Archive
Boondoggle Sidetracks Crops for Renewable Energy
The U.S. Department of Agriculture skipped the crop establishment program and instead launched a minor provision intended to help develop new collection, harvest, storage, and transport methods by matching the price paid for delivered biomass, up to $45 a ton. The USDA didn’t draft rules or put them out for comment, but instead issued a simple notice of funding availability with few restrictions.
Next, We’ll Sell Senate Seats to Exxon Mobil and AT&T
I think we should do away with the charade of elections, at least for the Senate. Let’s replace them with an auction. I mean a real auction, with an auctioneer and gavel.
Record Bank Profits and the American Dream Foreclosed
All of us will be hurting for years because Washington is refusing to make the banks eat the debt bubble they created. Instead, the bailed-out banks are walking away with record profits and fat bonuses.
New American Crisis
You might have some idea if you’ve ever found yourself facing foreclosure on your home; or worked at a company that was downsizing and laying people off; or enrolled in a college where the tuition keeps doubling; or faced salary freezes year after year, even while the cost of living rises. Most of us know how those things feel. It’s the feeling of losing control over your destiny. Get used to that feeling. It has just become what it feels like to be a citizen of the United States of America.
Let’s Pretend to Do Something about Climate Change
More than 190 nations have now agreed: Climate Change is bad and we ought to do something about it…let’s meet again someday to decide what. Naturally, low-lying islands want quicker action. So do lands whose life-giving glaciers are melting, or whose rivers are drying up, and whose wells have gasped their last.
Selling a City’s Soul, for Chicken Feed
KFC, the fast-food chicken chain, has already gotten permission from Indianapolis to whiz on its hydrants. As part of an advertising blitz, KFC has plastered the city’s water taps with a smiling photo of corporate founder Colonel Sanders, along with a slogan promoting the chain’s new “fiery” chicken wings.
Free at Last
Afghanistan: This War Won’t Work
The recent Taliban attacks on Kabul provide another wake-up call about why this war in Afghanistan simply isn’t going to work. It won’t bring security to Afghans. It won’t turn Afghanistan into a democracy. And it won’t make us safer.
Massachusetts: The Democrats Blew It
The Democratic Party, starting with the political wizards in the White House on down, simply blew it in Massachusetts. It wasn’t just Coakley who took a vacation in the middle of the campaign, the entire party did.
Health-Care Reform: A Good Start
When you strip off the rhetoric and the partisan politics and remove the fear factor, the health-care legislation working its way to President Barack Obama’s desk is, for most Americans, the healthiest medicine ever offered. Sure, there are missing pieces and probably things that should not be there. Instead of trying to produce perfect reform legislation, which has failed in the past, the Democrats in Congress, under pressure from Obama, have made a good start.
