Cash for Clunkers Fails to Help Economy and Environment - WSJ.com

The basic fallacy of cash for clunkers is that you can somehow create wealth by destroying existing assets that are still productive, in this case cars that still work. Under the program, auto dealers were required to destroy the car engines of trade-ins with a sodium silicate solution, then smash them and send them to the junk yard. As the journalist Henry Hazlitt wrote in his classic, "Economics in One Lesson," you can't raise living standards by breaking windows so some people can get jobs repairing them.

In the category of all-time dumb ideas, cash for clunkers rivals the New Deal brainstorm to slaughter pigs to raise pork prices. The people who really belong in the junk yard are the wizards in Washington who peddled this economic malarkey.

YouTube - NewsX Video: Protests outside Bangkok climate talks

While diplomats discuss climate change at the UN convention centre in Bangkok, protesters have taken to the streets right outside. They say the powers that be aren't doing enough to stop global warming.

Is this guy really gesturing with his bottle of water while wearing a shirt saying "Reparations for Climate"?

Malawian boy [makes small windmills, then enjoys fuel-guzzling worldwide travel]

Neighbors regularly trek across the dusty footpaths to his house to charge their cellphones. Others stop by to listen to Malawian reggae music blaring from a radio.
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Three months later, his first windmill churned to life as relief swept over him. As the blades whirled, a bulb attached to the windmill flickered on.
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His story has turned him into a globetrotter. Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, an avid advocate of green living, has applauded his work.

Kamkwamba is invited to events worldwide to share his experience with entrepreneurs. During a recent trip to Palm Springs, California, he saw a real windmill for the first time -- lofty and majestic -- a far cry from the wobbly, wooden structures that spin in his backyard.