| The Mitchell Report and the Media Blame Game
Longtime Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessey agrees with Center:
"It's a hard area to pursue. I never saw any of it go on in front of me. It wasn't something that jumped out." He admits that the 1998 home run chase did not receive as much skepticism as it should have, but he notes that several acceptable factors contributed to the increased numbers, including smaller ballparks and more players swinging for the fences. "I don't think it is fair to blame them," he says of the beat writers.
Center and Shaughessey lose all credibility in the face of Starr and his peers' plaintive wails about steroids, combined with the fact that Operation Equine, a federal investigation into steroid distribution, turned up the names of Jose Canseco and Mark McGwire - among others - in 1992, just three years later.
Rudd Government cool on Garnaut's climate challenge
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has championed the issue of climate change and one of his first acts was to ratify the Kyoto agreement. He also pledged to put an emissions trading scheme in place by 2010. Senator Wong called yesterday's report – the final document is due in September – "early thinking" on the policy response to climate change. But Australian Greens leader Bob Brown said the Government was trying to minimise the importance of Professor Garnaut because he had followed the science. "Penny Wong has reduced Ross Garnaut to input," Senator Brown said. "There are huge vested interests at play here; the coal industry, the aluminium industry, the forest logging industry and it's up to the Rudd Government to put this country ahead of those vested interests." Professor Garnaut also cast doubt on the Government's renewable energy target, saying it might not be needed once the emissions trading scheme (ETS) was established.
GM Exec Stands by Calling Global Warming a “Total Crock of Shit”
European car makers are light-years ahead of GM and have been for years. Europeans manage very nicely with smaller, efficient, intelligent, creatively designed cars. Why do so many US drivers think that they need a vehicle the size and weight of a tank, with aesthetics even more unpalatable? Maybe it has to do with the lack of real driver training in the US. In Europe, one has to learn to pilot a vehicle to receive a license. Most of the people who drive the gargantuan tanks in the US should be required to have a commercial driving license, with all the training that requires. There's just not much intelligence applied to the aspect of cars and driving in the US. Where I live, you'd think the flashing turn signal device did not exist. So what do you expect from the big cheese at Giant Motors? .
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