Thirteen Toyota Prius gas-electric hybrid vehicles owned by Puget Sound governments and agencies will be converted to 100 mile-per-gallon plug-in electric hybrid vehicles for a year-long field performance test, in part with a grant and technical assistance from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory. Behind-the-scenes assistance from Discovery Institute’s Cascadia Center for Regional Development played a key role Read More ›
State transportation leaders suddenly find themselves struggling with a $1.5 billion shortfall in anticipated federal and state gas tax revenues. This shortfall, primarily due to improving fuel economy in our motor vehicles, has far-reaching implications. Today’s debate in the Puget Sound region is whether to build more roads, or expand our transit system, or do both. But the truth is Read More ›
Hillary Clinton recently unveiled her potential administration’s science agenda. Clinton hit all the buzz words, saying that under her watch “political pressure” would no longer burden scientists. She vowed to lift current federal restrictions on embryo-destructive research, though she would never be that candid — it is always the intangible phrase “stem cell research.” Additionally, Clinton said she would initiate Read More ›
In a strange irony, it has come to be the case that only Democrats now speak up for giving a role to faith in governance. Stranger still, they get away with it — which prompts the question: Why? In the accepted vocabulary of liberalism, the word “theocracy” functions as a synonym for “Silence them!” The word possesses awesome power to Read More ›
The World at Our Fingertips Steve Forbes The Exacosm George Gilder The Global Warming Myth Dr. Noah Robinson
In his new 2008 budget, King County Executive Ron Sims has proposed a property tax hike of 5 cents per $100,000 assessed valuation to fund a King County passenger-only ferry district. Gregory Roberts reports in today’s Seattle Post-Intelligencer: A 5-cent tax would cost $20 a year for the owner of a $400,000 home; Sims will send a specific proposal to Read More ›
Here we go again, another Ann Coulter media blowup. This time, however, there is a serious point worth drawing from the episode. Coulter’s latest contested comments were delivered on CNBC to Donny Deutsch on his show The Big Idea. She offered the opinion that Jews need to be “perfected” by becoming Christians. Deutsch, who is Jewish, spluttered about “how hateful, Read More ›
Phil Mote, one of the authors of the Nobel prize winning report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) – and featured in the Oct. 13, Seattle Times story reproduced below – was one of the panel members and speakers at the May 7th Cascadia/Microsoft “Jump Start To A Secure, Clean Energy Future” Conference. The conference centered on transportation Read More ›
The Dutch biologist Gert Korthof maintains a website devoted to in-depth reviews of many books on evolution. Aside from often-insightful remarks, a delightful feature of his site is that he can write with great strength of feeling and yet not engage in insults or ad hominem remarks. He has posted an extensive review of The Edge of Evolution. He makes two main points. Read More ›
Dear Readers, This is the third in a series of responses I’m posting this week. In “Evolution of the Bacterial Flagellum” (Microbe Magazine, July 2007), Wong et al seek to counter arguments of intelligent design proponents such as myself that the flagellum did not evolve by random mutation and natural selection. Unfortunately, their otherwise-fine review misunderstands design reasoning and so Read More ›