Opinion-Columns.com

What Sets Them Apart is What Sets Them Off

One of the great attributes that sets Americans apart from most of their world kin is what sets them off. Kate got pissed on an Austin, Texas runway and in no time had 18,000 signatures on a petition holding Congress’s feet to the fire to pass a bill of rights for passengers. She wants regulation and by god, she wants it now, before another passenger sits another hour (or ten) on some dumb runway without so much as a Perrier or an apology.

We’ll Take the Money and Run

I can’t help but wonder what Steve Mufson over at the Washington Post has been smoking. Somehow or another, he seems to think that the overpowering and financially secure Big Coal interests in the nation are on the run.

The Terrorist State We Dare Not Name

The nation we dare not name is the largest country on the Arabian Peninsula. Bordered by Jordan on the northwest, Iraq on the north and northeast, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain, and the United Arab Emirates on the east, Oman on the southeast, and Yemen on the south, with the Persian Gulf to its northeast and the Red Sea to its west. One could hardly find a more pivotal entity.

British Petroleum (BP) Shames Itself With Green Ads and Disastrous Policy

I’ve written before about oil companies, chemical firms and pharmaceutical giants who grease the double-page spreads of magazines with ‘green-speak’ while they poison and flim-flam the public in the day-to-day reality of their business practices. It's a favorite subject of mine.

Losing Our Edge on Our Own Home Turf

John McQuaid makes the case in an editorial, The Can’t-Do Nation, that America is losing its knack for getting big things done. It’s an interesting premise.

The Fate of the World as a Mere Intellectual Exercise

William Kristol and Louis Rene Beres are professional intellectuals. Think-tank guys. Pundits. Gamblers with other people's money (or lives or futures or survival). Fearless and outspoken, as long as it's from behind a desk and their own skins are not at risk.

A Pussyfooting, Wheedling, Sniveling Approach to Confronting National Shame

Roscoe Born, prior to writing a morally unsupportable editorial in the Sunday Baltimore Sun, was Washington editor of Barron's magazine and a reporter in The Wall Street Journal'swill someone please take George Bush into a quiet, unthreatening environment and talk a little Cheney-sense into him?   

Stop Me Before I Self-Destruct Again

Like lemmings headed off a cliff, Ford, Chrysler and General Motors sent their emissaries to Congress, demanding equal rights among themselves to pound the final nails into their collective coffins. Lacking a sensitivity for irony, no one among the various Senators being strong-armed handed out ‘Been There, Done That’ tee shirts.

Kicking and Screaming Our Way to the G-8 Conference

It’s all so embarrassing.

Nation after nation tries to get America to limit its emissions and then we’re caught between 1st and 2nd base in a rundown over the cost to American industry. Top (and usually unnamed) administration officials tell the world that Americans will not support a wiggle or a squiggle in their standard of living in order to guarantee a living with standards.

Just What’s Needed, Another Road Map

It’s a taxi-ride from Israel to Palestine and yet the Road Map for Peace in the Middle East hasn’t been much help in bringing these countries together. Drive down the coast to Tel Aviv and turn left—how hard can it be?