Archive
Dairy Farmers are Getting a Sour Deal
My husband and I farm in central New York State, milking 60 cows with another 40 head of young stock. We’re third-generation farmers and our farm has been in the same family for nearly 100 years. We have farmed it for 43 years, and 2009 was the worst year of our lives.
Congress: Let My Tax Cut Expire
No one likes to talk about taxes in a positive light, but the truth is that our nation has built a remarkable marketplace for enterprise and wealth creation. Taxes paid for the public investments in research, education, infrastructure and technology that made this possible. They paid for law enforcement and orderly marketplaces. These public investments buoyed my personal opportunities and wealth. I am certain they have done the same for millions of other Americans.
Maybe Tobacco Execs Should Go to Prison
Did you ever notice how it works? Sell your cousin a joint for some harmless fun and you both end up in jail. But manufacture cigarettes that kill tens of thousands of people and not only do you earn billions of dollars, you avoid all risk of hard time. Lawsuits may cost you something but your personal freedom is never at stake. And presumably if you had a conscience you wouldn’t have gone into the business to begin with.
Boeing’s Virtual Fence is a Real Boondoggle
It was one of those bold policy decisions made by President George “The Decider” Bush. In 2005, to secure the U.S.-Mexico border, Bush directed that an electronic “virtual fence” be built to detect “bad guys” trekking into our country. Of course, like all things Bush, he privatized the project, turning it over to Boeing.
Empower the People, Restore Trust in Government
From city hall to the halls of Congress, important policy and spending decisions have been made for far too long by a handful of politicians behind closed doors, working in concert with corporations and special interests. This old way of doing the public’s business has bred anger and mistrust of all levels of government.
Border Boondoggle
GOP Obstructionist Antics Signal its Demise
Once the party of giants like Abraham Lincoln, Teddy Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, and Nelson Rockefeller, it’s now led by political Lilliputians like Mitch McConnell, John Boehner, and John McCain.
Flying and Radiation Risks
Whole body X-ray scanning machines were developed and first used to detect theft at gold and diamond mines on and inside the bodies of workers in Africa. They are fluoroscopic X-ray machines that provide a real-time image of a person’s body using “back-scatter,” or “soft” X-rays. They emit much less penetrating energy than machines found in a medical setting, such as CT scanners. However, like all machines, if their design, manufacture, calibration or maintenance is defective, then doses to passengers and security staff could be larger than claimed.
We are What We Eat
That morsel at the end of your fork isn’t just food. It’s the product of fossil fuels, industrialized agriculture and chemical herbicides.
Lying with Statistics
Peter Hart at Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR) points out that Bill O’Reilly claimed that the New England Journal of Medicine denounced health-care reform.
