisis facing mankind by 2020.
...
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20060630/2020_poll_060630/20060630?hub=Canada&am...
States Take Lead on Mercury, Global Warming
by Timothy Lesle
In May, Minnesota signed into law a mercury emission standard for its six biggest coal-fired power units—a rule stricter than that proposed by the federal government. In April, 11 states, the District of Columbia, and three environmental groups, including the Sierra Club, filed suits against the EPA for not regulating carbon dioxide. Late last year, seven northeastern states announced their participation in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative to reduce power plant emissions of carbon dioxide, a key driver of global warming. An eighth state, Maryland, will become a full member next year; this March, it adopted what is described as “the strongest power-plant cleanup bill ever passed by a legislative body in America.” Eight states (and Canada) have adopted California “clean car” legislation, which calls for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from vehicles. And in April, Idaho adopted a two-year moratorium on coal-fired power plants, establishing a “zero new mercury emissions” limit. One state senator said that he’d received a “wheelbarrel-full” of e-mails in support of the ban.
Actions like these show that states are taking aggressive stances on environmental protection as the federal government is going in the other direction. The irony, says Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope, is that “theoretically, getting power down to the state and local level is what [the Republican leaders in Washington] stand for.”
“What’s most interesting about all this pro-environmental activity in the states is that it isn’t confined, or even concentrated, in liberal states with liberal governors,” writes Pope on his blog, “Although it is happening in places like Vermont, New Jersey, and Illinois, it actually seems to be concentrated in more conservative states with Democratic governors, and in more liberal states with Republican governors.”
Case in point is the state-level action on mercury emissions. In 2005, the federal EPA proposed the Clean Air Mercury Rule, a set of regulations that would ultimately cut coal-fired power plant mercury emissions about 70 percent by 2018 and establish a mercury pollution credit trading regime. In response, Tim Pawlenty, the Republican governor of Minnesota, said, “The goal the federal government has set is too low and too slow.”
The goal of Minnesota’s phased plan is higher and faster than the EPA’s: 90 percent reduction from its six largest coal plant units by 2014. Those six units release about two-thirds of the state’s mercury emissions. And Minnesota is not alone, as several other states have passed or are seriously considering similar rules, including Illinois, New York, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia, and Montana. Mercury is a neurotoxin that can sicken adults and severely affect the development of children and fetuses; people consume it in contaminated fish. The single largest man-made source of mercury pollution in the U.S. is from power plant emissions. In a national hair sampling project, which the Sierra Club helped conduct, preliminary results show that one in five women has higher mercury levels than the EPA’s recommended limit.
Minnesota’s mercury regulations come after years of organizing by groups like the Sierra Club’s North Star Chapter, working with volunteers and the Mercury Free Minnesota Coalition. The coalition negotiated with state offices and utilities to formulate the plan, which sailed through both state houses with unanimous approval from lawmakers.
“Minnesota is the ‘Land of 10,000 Lakes,’” says Christopher Childs, the chapter’s conservation chair and clean air co-chair, “You basically don’t find a body of water in Minnesota that doesn’t have mercury contamination in the fish.” Brian Pasko, the chapter’s legislative coordinator, credits public demand for sparking the state government’s support for strict mercury rules. Furthermore, Pasko notes, “The mantra throughout the [legislative] session was that Minnesota needs to be a leader and we need to do better than the federal standard.”
While Minnesota’s mercury plan enjoys widespread support, similar proposed rules in Pennsylvania face tougher opposition from utilities, coal mining interests, and a conservative legislature. “We would be the first coal-producing state to have a mercury rule in place,” says Jeff Schmidt, the Pennsylvania Chapter senior director.
The Sierra Club and 60 other organizations, led by umbrella group PennFuture, petitioned the state to take regulatory action in lieu of the weaker federal standards. The Club’s Building Environmental Communities program, with organizers like Annie Leary of the Philadelphia office, worked with the chapter to gather 10,000 signed postcards to the administration of Governor Edward Rendell to show the strong public support for a state mercury rule. The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) agreed, and has now proposed a rule that requires a 90 percent reduction in mercury emissions by 2015.
Despite this advance, the Pennsylvania legislature is considering bills that would require the state to stick with the federal rules.
In his efforts to preserve these stricter rules, Schmidt has been telling legislators that by supporting the federal rules, they are locking Pennsylvania into an illegal plan. Since it allows pollution trading, plants that haven’t upgraded their facilities can continue emitting mercury by buying pollution “credits” from plants that are up to code. “While the Clean Air Act does allow trading for pollutants like nitrogen oxides or sulfur dioxide,” says Schmidt, “it does not allow for trading of pollutants considered toxic. And mercury is definitely considered a toxic pollutant under the act.” Trading, he says, means a power plant can “buy its way out of cleaning up”—and Pennsylvania’s power industry currently purchases more pollution credits than any other state. “The consumers of Pennsylvania are seeing their electric rate money being sent to other states to clean up their plants, rather than being spent here in Pennsylvania.”
