Fear

From CoffeeShark:

Sarkozy for President-- of the U.S.A!

I listened to the speech yesterday. He spoke of "individual liberty" and how people in America earned what we have with their own hands, without expectations of hand outs. Whoever converted this speech to text omitted that part.
I've been told that it is "absolutely maddening" that editors "cut bits and pieces out of a full text speech." It certainly isn't truthful.

What we need are canditates running for President to use some of these beautiful platitudes:

"America's moral value consisted in its "extraordinary ability to grant people another chance"; it was a country where "failure is never the last word", where nothing is owed but everything has to be earned.

Here, both the humblest and most illustrious citizens alike know that nothing is owed to them and that everything has to be earned. That's what constitutes the moral value of America. America did not teach men the idea of freedom; she taught them how to practice it. And she fought for this freedom whenever she felt it to be threatened somewhere in the world. It was by watching America grow that men and women understood that freedom was possible.

What made America great was her ability to transform her own dream
into hope for all mankind.

NEPA: a place for energy

In an ideal world, a higher tax on energy would be a good thing for the environment, and would be acceptable to the people. But who amongst us informed citizens actually believe that the lion's share of that money taken from people will actually be used to to boost efficiency, find new energy sources or to improve the environment.

Sure, they will spend a small fraction on those initiatives, but the lion's share will go to social engineering and pork, just as government always does, and inefficiencies in government is one further strike against using higher taxes to control people's lives.

The best way to affect change with respect to energy is to fund R&D directly, or indirectly with tax breaks for these efforts.

We have NASA, the most effective government agency to date, why not create another effective agency to do this kind of R&D on energy? One that is independent of the government bureaucracy in Washington D.C.

Call it National Energy and Power Administration: NEPA

(not to be confused with a water scorpion or the word nepotism :)

On more thing about these polls: It's all in how they word the questions, and talk about government waste is usually omitted. If the questions were worded better, I'm sure the public would think twice about the simple tax and spend option. Nepotism really does apply to government.

"Most ready for 'green sacrifices'

"The poll suggests the public are more ready than politicians
Most people are ready to make personal sacrifices to address climate change, according to a BBC poll of 22,000 people in 21 countries."

"Four out of five people said they were prepared to change their lifestyle - even in the US and China, the world's two biggest emitters of carbon dioxide."

"Opinion was split over tax rises on oil and coal - 44% against, 50% in favour....

"Support would rise if the cash was used to boost efficiency and find new energy sources, the poll suggested."