OKLAHOMA CITY — As temperatures climbed into the 90s Sunday in Steele, N.D., a small window air conditioner in Paul and Betty Smokov’s ranch home just couldn’t keep up.

picture by Gus

There's dumb, there's dumber and then there are the House Republicans—nearly all of them—who voted this morning to set the U.S. back on energy efficiency. By a quick voice vote, the House approved an amendment that would prevent funds from a 2012 spending bill to be used to implement federal light bulb standards. The amendment came after a similar separate bill failed to garner a two-thirds supermajority earlier this week in the House—although it did win a simple majority and all but 10 Republicans in the House voted for it, along with five Democrats.

Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says he does not believe there is any need for a wide-ranging inquiry into Australia's media in the wake of the News Corp phone-hacking scandal in Britain.

Greens leader Bob Brown, who has dubbed the Murdoch press the "hate media" and accused it of bias against the Greens and Labor, has called for an inquiry. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has characterised some media reporting on the carbon price as "complete crap".

But Mr Abbott said a politician complaining about the media was in the same position as "a footballer complaining about the umpire".

What is the point in saving the planet from climate change at the cost of sacrificing democracy? A mandate doesn't give politicians the right to rule against the people's will with the excuse of reducing pollution. It is not worth saving a world where we are governed as slaves without freedom to decide our future.

We must not put climate change or anything before democracy, because liberty is the most precious value of humankind.

Juan Del Solar Mascot    For a critic of this view please read more...

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MALCOLM Turnbull has undermined Tony Abbott's attack on the government by again exposing opposition divisions over carbon policy.

The former opposition leader, whose fall was triggered by his support for the Rudd emissions trading scheme, again effectively distanced himself from the Abbott policy. He made it clear he was staying in line because he is in shadow cabinet and loyal, rather than agreeing with the policy.

THE cost of general insurance is set to jump as insurers move to protect their profits by passing on the higher price of reinsurance to customers.

As this year's spate of natural disasters forces up reinsurance costs, analysts are forecasting the extra costs could translate into personal and general insurance increases of up to 5 per cent, The Australian reports.

In New Zealand, which has been devastated by recurring earthquakes and aftershocks in Christchurch, reinsurance costs are expected to increase by 100 per cent while local reinsurance costs could rise as much as 70 per cent.

Former Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has accused the man who replaced him as leader, Tony Abbott, of changing his position twice on climate change.

Mr Turnbull says Mr Abbott moved from supporting a carbon tax, to supporting a market-based emissions trading scheme and then opposing both policies outright.

And he says having done that, Mr Abbott resigned from shadow cabinet in 2009 to challenge him for the leadership.

But he says he has given Mr Abbott "consistency and loyalty" that he, himself, did not enjoy as leader.

HOUSTON, Oct. 22, 2007 – Wearing a portable instrument to monitor metabolism in the fight against obesity and its related health consequences may be on the horizon thanks to collaborative research being performed at the University of Houston and The Methodist Hospital.

LONDON — Shortly after Scotland Yard began its initial criminal inquiry of phone hacking by The News of the World in 2006, five senior police investigators discovered that their own mobile phone messages had been targeted by the tabloid and had most likely been listened to.

Mr Abbott declined to detail how he would pay for the tax cut and pension increases without the money stream from a carbon price.

"In good time, before the next election, we will announce our fiscal position and we will pay for tax cuts out of spending reductions," he said.

"The thing is, a tax cut that is paid for by tax increase, it is not a cut. It is a con. These are mirage tax cuts."

Treasurer Wayne Swan attacked Mr Abbott's tax cut promise, saying he did not have any way to fund it and claiming the Coalition's "direct action" climate policy would cost households $720 per year.

James Murdoch and News Corp could face corporate legal battles on both sides of the Atlantic that involve criminal charges, fines and forfeiture of assets as the escalating phone-hacking scandal risks damaging his chances of taking control of Rupert Murdoch's US-based media empire.

In a reversal of Don Chipp's famous pledge that the Australian Democrats would "keep the bastards honest", Bob Brown and the Greens have decided to "keep the bastards dishonest", complicit as they are in the Prime Minister's clear breach of a commitment to the Australian people to not introduce a carbon tax.

In fact Julia Gillard has sought to lay the blame for her brazen broken election promise squarely at the feet of the Greens.

Like the Democrats, the Greens now hold the balance of power in the Senate.

Unlike the Democrats, the Greens have no respect for an electoral mandate.