The purpose of cap and trade (C&T) legislation is to reduce Americans’ consumption of fossil fuels — coal, oil, and natural gas — and to speed up the transition to alternate forms of energy, such as wind and solar power.

Beloved citizens of Fayette County, beware of the shady bargain called Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (SPLOST).

By REP. LYNN WESTMORELAND

Any national healthcare reform must focus on increasing efficiency so that more Americans can have access to affordable coverage.

Daddy used to say that when most people ask, “How’re you doin’?” they don’t really care. It’s just something they say to make conversation.

This is one of my favorite little stories. It’s well worth telling again.

Two friends were walking through the desert. During some point in the journey they had an argument and one friend slapped the other one in the face. The one who got slapped was hurt, much more in his heart than on the skin of his face, but without saying anything he wrote in the sand, “Today my friend slapped me in the face.”

I have become accustomed to American television evangelists raking in huge amounts of cash while pleading poverty in their appeals for ever-increasing needs for money.

The Sotomayor ruckus, with its senatorial and media back-and-forths about judicial power and racism, is one indicator that Americans like and trust each other less, if possible, than they have since maybe 1861.

When I kissed Candi in Old Mrs. Crabtree’s third-grade class, she got really upset — old Mrs. Crabtree, not Candi. I think Candi liked it.

President Obama’s nomination of Dr. Francis S. Collins to head the National Institutes of Health is an excellent choice, but it troubles some secularists who believe science should proceed unrestrained by any higher principles than what can be achieved in a laboratory.

Here’s what I wrote in last year’s column titled “Global Warming Rope-a-Dope” (12/24/2008): “Once laws are written, they are very difficult, if not impossible, to repeal. If a time would ever come when the permafrost returns to northern U.S., as far south as New Jersey as it once did, it’s not inconceivable that Congress, caught in the grip of the global warming zealots, would keep all the laws on the books they wrote in the name of fighting global warming. Personally, I would not put it past them to write more.”

When we saw the young girl pushing her bike up the hill most locals call “Little 6 Points,” I had a curious tightening in my throat.

I was reading the newspaper regarding the county commissioners receiving a full-time benefits package, the mayor in Peachtree City wanting more deficit budgeting and the arrogance of local government leaders looking at proposing another Special Purpose Local Option Sales Tax (a.k.a. “significant tax increase”) when they cannot justify the West Fayetteville Bypass they are building now.

Obama’s healthcare proposal is, in effect, the repeal of the Medicare program as we know it. The elderly will go from being the group with the most access to free medical care to the one with the least access.

Most of us are familiar with the old expressions: Look before you leap; a stitch in time saves nine; if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. These phrases remind us to think before accepting anything as fact. And never have they been more applicable then now, as the Obama administration attempts to re-fashion the healing arts.

By Ray Nothstine

Individuals and groups terrified of nationalized healthcare like to point to examples of government dysfunction, such as Medicaid, to stoke fears of what a government-managed plan would look like in the United States.

Hidden somewhere in the newspaper one day – a tiny news blurb used to fill a hole – was the story of a teenage Louisiana beauty queen whose crown had been repossessed by pageant officials after her brush with the law.

Answers to your questions about life, religion and the Bible

Pastors get some of the most interesting questions from people they meet and people in their congregations. Here are some questions I have received over my years of ministry and via email for this column.

We had a bit of a crisis recently. On the weekend of July 4, our cable TV went out, our Internet connection was lost, and I misplaced my cell phone.

Sarah Palin wants to run for president? Quick — get the butterfly net. Who in his — or her — right mind would want to strut into the economic Hiroshima that the Democratic Congress and White House seem bent on precipitating? What a fine mess!

Last week The Boy closed on his first house. He’s all moved in and enjoying home ownership somewhere amongst all the boxes. As he surfaces for air, reality has finally set in. A few must-have things didn’t come with his house. So he does what anyone in his situation would do. He made a phone call. “Dad, we have a problem. What are we going to do about a washer and dryer?”

While the recent Supreme Court decision in the New Haven firefighters’ case will be welcome news to those who don’t think that a gross injustice is O.K. when those on the receiving end are white, the reasoning behind the 5 to 4 decision is a painful reminder that the law is still tangled in a web of assumptions, evasions and contradictions when it comes to racial issues.

Last month, the U.S. Senate unanimously passed Senate Resolution 26 “Apologizing for the enslavement and racial segregation of African-Americans.”

It’s the hottest excuse in federal government: “I didn’t read the bill.”

Congress’ latest anti-transparency scheme is literally telling the American public that ignorance really is bliss. Yes, you can be granted full immunity on voting for horrible bills, pumping special interests and robbing the average taxpayers if you simply say you did not read the bill.

Most political and media discussions of medical care have an air of unreality reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland. There is an abundance of catch-phrases but remarkably few coherent arguments.

The top 10 reasons why universal healthcare is America’s future, including high comparative costs, overall poor health of our nation in comparison to other industrialized countries, the fact that our politicians enjoy taxpayer-funded healthcare even as they tell us, their benefactors, that we wouldn’t like it, and the fact that every industrialized nation in the world except the U.S. enjoys a universal healthcare system, were presented last time. And now, the next 10 reasons:

When she first brought it up, mentioning it in passing more than anything else, I thought she was joshing, so I shrugged it off with a smile. Fortunately, I did not make any wisecrack that I would now regret.

What is it about holidays and festivities that turn our minds to memories of the past? We watched the July 4th parade from the embankment of Peachtree Parkway South and, of course, “saw” in memory our little girls caught up in the squealing, cart-wheeling, candy-catching melee of an all-day celebration.

Did you see the 2008 comedy Marley and Me? Good story about a family and their dog. Lots of laughs, some language, a sad ending.

A couple of Mondays ago, I arrived by car in Selma, Ala., at about 8:30 p.m. The temperature on a local bank clock proclaimed that, as the sun was sinking in the distance, it was 100 degrees. One hundred degrees at 8:30 at night. I thought about going to the pool at the Jameson Inn where I was spending the night, but it was just too hot. I would have felt like a lobster going for his last bath.

There was symmetry in the news that barraged us one day last week — Michael Jackson, not to mention Farrah Fawcett, had died, and the governor of South Carolina had made a nitwit and a creep out of himself over a woman in Argentina.