Subscribe to Excerpts
Subscribe by Email
Anyone who has followed Mark’s and Harold’s diligent chronicling of the Rick Perry crazy over the last few days should hardly be surprised when he says something inane. But if you’re going to be a nutcase paranoid, you should at least make sense on your own terms. Too high a bar, apparently. Today, Perry rehashed [...]
Archive for the ‘Energy and Environment’ Category
August 17th, 2011
August 11th, 2011
Megan McArdle wants to know how trucking fuel economy standards could be justified. Answer: fuel efficiency benefits oil consumers as a group at the expense of oil producers.
July 22nd, 2011
I admire Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard for promising that 50% of the revenue from her proposed carbon tax will be returned to the Australian people as a tax cut. I’d admire her more if it were 100%, but nonetheless she deserves high marks for recognizing that there is no essential logical connection between reducing [...]
June 15th, 2011
Category: Energy and Environment, Libertarianism
Libertarians often say that public lands should be handed over to the private sector, which has an incentive to conserve them. But doesn’t the same logic that leads them to hate teachers’ unions also imply that forest rangers will do anything to preserve the forests that provide their cushy jobs?
June 3rd, 2011
Category: MSM (mainstream media), Water
China has a water problem. A BIG water problem. Are the media underestimating just how big it is because they live in wet places?
May 29th, 2011
Category: Britain, Built Environment, Energy and Environment, Europe, Infrastructure, Technology and Society
A gallery of designer pylons and a British government pylon competition.
May 23rd, 2011
Category: Campaign 2012, Climate change, Energy and Environment, Republican Party, Watching Conservatives
(UPDATED: See below.). I’ve had a good bit of fun jumping on the Republican Party for its hypocrisy on energy subsidies. So when a Republican does the right thing, it’s important to acknowledge it: Former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty made a potentially risky move during his campaign launch speech in Iowa: he called for a phaseout of ethanol [...]
May 17th, 2011
Category: 2011 Democratic Agenda, Campaign 2012, Energy and Environment, Health Care, Republican Party
In the last three days, Senator Scott Brown of Massachusetts has endorsed Paul Ryan’s plan to end Medicare, and just today voted against repealing oil company subsidies. That’s more right wing than Susan Collins. Some polls show Brown relatively popular in Massachusetts. A few months of truthful negative ads should put an end to that. [...]
May 17th, 2011
The next time a conservative tells you that he believes in the free market and balanced budgets, just show him this: Republicans senators who in the past have supported ending tax subsidies to big oil companies are prepared to vote Tuesday night with their party leadership to keep those subsidies in place. “I’m going to [...]
April 28th, 2011
Category: Built Environment, Energy and Environment, Infrastructure, Republican Party, Transportation, Watching Conservatives
The New York Times reports this morning: The Christie administration, lenders and a new developer have reached a deal to revive the vast Xanadu entertainment and retail complex, which sits forlorn and unfinished along a stretch of New Jersey highway after having burned through two owners and $1.9 billion, people involved in the negotiations said [...]
