This is chompy.net, a part of Spaceship No Future.

Mr Ornstein added: “The McCain campaign has been doing its best to paper over the fact that his selection of Governor Palin was an impulsive choice made at the last minute.” Thomas Mann, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said: “She may well not make it through until November.”

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin employed a lobbying firm to secure almost $27 million in federal earmarks for a town of 6,700 residents…

On Aug. 4, the state of Alaska filed a lawsuit opposing the polar bear’s listing [as a threatened species], arguing that populations as a whole are stable and that melting sea ice does not pose an imminent threat to their survival. The suit says polar bears have survived warming periods in the past. The federal government has 60 days from the filing date to respond.

Germany, Denmark and the Netherlands have been connecting the dots for three decades. They started in the mid-1970s, in the wake of the world’s first oil shock and after 25 years of American-style, car-centric traffic management that had coincided with a sharp decline in cycling.

There is now an integrated system of safe bicycling routes in most cities in all three countries. It allows cyclists to go almost everywhere on paths that are separated from automobiles and in “traffic-calmed” neighborhoods. Besides pampering cyclists, these countries punished drivers with fees and restrictions intended to make commuting by car expensive, slow and frustrating.

The policies have resulted in the developed world’s highest per-capita rates of cycling and lowest rates of cycling accidents, the Rutgers study found.