LONESOME HOBO ECONOMICS Should the bankers be hanged?
Should the bankers be hanged? Their reckless betting of other people's money turned a cyclical economic crisis into a near meltdown not seen since the Great Depression.
COMMENTARY Narrow thinking on health care
HR 676, the single-payer bill introduced by Michigan Rep. John Conyers, is a fine piece of legislation and it is understandable that those who have worked hard for its enactment are passionate about this cause.
OPINION Ahmadinejad on the wrong side of history
To reach a correct judgment concerning recent developments in Iran and the self-styled re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it is vital to view the whole picture: national and international.
COMMENTARY The health care crisis becomes personal
I had the recent misfortune to fracture my right ankle, having a little too much fun on it. It has impacted my mobility, reduced my hours at work, and not least of all, cast me into the purgatory that is the contemporary healthcare system. I am additionally burdened by being one of the tens of millions of Americans without health insurance, a fact that has immediately and radically colored my hospital experience.
COMMENTARY Blood and oil in Central Asia
(fpif.org) — In the past month, two seemingly unrelated events have turned Central Asia into a potential flashpoint: an aggressively expanding North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and a nascent strategic alliance between Russia and China.
COMMENTARY Calif. budget crisis who should pay the bill?
WHITTIER, Calif. — California’s state budget is still being debated with continued threats of cuts and services to the most needed in our state.
Will the Communists nationalize Juniors junkyard?
Today is Saturday, so I crank up my old pickup truck and head down the old dirt road to see my good friend Junior. I love this old truck and every rattle that goes with it. One thing about south Georgia is the washboard roads. They are very difficult to navigate at times. The 8-track player blares out “your cheatin’ heart” as my hound dogs (pronounced ‘dawgs’) bark and bay at every turn we make — the day is starting out great.
LONESOME HOBO ECONOMICS Mountaintop removal on recovery road
In the Coal Creek river valley in Southern West Virginia actress Daryl Hannah and NASA climatologist James Hansen were arrested protesting continuation of mountaintop — “surface” — mining, warning of dire environmental consequences and unfunded costs exceeding the value of coal mined.
McNamara and wars lessons which way do we go now?
On July 6, Neil deGrasse Tyson, head of the Hayden Planetarium, Twittered, “Wondering how many who watched fireworks on July 4 did so because it's fun, forgetting that it commemorates exploding bombs during warfare.” That same day, Robert S. McNamara, the former defense secretary, died at 93. He was second only to President Lyndon Baines Johnson as the most hated figure of the Vietnam War era.
Is the economic crisis over?
Beware of talk of better economic times around the corner. We may be over the worst of it; we may have avoided a 1930s-type depression; but it’s quite another thing to suggest that we are on the road to recovery.
