Opinion-Columns.com

Smithfield Foods—Driven to a Process

When you think about companies that are driven, maximum ability rather than minimal standards comes to mind. But not always. Some companies make their dough the old-fashioned way, they cut away all the humanity, kind of like butchering a hog—until there’s nothing left but profit.

Frosty Hardiman, An Inconvenient Idiot

In the south Seattle suburb of Federal Way, another of the irrational and illegal irritants to the schooling of American children has spun itself out. Because of an e-mail by an evangelical Christian computer consultant, Al Gore’s “An Inconvenient Truth” may or may not be shown to the 7th grade class in which Hardiman’s daughter is a member.

Who Says CEOs Are Worth Their Compensation?

Another tiresome Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post about executive compensation, this one by professor of finance, Roy C. Smith, at New York University. Roy’s claim to a stake in this controversy is co-authorship of Governing the Modern Corporation. Not to short-change his authority, Smith is a former general partner at Goldman Sachs.

Just in Time—a Carry-Out Arms Race

Rallying to the cry that you can’t keep a good man (or industry) down, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and Rockwell pulled the expected rabbit out of the hat. Just when the Iraq war was winding down or heating up, depending upon your Washington allegiance, those armaments guys played the China card.

Four-Fifths of the World

Water covers approximately four-fifths of the earth’s surface and there are strange stories and strange circumstances attached to it. One of the most strange concerns Jennifer Strange, the California woman who died of the effects of ‘water intoxication.’

A Pretty Hollow Complaint, Doctor

The AMA and their current president can lament until the cows come home, but they haven’t done a damned thing to provide medical care to the poor before it becomes a matter of emergency rooms. By then, the acute has become chronic. I doubt that anyone even vaguely connected with the self-righteous AMA has ever sat up with a seriously sick child and had no place to go.

Calling In the Cavalry and Killer Whales

Turning from gunships to the Pentagon’s less lethal, but (again) precedent-setting intimidation of their perceived enemies, this time it’s civilian law firms. On the same news day as the above piece, a loose screw by the name of Cully Stimson, boldly encouraged a boycott of some of the nation’s top law firms.

Failure Is Not an Option

Robert Gates said, “failure in Iraq is not an option.” The president told Americans on Wednesday that failure in Iraq would be a disaster and Condi Rice repeated the mantra in front of a Senate committee with its hair on fire.

It Doesn’t Matter What Maliki Says

President Bush is all charged up because Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has had a ‘sea-change,’ in the president's words, on his determination to fight insurgents. If it has indeed been a sea change, the foot-dragging Iraqi minister must have been off on a Caribbean vacation when no one was looking.

The Legacy of Not Having Impeached Richard Nixon

This president, in the face of united and complete disagreement with his policies, in an atmosphere where he enjoys absolutely no support either nationally of internationally, refuses to change any aspect of his failed policy. What the hell can be done with a man like that?