Read this column by Thomas Friedman and this satire.
Tag: politics
On Unions
A level-heading analysis from David Leonhardt in the New York Times: Fat and happy government workers, however easy the caricature may be, are not the cause of our looming federal and state deficits. Neither are spineless politicians. The cause is Americans’ collective desire for low taxes and generous government benefits. We want our politicians to promise us tax cuts, a…
Guess the speaker…
Here’s the quote. Who said it? Will America be led by a president elected by a majority of the American people? Or will we be intimidated and blackmailed into following the path dictated by a disruptive radical and militant minority? … In my view, this Fall, any candidate in any party who voices radical sentiment or who courts or enjoys…
Union Teachers Teach Better?
From Montclair SocioBlog. Only 5 states do not have collective bargaining for educators and have deemed it illegal. Those states and their ranking on ACT/SAT scores are as follows: * South Carolina – 50th * North Carolina – 49th * Georgia – 48th * Texas – 47th * Virginia – 44th If you are wondering, Wisconsin, with its collective bargaining…
In the Nation’s Service?
Happy Boxing Day (if you’re Canadian). Or Second Day of Christmas (if you’re Dutch). Why don’t we have two-day holidays (especially the Friday after Thanksgiving)? In the news: People in jail recording themselves reading books for their kids to listen to. The DEA is big and scary and still unable to stop world leaders from dealing drugs. And the New…
Speaking of private justice
Halliburton pays Nigeria $250 million to drop their case against former CEO Dick Cheney… for paying Nigerian official $180 million between 1994 and 2004 to secure a $6 billion contract. So says the BBC.
National Intelligence, hard at work
The Air Force is blocking its personnel from using work computers to view the Web sites of more than 25 news organizations and blogs that have posted Wikileaks. So says the Times (one of the blocked sites). Phew. God forbid Air Force personnel would know what is free information to the rest of the world. “Classified information, whether or not…
Politics and the Courts and Health Care
It always bothers me when people bitch about court decisions because they don’t agree with the politics. It’s one thing to be pro-abortion (as I am) or pro illegal immigration (got me there, too) or anti-2nd Amendment (not too fond of how some people interpret it, personally). It’s another to think that every Supreme-Court decision needs to be decided in…
Wikileaks
I can’t help but think the release of all this information is somehow good. I certainly don’t feel less safe. I do worry about informants being outed and killed. But are they? And other than that, wouldn’t it be better if our government was more open? I mean, has anybody learned anything we didn’t already know? If so, maybe this…
National Service
Mark Shields has a good column about a speech by Robert Gates, “the one memorable speech of the 2010 campaign”: Gates spoke directly of an avoided undemocratic reality — that most Americans have grown detached from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, that the great civilian majority has come to view military service as “something for other people to do.”…