STANDING UP FOR THE PLANET:

Newsweek just offered me a professional discount of 92%, apparently because I am breathing, allowing me to get 54 issues for $20.00!

Hmm…, no, I think I’ll decline on behalf of the environment and save the trees instead. It’s what they would want me to do were they to be taken seriously.

An eco-warrior.

ED CONE: “It’s just odd to read that companies are starved for funding when my bank account doesn’t pay me squat.”

THOUGHTS ON DEMOGRAPHY AND DESTINY:

My question – is it unreasonable to wonder whether the low European birth rates can be tied to their living arrangements? I have lived in Manhattan with two kids, and in the suburbs with more than two. Trust me, or try it for yourself – the suburbs are easier to manage when lots of kids are in the picture.

Or try this simple census survey – how many couple can you think of that met in the cities, had children, and moved to the suburbs? Now, how many couples have kids in the suburbs and then move with them into the city? Hmm…

Read the whole thing. And it might be worth reading this piece, and perhaps even this one, if the subject interests you.

DRIVING OUR SUVs AND EATING WHAT WE WANT: Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

NEW REALITIES IN LEBANON: The “resistance” as oppressor.

CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY?

Farmers and consumers in poor countries are now paying the price now for decisions made by well-fed Westerners, as reported by my colleagues Keith Bradsher and Andrew Martin in their front-page article on cutbacks in financing for agricultural research. They explain how the Green Revolution faltered after Western governments and agencies slashed funds for agricultural research, partly to shift money to other areas, like environmental projects, and partly because of opposition to high-yield agriculture from advocacy groups.

Like Scrooge, they’re more about reducing the surplus population.

I MENTIONED MPG DISPLAYS EARLIER, and here’s an aftermarket MPG display that you can put in your existing car. Thanks to reader Matt Szekeley for the link. The gadget is also getting good customer reviews at Amazon.

HMM: As Time Runs Short, Clinton Claims Lead in Popular Vote.

HITTING THE NAIL ON THE HEAD, and listening to the nails complain.

HOW TO BE THE NEW DEAN of Columbia’s School of International and Public Affairs.

HEH: “How many people showed up for Obama’s rally in Kentucky? Oh, he didn’t campaign there?”

UPDATE: A correction: “Obama did campaign there, just not often.”

WELL, MOST P.R. TEXTS FROWN ON THIS TACTIC: Muslim school officials attack news crew in Twin Cities.

OBAMA’S GOT TENNESSEE REPUBLICANS fighting among themselves.

MOHAMMED FADHIL: Iraq Hunts Al-Qaeda in Its Last Urban Stronghold.

SOMEBODY TELL AL GORE: “Global warming isn’t to blame for the recent jump in hurricanes in the Atlantic, concludes a study by a prominent federal scientist whose position has shifted on the subject. Not only that, warmer temperatures will actually reduce the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic and those making landfall, research meteorologist Tom Knutson reported in a study released Sunday. . . . The study, published online Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience, predicts that by the end of the century the number of hurricanes in the Atlantic will fall by 18 percent. The number of hurricanes making landfall in the United States and its neighbors — anywhere west of Puerto Rico — will drop by 30 percent because of wind factors.”

Wanna bet that regardless of this study, any big hurricanes this summer will be treated in the media as having clearly been caused by global warming?

GERALDINE FERRARO MAY NOT VOTE FOR OBAMA if he’s the nominee. “Ferraro, a former member of Clinton’s finance committee who resigned that post earlier this year after making comments many viewed as racially offensive, also said she thinks the Illinois senator has been ‘terribly sexist’ over the course of the presidential campaign.”

OH, WELL, THOSE STATES IN THE MIDDLE DON’T MATTER ANYWAY: Winning Democratic votes in Tennessee with Klan imagery.

I’VE GOT AN ASUS 900 9″ LAPTOP for review now. Details later, but this one has a 9″ screen and Windows XP, for $549. First impressions: Look and feel is like the 7″ Asus only wih a bigger screen (no surprise) and the keyboard isn’t as good as the HP Mini-Note, but it seems considerably zippier, probably because it has XP instead of Vista. Maybe I should try upgrading the Mini-Note to XP . . . .

HOW CONVENIENT: Smokers are happier when cigarettes cost more?

JAMES EARL OBAMA?

LAWN-MOWING ROBOT: Still a few bugs in the system.

HEH: “Can’t imagine that? Okay, it’s tough for me, too, and I was reading Isaac Asimov when I was three while benchpressing a copy of Stranger in a Strange Land.”

SOME OF “those states in the middle?”

GEE, WHAT DO YOU THINK? L.A. red light cameras clicking for safety or revenue?

Plus, traffic fines are for the little people: “Among the thousands of drivers who have been issued $40 fines after being nabbed by Montgomery County’s new speed cameras are scores of county police officers. The difference is, many of the officers are refusing to pay.”

UPDATE: Various readers like this highlight from the Montgomery County story:

In recent weeks, officers have twice been photographed speeding past a camera and extending a middle finger, an act that police supervisors interpreted as a gesture of defiance.

Yeah, that’s how I interpret it, too. I suspect those officers aren’t as sympathetic when defiant gestures are aimed at them. This sense of entitlement and exceptionalism among law enforcement is a good reason to cut taxes and buy a gun . . . .

ANOTHER UPDATE: This guy thinks I’m calling for a revolution, and shooting cops. No, I’m calling for layoffs in the police force, with armed citizens protecting themselves from crime instead. Amusingly, he compounds his error by lumping me in with the Murray Rothbard crowd. Good grief.

MICHAEL WEISS: “It is merely a matter of time before Barack Obama – the self-proclaimed antiwar candidate – will have to face his contradictions, falsehoods and alarming displays of ignorance on Iraq.”