Kevin Rudd. Photo: AP / Rob Griffith Culturally, politically, and spiritually, what country in the world is most like the United States? It's not Canada and it's sure not Great Britain. The answer is Australia. Ask anyone who's been there. It just feels like America there, from the sprawling suburbs to the cars people drive, from the obsession with sports to their unit of currency: the Australian dollar. Add these factors too: both countries were British colonies, both wiped out indigenous peoples, both have big cities in the east and vast frontiers to the west, both have huge coal deposits …

Lyndon Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Strange but true: Energy-efficient light bulbs and hybrid cars are hurting our nation's budding efforts to fight global warming. More precisely, every time an activist or politician hectors the public to voluntarily reach for a new bulb or spend extra on a Prius, ExxonMobil heaves a big sigh of relief. Scientists now scream the news about global warming: it's already here and could soon, very soon, bring tremendous chaos and pain to our world. The networks and newspapers have begun running urgent stories almost daily: The Greenland ice sheet is vanishing! …

On a recent Monday morning, at exactly 8 a.m., a dozen global-warming activists converged in Washington, D.C., at the main entrance to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Will a D.C. protest get the ball rolling? Photo: climateemergency.org Two activists dressed as window washers -- painter's hats on, squeegees in hand -- carried a 32-foot extension ladder to the building's main entrance. They ascended the ladder and secured themselves atop a narrow ledge 25 feet above the ground. Within seconds they had unfurled a large banner that read: "Bush: Let NOAA Tell the Truth!" On the ground, the ladder disappeared …