BREVITAS

WORD

You don't fatten a hog by weighing it - John Edwards on No Child Left Behind

POCKET PARADIGMS

Wouldn't it be nice if the media covered the breakup of the republic as well as it covered the break-in of an office? - Sam Smith

ECOLOGY AND NATURE

GUARDIAN, UK - Petrol-driven cars could be banned across Britain by 2040, under radical Liberal Democrat plans to tackle climate change. The Liberal Democrat leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, and the party's environment spokesman, Chris Huhne, unveiled the proposal today as part of a package of measures designed to make Britain carbon-neutral by 2050. Mr Huhne said he foresaw cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells, improved battery technology or other new technology yet to be developed.

THE DAILY GREEN - Los Angeles is the latest community to up the ante when it comes to municipal recycling — adding plastic clothes hangers and grocery bags and Styrofoam to its list of recyclable goods. . . In 1999, recycling and composting activities prevented about 64 million tons of material from ending up in landfills and incinerators, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. That amounts to 32% of our waste — a rate of recycling that nearly doubled since 1975, when recycling programs began to get more federal backing. L.A. aims to recycle 70% of its trash, under a goal set by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.

JOHN LICHFIELD, INDEPENDENT, UK - Growing tensions in France between opponents and supporters of genetically modified crops have led to violent confrontations. Gendarmes used tear gas and batons to prevent pro-GM farmers from invading a picnic for militant opponents of genetically modified maize at the town of Verdun-sur-Garonne in south-west France over the weekend. Hardly a day has gone by this summer without opponents of GM maize - both environmental campaigners and small farmers - invading fields and trampling or cutting down crops. The protesters, led by the small-farmers' leader, Jose Bove, claim a citizens' right to destroy crops which, they say, threaten ecological calamity and the subjection of farmers to the whims of agro-industrial, multinational companies. Tempers have risen to boiling point since the suicide earlier this month of a farmer in the Lot departement who had agreed to plant a small section of GM maize. He took his life a few days after he had been warned that anti-GM protesters planned to hold a picnic on his fields.

MONEY

BAY AREA SPOT - A committee leader in the House of Representatives is planning to propose to take away mortgage interest deductions for millions of Americans whose houses contain 3,000 square feet or more of interior space. Rep. John D Dingell (D-Mich.) is a 15-term veteran at the helm of the House of Energy and Commerce Committee and is now drafting a "carbon tax" legislation that would take away those Mortgage Interest deductions home owners can take if they have over 3,000 sq ft of interior space. This draft may also include higher federal gasoline taxes and a bunch of other provisions designed to discourage carbon emissions into the atmosphere.

FURTHERMORE. . .

ANSWER - Today, one week after it filed a free speech lawsuit, the ANSWER Coalition has received a second round of fines for another $10,350 for posters promoting the September 15 March on Washington to End the War on Iraq. In the last two weeks, the ANSWER Coalition has been fined a total of $21,000. There is an effort underway by several branches of the government to disrupt the organizing for the September 15 march, which will be led by Iraq war veterans and their families.

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