Word: auto
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Charles Krauthammer chided Al Gore and Hollywood for being less green than they claim [March 26]. I suggest that for Krauthammer's next targets he look at more profound sources of the problem: auto companies that lobby to keep mileage standards low; energy companies that pay scientists to deny the human role in global warming; Vice President Dick Cheney, who pooh-poohed energy conservation and apparently met in secret with energy-company executives to create the country's energy policy; and President George W. Bush, who reneged on his campaign promise to regulate carbon output. Krauthammer could also report...
Erik Prince, 37, Blackwater's ambitious founder and sole owner, could have taken over his father's billion-dollar auto-parts empire. But he was attracted to the battlefield from a young age. He enrolled in the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Md., and although he finished college at a school closer to home, he eventually became a naval officer and was attached to the élite Navy seal Team 8 based in Norfolk, Va. He served in Haiti, Bosnia and the Middle East. In 1995, when his father died, Prince left the Navy and returned to Michigan...
...drivers and workers rights' advocates at NyayaBhoomi say the real crooks are the city officials. "Politicians have left no stone unturned to portray auto rickshaw drivers as dishonest, cheats and rude. The reality, however, is that they are the victims of the same political games that have played havoc with the entire public transport system of Delhi," reports NyayaBhoomi's website. "There are scores of other problems which the politicians do not want to address. The result is that in spite of cheating you, most auto drivers live in slums or resettlement colonies. Their children are forced into child labor...
...government had increased the fares after the drivers' attempts at better manners, says auto driver Sunil Kumar, 32, "then we would have continued. But why should we try to be nice when we are paid nothing?" Kumar, the father of a five-year-old boy, says he makes a few thousand rupees a month, the equivalent of about $100. He says the drivers can't go on strike or their children will go hungry. In any case, says Kumar, it's only a small minority of rickshaw drivers, especially ones who service the train and bus stations, "who give...
...This behavior is ingrained into their DNA." Enforcing regulations might help, but the Delhi transport authority seems less than enthusiastic about policing faulty meters and following up complaints about rude drivers. According to the Hindustan Times newspaper there are currently more than 71,000 complaints pending against "errant auto drivers", more than the total number of auto rickshaws in all of Delhi. Last year authorities inspected fewer than 5,000 autos for faulty meters, just under half of which proved defective. Still, a fare rise would help, insists Kumar. "It changes the frame of your mind." Until that happens, Delhi...