This Will Make Your Blood Boil

You may have heard there's no such thing as a free lunch, but David Cay Johnston says there is — and wealthy Americans do get richer because of it. In an April 14, 2008 speech at the Commonwealth Club of California, Johnston, a Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter and author of "Free Lunch," outlines how government-private sector collusion affects the middle class and the poor.

http://wordforword.publicradio.org/programs/2008/07/25/

This is more than a Conservative/Progressive/Libertarian politics question, but something that cuts to the fabric of who we are in the United States. All Johnston's information is from public sources, mostly government documents.

Green is Dead, Long Live Blue

Podcasts Worth Hearing

From the Commonwealth Club of California, Inforum series.

Adam Werbach, was the youngest and first paid director of the Sierra Club. Four years ago he, along with Michael Shellenberger and Ted Norhaus, all well known environmentalists, rocked their world by delivering their eulogy for the movement called Is Environmentalism Dead? Read Here.

Today, after enduring years of being reviled as a environmental traitor and for working with companies such as Wal-Mart, Adam is back receiving the Inforum award for 21st Century Leaders Listen Here (real player file).

The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict

The title about says it all. Winner of the 2001 Nobel Prize in Economics, Joseph E. Stiglitz of Columbia University is the author of Making Globalization Work and Globalization and Its Discontents. Linda J. Bilmes, a professor of public finance at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, is a former assistant secretary for management and budget in the U.S. Department of Commerce tally the true cost of this war and how it's been hidden from the American public.

In this interview Bilmes does an excellent job in detailing exactly how much this war has--and will--cost U.S. Taxpayers and details the inner workings of the federal financial systems and the efforts of the administration (and Congress) to keep the true cost of the war from being totaled.

Most devastating is the inability of wounded troops to qualify for and receive promised health care, a national disgrace, because of bureaucratic infighting and lack of budget.

A particularly good interview with Linda Blimes by WHYY's Marty Moss-Coane on Radio Times:
listen to podcast here (right click the link to download this mp3 to your computer).

The Virtues of Native Plants

Podcasts Worth Hearing

I heard Dr. Douglas Tallamy speak at this month's meeting of the Butterfly Society, held at the Norfolk Botanical Center, and found his message and his presentation quite compelling. In fact, Doug has changed my entire emphasis in gardening: only native plants from this day forward. Even a single home garden here on the East Coast Flyway can make a really big difference for both birds and butterflys.

I have since found a WHYY Radio Times interview with Dr. Tallamy available as an mp3 download (right click and save to your desktop or mp3 player Listen Here ).

I also bought an autographed copy of his book Bringing Nature Home, how Native Plants Sustain Wildlife in Our Gardens, which is fascinating.



Dr. Tallamy is currently Professor and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware in Newark, Delaware, where he has written more than 65 research articles and has taught insect taxonomy, behavioral ecology, and other subjects. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities.

Podcasts Worth Hearing

Patricia McConnell: "For the Love of a Dog: Understanding Emotion in You and Your Best Friend"

Listen to a really fascinating interview with Pat McConnell on the Diane Rhem Show, on WAMU

• Real Audio
• Windows Media Player

(right click and "save as" they play for smoother play back)

Pat McDonnel, PhD, Animal Behaviorist, trainer, radio talk show host of "Calling All Pets" talks about the new brain science and dogs, particularly their emotions and how those emotions are both similar and different from our own.

Best Tip:

• Once you get past the basics, the time to praise or reward a dog is the instant they look at you. McConnell gives the example of when you call "come". The time to get really enthusiastic is when the dog looks at you and has that split second decision, keep sniffing or comply. Reinforce the right decision then, not when the dog comes. (I wonder if rewarding an ear twitch is good enough for cairn?)
  

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