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.
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.
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.
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.
A Global Game that Never Ends
Yemen? Yes, boys and girls, it’s time to look at our world atlas again, to see where America’s tax dollars and troops are headed next.
Keep Humans Out of Space
President Barack Obama deserves credit for ordering a new study of NASA. The findings of his Augustine Commission review of our plans for human spaceflight are impressive as well. We needed to seriously question our financial will to send humans to Mars. Not every taxpayer is ready to sign on for that expense.
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.
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.
Fewer Nukes? Turn Back the Doomsday Clock
After beginning negotiations in April of last year, President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have made tremendous strides towards completing an agreement. Once the treaty is signed, the Senate will need to approve it. Unlike most votes, however, treaty approval requires 67 “yea” votes.
