Smog from automobile exhaust is more and more understood to be killing us.

The exhaust is known to shorten our lives and even to give us cancer.

And in Los Angeles City and County...the heaviest polluters...after the ports...are the heavy deisel vehicles operated by the Los Angeles Unified School District, the Los Angeles City /County Fire Departments, and the Los Angeles County Sherrifs Department.

Do you think it is time for the govt to clean up its diesel mess.....

Congestion Charging is the new topic at the Los Angeles Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

They are polishing up their best double speak phrases like "market demand" and improving the flow of the HOV lane.

The problem is, they are going to kick out all of the carpoolers to do it.

Hmmm, smells like a tax to me....

California Air Resources Board is running full blast at solving Global Warming right? OK so they mentioned carpooling on pag 177 of that 189 page document. But actually they are trying something new. Ethanol.

And when the subcommittee that was legally charged with Environmental Justice of the execution of California AB-32 the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006....when the head of that committee was granted a special 15 minute presentation....she begged the Board to slow down on the "Low Carbon Fuel Standard".

Of course we have since learned that Governor Swa (oh who cares ) was on the phone with the good Chairman urging the board to approve the plan as designed. It really makes you wonder how seriously politicians take public comment....or their own laws...that they wrote and signed. And the Good Professor Sperling swore to all of us there...that this so called "food vs fuel" argument was of no bearing.

We had only Professor Sperling...who co wrote the work on California's Low-Carbon-Fuel Standard...reasurring us that "no one wants corn based ethanol". A wonderfully strong statement from one of the 9 people who would help upset the worlds economy of food.

The following is a full AFP report on biofuels (ie corn ethanol) and its affect on the world food supply.

Newspapers are having a tough time getting advertisers these days.

There is a fairly new Media Outlet on the block....it is the Busses, Trains, and Subways owned by County Governments.

With advertising dollars moving away from Newspapers...and moving onto the mobile billboards we see on our streets....

Who benefits? If the Newspapers go out of Business, who will be there to let the public know of problems in our Federal, State, and Local Governments.

This was one of the more dramatic turning points for the Government death of Carpooling.
Not Carpool Lanes mind you.... The Los Angeles MTA gets a good chunk of cash from "managing" the construciton of Carpool Lanes. They just don't want us to carpool. Which is why you hear so much about HOT lanes or ... converting carpool lanes to toll lanes.

From the MOU on carpooling "Authorize the Chief Executive Officer to execute a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with the Riverside County Transportation Commission (RCTC) for rideshare development and support services for Los Angeles County during the second half of FY03 and FY04 in an amount not to exceed a total of $625,000. "

Gee $312,500 on carpooling each year? With the MTA having over $4Billion annual budget?

Our Government obviously gets too much revenue from cars.

read on....