Meh. Even with idiotic US subsidy, the cars lack range, a consequence of poor energy density. Acceptance of second-rate cars is necessarily minimal.

"I think it's a myth Americans aren't interested. It's a myth they don't like science and scientists ... But there's some partisan political affiliation going on, and sometimes science tells them they don't want to hear and they don't like to deal with. Climate change is a great example, because the problem is so enormous and the implications mean restructuring our economy and our energy supply system."

The problem with this oft-repeated trope is that the pro-AGW forces are inevitably playing politics with the very "science" they claim to rest their arguments on. Over and over, we read of hidden, manipulated, and cherry-picked data, refusals to abide with having outsiders vet their work, and allowing naked advocacy into the IPCC reports on climate change as if they were peer-reviewed science. "Truthout" -- one of the most preposterous names imaginable -- here advances the same political agenda. It is environmentalism wrapped in a lab coat.

The Canadians walked away from Kyoto; shall we ask if they, too, are anti-science? Or does that only cover the US?

MLB's At Bat app for the iPhone and other phones is one of the best sports apps I've ever seen. Players have adopted iPads as a scouting aid. I don't know where the author makes the claim that sports are technophobic; perhaps a better way of putting it is that they're slow to adopt, but that's not the same thing as Luddism.

Yay for the "do-nothing Congress!"

"No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session."

-- Gideon J. Tucker

It's interesting to me that Smith is in Texas. It always seems like the entertainment biz is keeping cow state politicians in cash. For a long time, one of the senators from South Carolina -- I want to say Ernest/Fritz Hollings -- was in Disney's pocket. The lesson seems to be, buy a Southern politician: they're cheaper and they stay bought.

The NTSB is proposing this because there is a huge amount of incontrovertible evidence that when people talk on their cell phones while driving (regardless of whether the phone is hands-free), the become distracted and drive badly.

Opposite, what? Carrying a three-year-old in the backseat?

No, this is an excuse. A stupid idea and an encroachment on legitimate freedoms.

Great idea. What if someone in the car next to you has a real need to be on the phone?

The FCC has made these illegal for a REASON.

The FCC is implementing a law passed by Congress. The FCC did not "pass" anything.

If it's so damned dangerous, why do the cops get a permanent exception?

Spare me the "talking on your phone and driving kills people" sophistry. So does anything else that distracts from driving. Shall we next eliminate cupholders in cars because drinking and driving "kills people", too?

It's poorly identified at the story link. The original can be found at latimes.com.

The word "Internet" appears nowhere on that infographic, which appears designed to rile up the lefty animals. Presenting "media" as one monolithic entity fits right in with that blinkered worldview and confirms it, but it is only that: bias confirmation for people inclined to wave blue flags.

Diffuseness and environmental considerations will keep this from being a significant source of energy. Bank on it.

The IPCC doesn't know about this. Or does this only apply to the "soft sciences"?

It's not paranoid when they've established a consistent pattern of spying on citizens without cause in the wake of 9/11.

The demands of perfect safety at all times is actually chasing better designs off the table; "no new reactors" means better designs can't be built.

Fukushima is an example of how subtly corrupting the "public/private partnership" can be in privatizing gain while pushing risk onto the shoulders of the public.

Mankind will turn to nuclear power because it is cleaner than the alternatives, because it is energy dense, because it is scalable, and because it is dispatchable (available when we need it). This headline reflects a temporary revulsion from the tsunami, nothing more.

as "scalable". Solar is really impractical to harvest in large quantities, doesn't work well for baseload generation because of no way to store surplus, needs distribution, etc. I get his point but the title is somewhat misleading.