tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-36096992011-04-21T20:27:42.111-04:00While We Were AsleepCommentary on Politics and Culturemlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comBlogger301100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-899011452003-02-28T09:12:00.000-05:002003-03-04T06:56:07.000-05:00American Occupation Force to Exceed 100,000 Imagine the cost of maintaining several divisions of troops to act as a police force. Imagine the resentment of the rest of the Muslim world toward an America that is occupying Iraq for several years. Imagine the increase in the threat of violence against this country as Osama bin Laden and similar terrorist leaders enroll hundreds and perhaps mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-898388022003-02-27T09:34:00.000-05:002003-03-04T06:59:12.000-05:00Questions for Mr. Bush In his speech to the American Enterprise Institute last night, President Bush pressed his case for war against Iraq. He argued that Saddam Hussein's regime posed a direct threat to the US and the Middle East. He asserted that "The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat. Acting against the danger will also contribute greatly to themlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-896736352003-02-24T18:34:00.000-05:002003-02-26T05:33:45.000-05:00Brandishing the Big Stick in Support of the Big Lie Not satisfied with the waffling of the weaker nations on the UN Security Council, the Bush Administration has taken to twisting arms in search of a Council vote in favor of war against Iraq. No matter that such a vote would be tainted. It would promote the charade that the Bush Administration actually cares about world opinion as embodied bymlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-893087532003-02-18T10:13:00.000-05:002003-02-18T10:32:49.000-05:00Every Human Life Is Sacred I was frightened when I first looked at the front page of the New York Times online this morning: "Subway Fire Kills At Least 100." Could it have been in New York? No -- I am embarrassed to admit my relief -- it was in Seoul, Korea. I imagined the horror and suffering as the gasoline exploded through the packed commuters on the two trains that were charred by themlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-890927852003-02-14T09:44:00.000-05:002003-02-14T09:44:38.000-05:00Americans Do Not Support Bush's War A recent New York Times/CBS News poll reveals that most Americans don't accept the Bush administration's rationale for immediate war against Iraq. Most survey respondents backed proposals to give UN weapons inspectors more time to search for weapons of mass destruction. The administration's attempt to portray Saddam Hussein and Al Queda as partners in mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-890533882003-02-13T16:39:00.000-05:002003-02-14T07:04:47.000-05:00The War Has Already Started Supposedly, President Bush hasn't made up his mind to launch an invasion of Iraq. However, a story in today's Washington Post makes it clear that U.S. Special Forces have already penetrated into Iraq in order to prepare for the on-coming full-scale assault. When questioned about this "premature" act of war against Iraq, an irate Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-889077122003-02-11T07:30:00.000-05:002003-02-20T12:38:13.000-05:00Who's a Human Shield Now? Two apparently unrelated items of interest yesterday: First, Americans were warned to stockpile food and water and to prepare for terrorist attacks with chemical and biological weapons. Second, President Bush accused Saddam Hussein of using innocent Iraqi citizens as human shields in the face of an impending American attack. H'mm, could it be that innocent American mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-887540672003-02-08T08:24:00.000-05:002003-02-20T12:37:44.000-05:00Did You Volunteer for the Front Lines? Gee, could it be a coincidence that the terrorism alert level has been ratcheted up to code Orange just as we are about to go to war with Iraq? Americans are told to “ maintain a high level of vigilance” in the face of the probability of attacks on “soft” targets such as malls and hospitals but to go about our everyday lives anyway. Suddenly we mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-886085932003-02-05T16:01:00.000-05:002003-02-05T16:03:27.000-05:00Are Things As Bad As They Appear? All it takes is a quick look at the front page of any responsible paper to see that this country is in serious trouble. We are on the brink of a self-declared war with Iraq, the American shuttle program has failed, North Korea is starting to reprocess plutonium into nuclear warheads that could easily be delivered by its many highly-reliable short and mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-796848202002-08-01T08:35:00.000-04:002002-08-01T08:37:04.000-04:00Two Cheers for Corporate Honesty Today’s New York Times reports that General Electric has joined Coca-Cola, the Washington Post, Bank One, and Amazon.com among a select group of companies that have decided to count stock option grants to executives as a business expense. This change combined with others requires executives to hold substantial amounts