You vote for congress. You buy stuff from industry. You're exactly who needs to hear this information so you can do you part to make change happen, through who you vote for in governmental elections and with your money. Berating isn't right, I agree, but if you're feeling the least bit guilty, make some voting choices with this issue in mind to assuage your guilt. You'll be doing the right thing, and, maybe, you'll find this sort of information less antagonistic since, in your own way, you'll have done what you can to make things better.

California has had a budget surplus the last two years. They expect to do so again this year.

I'm not sure what your point is with this comment as it relates to the subject at hand. Are you attempting to in some way support the congressman's view or perhaps just suggesting we need to find more energy efficient ways to produce, process and transport food? Whether a person is riding in a car or on a bike, they're going to ingest food. Is the difference between the food intake of the car passenger and the bike rider (with the commensurate net CO2 output difference) enough to validate the congressman's implication about the bike rider producing more CO2 than the car passenger? I doubt it.

I'm confused. Are you saying that an increasing standard of living, applied to more and more people as time goes on, puts less strain on the planet's natural resources? That seems counterintuitive to me.

Seems simple enough. What happens to the sea (and everything in it) when we start converting it to drinking water for however many billion people it is that have used up the ready supply of non processed drinking water? I have to believe there'll be some serious consequences from messing with the first link in the global food chain.

While the majority of innovation occurs in locations with sane approaches to the circulation of ideas.

The appeal of a relationship without fear of rejection and with guaranteed acceptance and understanding (no matter your personal peccadilloes) is very powerful, even if it is virtual. Attempting relationships with real people, regardless of medium, comes with the risk of emotional pain.

I've never copyright, trademark or patent infringed in my life (the pirate meme is so tiresome and inappropriate). The U.S. government should have no right to tap my communications (phone, internet, you name it) to see that I don't without probable cause and a warrant. Further, my tax dollars should not be going to fund the detection, evidence gathering, prosecution and punishment of infringement cases that should be remedied in civil court and in no way should be automatically assumed federal offenses bearing felony consequences. You don't have to want something for free to detest this kind of legislation and those that would support it. Sigh indeed.

Tell him he, and his generation, will take us there again. Then start selling him on the positives of a strong math and science education as the path that leads there. We got complacent because we had something that ran, now we'll have to go without for a bit. I figure right about the time your boy is leaving high school people will be hungry for manned space exploration again.

If you live in the U.S. you should care. There's a non-trivial possibility that this person could be President of the U.S.A. in a couple of years. Imagine the U.S. executive office occupied by someone more ignorant and more reactionary than G.W. Bush. On second thought, I misspoke, if you live anywhere you should care.

We bought a VW Jetta TDI Sportswagon in good ole Los Angeles just last year. I can give you the name of the dealership, or others we looked at that also sold said diesel based cars. Pretty sure they're still selling those, though they run out of stock pretty quick when they ship. Mod me redundant as others have said the same thing, but if ever there was a post deserving the mythical -1 Wrong moderation yours is it. Maybe you could get a -1 Troll instead since your false statement is ensconced in lovely trollish sentences?

Call me crazy but I think you just described GNU/Linux. And call me crazy again, but I think the average person can utilize that sort of programming freedom right now.