Boy, Do I NOT Miss These Guys Being in Charge

• Bill Clinton thinks the UK’s government is the “envy” of the US.
• Al Gore, in an e-mail registration-required co-written article at OpinionJournal.com, says that companies need to “account for environmental costs.” I’m not sure what HE means, but there are plenty of items in financial statements that reflect enviromental costs. Just a few include capital expenditures for pollution control equipment and related depreciation; expenses for more costly materials that are supposedly more environmentally friendly but often really aren’t; and wages, salaries, benefits, and consulting fees relating to employees and consultants who spend their entire working days making sure companies stay in compliance with federal, and local laws, many of which either conflict and/or don’t make sense. What more Mr. Gore wants beyond that is indeterminable from his and his co-author’s rambling prose.
• Meanwhile, in what must certainly be a “totally unrelated story” (yeah, right):
  

  A strike by local authority workers has closed thousands of schools, libraries and leisure centres, crippled council services across the UK and led to travel chaos for motorists.

  Unions said the walkout, in a bitter row over pensions, had been solidly supported by more than a million workers in the biggest bout of industrial action since the 1926 General Strike.

As hard as I try, I can’t seem to be able to work up a lot of envy at the moment.