of the stocks they purchase with such mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-796636332002-07-31T20:09:00.000-04:002002-07-31T20:09:49.786-04:00The New American Imperium The United States is beginning to act like Rome during the later part of the Republican era when consuls and dictators culminating in Julius Caesar extended Roman rule from Britain to Persia. No longer satisfied with our role of first among equals within the ranks of democratic, first-world countries, we are militarily and, perhaps, politically prepared to project an mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-795908632002-07-30T07:51:00.000-04:002002-07-30T07:51:26.026-04:00A Recipe for Economic Disaster Despite recent gains, the stock market stands about where it did five years ago. Individuals and pension funds have lost nearly ten trillion dollars in the value of their investments. State and local governments faced with deficits due to business and consumer spending cutbacks, restrictions in federal Medicaid and other payments, increases in unemployment and mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-794344712002-07-26T08:28:00.000-04:002002-07-26T08:30:38.000-04:00Fear In the Classroom Are we living in a police state when first-grade schoolchildren are frightened by huge, wolf like German Shepherds sniffing at them for drugs? Imagine that you are, perhaps three-feet tall, weigh less than 50 pounds, and maybe you’re unfamiliar with or afraid of dogs. Imagine then that your principal and your teacher who you trust allow them in to your classroom to sniff mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-793430852002-07-24T08:00:00.000-04:002002-07-24T08:00:29.093-04:00Congress Fiddles While the Economy Burns Politicians and businessmen of all stripes have been attempting to convince us that the daily drum beat of corruption revelations have been the work of a few bad apples. So now the banks, Citigroup and J.P. Morgan Chase, have been implicated in setting up loans to Enron that were disguised in such a way as to appear as earnings. It appears that the mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-793066502002-07-23T12:12:00.000-04:002002-07-24T08:03:09.000-04:00Bush Knew of Large Losses Before Stock Sale at Harken George Bush filed a late Form 4 reporting the June 22, 1990, sale of 212,140 shares (about two-thirds of his stake) of Harken Energy Corporation on March 4, 1991. An SEC investigation of possible insider trading infractions found that Bush had a “relatively limited role in Harken management” and that: “The vast majority of the second mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-792256752002-07-21T15:09:00.000-04:002002-07-21T15:13:25.000-04:00Americans Don’t Like the Truth “Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.” --George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950) You just can’t trust anybody nowadays it seems. You see, after serious dieting and exercising these last few months, I got back down to my college weight. So when the new Ralph Lauren 34-30 relaxed fit jeans I bought at Costco were too big formlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-792041472002-07-20T21:53:00.000-04:002002-07-21T15:15:38.000-04:00Have You No Shame? The New York Times reports that TechNet, a coalition of investors, CEO’s, and executives, especially in the area of technology, is pressuring Congress not to regulate the granting of incentive stock options. This despite the fact that the runaway granting of options to top corporate executives contributed to the recent implosion of many large and small companies resulting mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-791611802002-07-19T15:24:00.000-04:002002-07-19T15:26:36.000-04:00Four Year’s Value Up in Smoke (and Mirrors) It’s not just the bad guys or the politicians. It’s not just the big corporate types, the banks and investment companies, we’re all gonna suffer now. Just look at a graph of the Dow, S&P 500, or NASDAQ from the perspective of five or ten years. Investors have lost the value of approximately four years appreciation in their stocks. More than halfmlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-791019252002-07-18T06:49:00.000-04:002002-07-18T11:27:28.000-04:00Why Should We Play When the Game Is Rigged? (An unpublished Letter to the New York Times, January 18, 2002) Although the current Enron scandal is an exceptionally egregious example, systemic corruption among individual companies and analysts casts doubt upon the efficient, open, and equitable functioning of the financial markets. My own ill-starred seven-month experience as an individual mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-790439302002-07-16T21:50:00.000-04:002002-07-16T21:56:35.000-04:00Chicken Little in Reverse Once upon a time Chicken Little’s brother Backward Chicken, who was mayor of Chicken Land, was walking down Ceiling Street when a piece of the sky fell down and hit him on the head. Of course, because he was Backward Chicken he didn’t say anything to anyone, insisting to himself that all was well in Chicken Land. Then Loosey Goosey came up to say that a piece of themlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-790312932002-07-16T15:45:00.000-04:002002-07-22T07:31:17.000-04:00Is It Time for Bushgate Yet? Why is it that Bill Clinton’s mutually consenting sexual escapades with Monica Lewinsky and small-time failed real-estate venture in Whitewater caused a conservative furor that spawned the assignment of pit-bull Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr and impeachment by the House of Representatives? Yet what appears to be a snake pit of less-than-timely accounting and mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-790225892002-07-16T12:01:00.000-04:002002-07-16T12:07:49.000-04:00Outrage of the Day The U.S. Navy is preparing to deploy low frequency active sonar designed to detect potential enemy submarines in two war ships. In previous tests near the Bahamas, nearly 20 whales beached themselves immediately after the tests. Seven of them died. Autopsies showed massive damage to their brains and inner ears. Previous tests of related sonar systems resulted in similar mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-789347322002-07-14T09:58:00.000-04:002002-07-14T10:05:20.000-04:00Is it time for a politics of class in America? There was a time when the rich felt an obligation to consider the needs of the poor. Men like Roosevelt and Rockefeller worked to feed the hungry, provide for the needs of the old and sick, strengthen the schools, and offer wider access to a college education. Apparently, those times are over. The unfolding scandal of corporate greed that has mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-789023102002-07-13T09:37:00.000-04:002002-07-13T12:59:14.000-04:00A House Divided Against Itself Cannot Stand - Lincoln Yesterday, I went shopping for jeans at the new mall here in Durham, North Carolina. I couldn’t believe that they cost 40 dollars a pair at the Gap. That’s nine times as much as a pair of Levi’s cost back in 1965. At that time the minimum wage was $1.25 per hour. The current minimum wage is $5.15. That’s only a little moremlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-787897292002-07-10T16:06:00.000-04:002002-07-11T06:02:55.000-04:00Is It Time for the “D” Word? The President has spoken. Apparently, the markets haven’t listened. They continue to plunge. Over the last three years we have seen the NASDAQ rise by more than 75 percent above and then sink more than 50 percent below where it stood in July of 1999. The Dow is approximately 50 percent below where it stood in 1999. Most other equity indexes show somewhat mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-786886262002-07-08T11:15:00.000-04:002002-07-08T11:38:08.000-04:00Smallpox Vaccinations Suggest US Plan to Attack Iraq The federal government recently announced that it planned to vaccinate approximately half a million health-care workers against smallpox. Vaccination will protect these so-called “first responders” in case they must treat smallpox victims infected during a terrorist attack. In addition, the government is manufacturing and stockpiling enoughmlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-785670062002-07-04T20:08:00.000-04:002002-07-04T20:08:21.856-04:00Congressional debate over the estate tax shows how terribly misled the American public has been about its economic impact. Remember, only millionaries pay estate tax; ordinary Americans do not. Whether we believe government’s budget should be larger or smaller, the money has to come from somewhere. Eliminating estate tax is not a tax cut – it just shifts the tax burden so that more is paid by Edhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15637873275497412340noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-785484492002-07-04T09:31:00.000-04:002002-07-05T09:39:03.000-04:00 Homeland Insecurity Day As the citizens of Washington, DC, are herded together inside a double line of fencing to watch tonight's celebration of our freedoms as Americans, we might take a few minutes to think about how things have changed over the last ten months in this country: Anthrax Panics Dirty Bomb Scares Shoe Bombers Airline Security Delays, Searches, and Fees Potassium Iodidemlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-785119152002-07-03T12:04:00.000-04:002002-07-03T17:42:36.000-04:00 Is President Bush guilty of insider trading? Did he offer Enron various forms of payback for its over half a million dollars in contributions to his Texas gubernatorial races? See Paul Krugman’s July 2 column “Everyone is Outraged” in the July 2, 2002, New York Times for details. Why is it that Enron and other energy companies had privileged and secret input into Dick Cheney’s mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3609699.post-784313902002-07-01T16:19:00.000-04:002002-07-01T16:19:13.350-04:00What ever happened to fairness, prudence, public service, and ethics in America? Corporate accounting scandals, conflicts of interests among stock analysts and brokers, and insider trading leach money out of your 401K. Global warming, daily ozone alerts, and de-funding of toxic waste cleanup threaten our health. Massive tax cuts targeted toward the wealthy leave Social Security and Medicare mlynne1http://www.blogger.com/profile/05032674359394702030noreply@blogger.com