Infrastructure : UnAmerican :: Enviroment : ??????????? December 1, 2014November 30, 2014 THE IMITATION GAME Alan Turing shortened WWII by two years and saved more than 14 million lives. (Also, he invented the computer.) Such a good movie; such an amazing — true — story. Don’t miss it. LOOKS DANGEROUS TO ME But love is love. You can see it in the lion’s face. THE POLLUTION PARTY Paul Krugman, writing in the New York Times: . . . The Clean Air Act of 1970, the legal basis for the Obama administration’s environmental actions, passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote of 73 to 0, and was signed into law by Richard Nixon. (I’ve heard veterans of the E.P.A. describe the Nixon years as a golden age.) A major amendment of the law, which among other things made possible the cap-and-trade system that limits acid rain, was signed in 1990 by former President George H.W. Bush. But that was then. Today’s Republican Party is putting a conspiracy theorist who views climate science as a “gigantic hoax” in charge of the Senate’s environment committee. And this isn’t an isolated case. Pollution has become a deeply divisive partisan issue. And the reason pollution has become partisan is that Republicans have moved right. A generation ago, it turns out, environment wasn’t a partisan issue: according to Pew Research, in 1992 an overwhelming majority in both parties favored stricter laws and regulation. Since then, Democratic views haven’t changed, but Republican support for environmental protection has collapsed. . . . If it’s ‘unAmerican’ to block revitalization of our country’s infrastructure, allowing it to crumble and thus hurting America, as the Republicans consistently have these last few years, what is it to block protection of our planet’s environment — ‘inhuman’?