China Hearts Gas-Guzzlers

AKM, The apology is nice. I don't have any problem with insulting politicians, but I am a bit tired of what has become too common on both sides of the aisle: the subtle, unsupported jab. As for the socialism comment, I stand by it. Socialists get a weird pass from the environmental movement in spite of a terrible track record on the environment. I believe if you took the actual results of the Bush administration (outperforming almost all Kyoto signatories on the Kyoto standards), and somehow credited them to a socialist leader in a survey, that most environmentalists would give him a passing grade based on the curve. If at the same time, you took the performance of the best of the socialists and attributed them to Bush, they would grade the performance as an F without reflection. All they need to hear is "Bush" and they pull out the flunking grade. You would do well to use more objective sources for links. Neither is non-partisan. That commondreams thing would have been more convincing if they didn't try to hide their agenda to support Kerry.

Alright, I can't believe I'm going to say this but I agree with Landcrusher on the Bush-environment issue. (And this is crazy because I'm pretty sure we disagree on everything.) The actual results of the Bush administration on the environment are no worse than the Clinton administration or any democratic President. Arguably, it's even better. Not saying that it's good; they're all bad on environment but I this Bush has been targeted more harshly by environmental groups relative to more liberal presidents who are just as bad if not worse on the issue. (Won't comment about the socialists getting a free pass or whatever, seems like a strange argument though?) As for the article itself... I mean seriously? Is that last line supposed to be a joke? Sometimes I feel like TTAC is just baiting me. AKM has already made all the relevant points as to why cutting fuel consumption is a good idea so I won't go any further about that. But c'mon guys, stop baiting me. I love TTAC and would hate to get my IP banned so please, for my sake, give me a break.

Qusus, Thanks for your support. Perhaps I need to find a good example to use so you guys will get the socialism thing. The bottom line is that much of the environmental movement is more concerned with defeating capitalism than helping the environment to the point that they will let the earth rot to get rid of capitalism. G2H, Reagan was against the EPA for very good reasons. Mostly, property rights. He did not feel the EPA was doing enough positive work on the environment to justify it's damage to the country. This specific example aside, I do not believe that wanting to dismantle a large government department places someone against the thing that department regulates. The best example is the Department of Education. Getting rid of it would be, IMO, pro education, pro students, pro family, pro America, and pro teachers. The EPA has been much reformed, though still problematic. I believe that creative destruction is an ingredient that most bureaucracies would benefit from. I am concerned with results. The process over progress problem with our government has gotten so bad that most statistics we get out of them are contrary to reality. My most recent favorite is household income. Household income is down, not because wages are down (they are up) but because households are now smaller on average. Yet we never hear any of our leaders talk about this in proper context because they either don't get it, or want to misrepresent it to grab power.