If Pennsylvania lawmakers won’t listen to Schmidt, they may still listen to voters. In early June, PennFuture released a poll showing that 80 percent of Pennsylvanians support the state’s mercury rule, and 63 percent are less likely to vote for a legislator who does not support the rule.
The federal government may not be acting on citizen concerns about mercury and global warming, but a growing number of states are. On June 11, the effort to stop global warming got another boost when the Western Governors Association passed a resolution, with bipartisan support, calling for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions. As California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, says: “This is not us versus the federal government as much as we say, ‘Look, we have it happening in our states, and we can make an impact…And if we join forces we can make more of an impact.’”
http://www.sierraclub.org/planet/200604/states.asp
acknowleding that cops have a dangerous job doesn't exclude the fact that other professions are also dangerous.
[edited]
thanks and welcome to the board!
It's hard to keep this subject out of the political arena since taking significant actions to remedy the problems of global warming requires political involvement. So your article is appropriate.
The Bush administrations ignoring this problem and even exasperating it by loosening environmental standards is very relevant.
I knew about omega 3 for lowering bp... but not the rest. great article.
LOL
raise the retirement to 40 years? that's ridiculous... for that line of work they earn every penny of their pension and every day of early retirement IMO the job is too stressful and dangerous to do 40 years
you're welcome :)
Why doesn't she?
I'm sure there could be many reasons. She may choose to stear clear of politics in order to continue her good works in many other areas. When she spoke out about beef, she ended up in litigation for a long time which completely disrupted her life and career.
more about Michaels...
But Peter Gleick, a conservation analyst and president of the Oakland-based Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment and Security, said "Pat Michaels is not one of the nation's leading researchers on climate change. On the contrary, he is one of a very small minority of nay-sayers who continue to dispute the facts and science about climate change in the face of compelling, overwhelming, and growing evidence." [6] (http://www.pacinst.org/climate_change/star_press.html)
Michaels responded by threatening to sue. (Michaels had gotten another scientist to withdraw similar remarks.)[7] (http://www.pacinst.org/press_center/censorship/) But Gleick stood by his statement and others have joined him.
Dr. John Holdren of Harvard University told the U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee, "Michaels is another of the handful of US climate-change contrarians... He has published little if anything of distinction in the professional literature, being noted rather for his shrill op-ed pieces and indiscriminate denunciations of virtually every finding of mainstream climate science." [8] (http://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/HoldrenRPCClimateComments.pdf)
Dr. Tom Wigley, lead author of parts of the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and one of the world's leading climate scientists, was quoted in the book "The Heat is On" (Gelbspan, 1998, Perseus Publishing): "Michaels' statements on [the subject of computer models] are a catalog of misrepresentation and misinterpretation… Many of the supposedly factual statements made in Michaels' testimony are either inaccurate or are seriously misleading." [9] (http://www.pacinst.org/press_center/censorship/)
And an article in the journal Social Epistemology concluded "...the observations upon which PM [Patrick Michaels] draws his case are not good enough to bear the weight of the argument he wishes to make."
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Patrick_J._Michaels
sorry... that's not a logical conclusion.
all we'd have to do is launch all available nukes
please post links, dates of articles and references. Otherwise I'll have to disregard your contributions.
and looks like your second guy is changing his mind...
Michaels is one of a group of global warming skeptics and continues to dispute some aspects of global warming, including evidence of rising global temperatures. Recent statements suggest, however, that he is accepting the conclusion of the IPCC that there is a human influence on the climate, though he continues to maintain that current and future warming will occur at the low end of the range IPCC assessments
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_J._Michaels
no link? when did he write that article? I don't see any date on it... also, it should be noted that he is no longer with us... died Aug 2005.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Wanniski
you care to provide some data, scientific evidence, an article or rational explanation?
I could be mistaken, but he made it sound like a done deal. And that's exactly it... passing the buck to the middle class for the benefit of the wealthies few... must be a Bush family motto.
we're going to blame Oprah for what he boyfriend was involved with??? she may not have known of it or would have approved of it. Is she even still with him?
For Decendents dying before Jan 2006
out of date info
LOL
another thing the atty mentioned that is a good point is that if you are a homeowner in this area, your assets are very likely over the $1 million mark. So although I would agree that the limit needed to be raised from the 600K it use to be... going to the $7 million mark is a bit overboard. And in a time of record deficits, darn right irresponsible.
thanks! it is very interesting.
darn... I was hoping it wouldn't effect earthquakes. And isn't the Cascade region up there where you are?
I didn't know that... do you have more info on that?
which Washington think tank? why do you so often neglect to link to your sources?
According to a Probate Atty I talked to yesterday... it's $2 million now but is already set to go to 3.5 million per person ($7 million per couple).
That's a good point, but the US is still responsible for the lion's share of carbon inspite of China's rapid growth.
Besides what I can do around the house, I'm going to push my representatives to push for increase fuel efficiency. And my next vehicle is definitely going to be a hybrid.
LOL!
Seems unusually warm to me :)
Welcome to the board!
CLIMATE
a new board dedicated to the subject of Global Warming
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board.asp?board_id=6099