Sowell: "Do you seriously believe that millions more people can be given medical care and vast new bureaucracies created to administer payment for it, with no additional costs?" The answer is an absolute YES -- every other country with socialized medicine does it. It is generally done by rationing medical care. By rationing care at the end of life -- when most expenses are incurred -- the aggregate cost is reduced. By rationing the number of procedures (e.g., knee replacements) allowed, the aggregate cost is reduced. By limiting the number of tests and so forth that are given, the aggregate cost is reduced. If you're willing to accept rationed care (as in England, etc.), the cost DOES go down, even with all the extra bureaucrats...

As I understand it, the problem is: Most plant material is cellulose. Cellulose is basically a string of glucose (simple sugar) molecules. Thus it can be fermented. The problem is that to make it stiff (so that, for example, grass stands up and doesn't lie flat in a puddle) the cellulose is bound to another chemical, a lignin (thus"lignocellulose"). Lignins prevent fermentation. The problem with biomass fermentation is that it is difficult and expensive to "chip off" the lignin from the cellulose so that fermentation is possible. It is not impossible. This is why "demonstration plants" have been made (as Ransom says) but commercial-sized plants have not yet been built.

Greenie loons never see that enviro protection is a conceit of a strong economy. You don't worry about eating endangered species if your kids are starving. And you worry a whole lot less about environmental damage caused by mining if you're out of work. The fracking-idiot greenies should realize that fracking is good for the environment, because it's REALLY good for the economy. The more our economy is wrecked by idiot enviro regs, the less support there will be for enviro protection. The better the economy is doing, the more people support enviro protection. That is why commie and third-world countries are commonly enviro disaster areas. The economy is a wreck, so people have bigger worries than dumb algorian enviromental claims.

This article is absolute hogwash. If Ms Herzog thinks that CNN and their ilk give a rat's behind about what we think, and make "business" decisions based on what we want -- then why do they have ratings so small they can hardly be measured? Clearly they make their decisions for some reason other than popularity, or they'd be more popular. Gosnell's story has been buried because (1) he's an abortionist, and, as others have pointed out, there's NO difference between whacking a baby just before birth and just after, so Gosnell's evil points to the evil of abortionists, and abortion, in general; (2) he's black. He's a double-darling to the lefties.

Just remember, every abortion is fundamentally the same thing that Gosnell's murders were. It's just that Gosnell murdered them out in the open, while a standard abortionist murders them in the womb, and usually earlier in their lives.

Agreed.

Actually, they won't tax obesity, because blacks have such high levels of obesity and Asians have low levels. Can't have that "disparate impact..."

Re the "parasite tax": They would just raise their own salaries to cover the tax, then raise our taxes to pay for it -- because of "fairness." Then they'd get a commie judge to decide that since residents of DC are disproportionately black, the parasite tax is unconstitutional -- but their "fairness tax" isn't. So we would end up with higher taxes, and they would end up with more of our money. Sound familiar?

You got it right. The reason that school choice is so anathema to educrats is that as more and more kids get vouchers and move out, although there is more money available to the public schools on a per-pupil basis, the fact is that fewer (union) teachers will be needed. Remember, the purpose of public schools is not to educate the students. Even leftist propagandizing of these students is only secondary. The primary purpose of public schools is to employ members of the teachers' union at very high pay and with no accountability. Once you keep that in mind, the behavior of educrats becomes very easy to explain.

Liebau: "In the end, liberal thought seems easily reducible to nothing more than a hierarchy of victimhood." Very true; but why? Because what today is called "liberal" thought exploded out of the '60s, when the hippies and their ilk rebelled, more than anything else, against the idea of self-denial (as in "Deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow me.") To justify themselves in spite of their (sexual and chemical) self-indulgence, they took up "cartoon morality" with its one principle: the little guy is the good guy, the big guy is the bad guy. The "hierarchy of victimhood" is the result of endless striving to be seen as the "little guy," so self-indulgence can be justified.

OK, I don't have time to read the 550 comments to see how many times this point has been made, but the likely reason that there were 120 Chicago homicides in Q1 of 2012 and 70 in 2013 is because in 2012, due to Global Warming, the Upper Midwest had a ridiculously warm spring (80's in March in Wis!). In 2013, due to Global Warming, temps averaged much below normal. And thugs don't like to be out in the cold any more than the rest of us. When the wind chill is 20 below, for example, it's no fun to be out on some street corner selling dope, or going out to whack some rival gang-bangers. Yes, the explanation is that simple.