We need a Scott Walker in Connecticut, to give us relief from an out of control public sector.

I can not tell who is right and who is wrong in Wisconsin. I invite the NYT and its commenters to help me. Through out the 20th century, unions were desperately needed. We read John Stenbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath is school, hammering in the desperate need. But today, in Hamden CT, you hear constantly about fire and policemen who earn 6 figure salaries with overtime, and retire after 20 years, with 6 figure pensions, and then take another job, because they are 40 years old. The town is drowning in pension liabilities it can’t afford. Our taxes keep going up to pay pensions for extremely well paid town workers, when most of us scrubs outside of local government never had a defined benefit pension. We are lucky if some years we could put money into an IRA. Is this what it is like in Wisconsin? We need a Scott Walker in Connecticut, to give us relief from an out of control public sector.

Wisconsin, Workers and the 2016 Election

Republicans’ support for anti-union legislation is at odds with their professed commitments to helping the middle class.

nytimes.com|By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

We need a little more Greece in the European economy.

 Paul Krugman ends his column: “Meanwhile, the first real debtor revolt against austerity is off to a decent start, even if nobody believes it. What’s the Greek for “Keep calm and carry on”?”

What Greece Won

Why all the negative analysis about the debt deal that has actually done the rest of Europe a favor?

nytimes.com|By Paul Krugman

Israel squanders political capital and antagonizes even its friends with its naked land grab in the West Bank.-Kristof

InconvenientNews.Net

Nicholas Kristof: “The 350,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank — not even counting those in Arab East Jerusalem — impede any Middle East peace and stain Israel’s image.

But let’s be clear: The reason to oppose settlements is not just that they are bad for Israel and America, but also that this nibbling of Arab land is just plain wrong. It’s a land grab. The result is a “brutal occupation force,” in the words of the late Avraham Shalom, a former chief of the Israeli internal security force, Shin Bet.”
I second these words. We, the US, should not be supporting this behavior by Israel.

The Human Stain

Israel squanders political capital and antagonizes even its friends with its naked land grab in the West Bank.

nytimes.com|By Nicholas Kristof

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Israel squanders political capital and antagonizes even its friends with its naked land grab in the West Bank.-Kristof

Nicholas Kristof: “The 350,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank — not even counting those in Arab East Jerusalem — impede any Middle East peace and stain Israel’s image.

But let’s be clear: The reason to oppose settlements is not just that they are bad for Israel and America, but also that this nibbling of Arab land is just plain wrong. It’s a land grab. The result is a “brutal occupation force,” in the words of the late Avraham Shalom, a former chief of the Israeli internal security force, Shin Bet.”
I second these words. We, the US, should not be supporting this behavior by Israel.

The Human Stain

Israel squanders political capital and antagonizes even its friends with its naked land grab in the West Bank.

nytimes.com|By Nicholas Kristof

The NRA insists we arm suspected terrorists here. Who is crazy?

The NRA is crazy, and so are we, to allow them to insist we arm suspected terrorists here in the US.
Mary Lewis Grow, “Protective measures include the tracking of travel patterns to and from certain countries, and tightened airport security, but our laws do nothing to stop domestic terrorist suspects from gaining access to the tools they need to inflict terrible damage. Those on the terror watch list are free to buy and own unlimited firearms in the United States.”

Gun Rights for Terrorists

The law says watch-list suspects are free to buy guns and explosives.

nytimes.com|By Mary Lewis Grow

Tom Friedman offers laundry list to clean up ISIS. It’s expensive.

This is frustrating. Tom Friedman ends his op-ed with: “So, to defeat ISIS and not see another emerge, you need to: wipe out its leadership; enlist Muslims to discredit the very real, popular, extremist versions of Islam coming out of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; stem the injustice, corruption, sectarianism and state failure now rampant in the Arab world and Pakistan; and carve out for Iraqi Sunnis their own autonomous region of Iraq and a share of its oil wealth, just like the Kurds have. I know: sounds impossible. But this problem is very deep. This is the only route to a more moderate Arab Islam — as well as to fewer young men and women looking for dignity in all the wrong places.”

ISIS Heads to Rome

The murderous ways of the Islamic State are no joke, but the Italians’ mocking of ISIS is rather appropriate.

nytimes.com|By Thomas L. Friedman

“The abuse from corrections officers that continues to unfold at Rikers Island must end.” NYT

From my facebook page:  This is a horrible story. I want to post it to my blog InconvenientNews.wordpredess.com with this picture, but don’t yet know how to do that without going through the Facebook interface. If anyone knows how, let me know.
It is odd that some people think we should continue to boycott Cuba, because they fall short of human rights. It is incredible how far short we fall, right here, especially in prisons and criminal justice system.

The Horrors Keep Coming at Rikers

The abuse from corrections officers that continues to unfold at Rikers Island must end.

nytimes.com|By THE EDITORIAL BOARD

Here is the picture simly copied directly from the NYT. All I miss now is the summary data, created by the FB or NYT to FB software?

Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future – Businessweek

This is an excellent article. I have used the Press This widget button in WordPress, so it goes straight to my blog, without the capture of graphics that happens automatically at Facebook. If anyone can help me overcome this deficiency, I’m all ears, or blogs, or whatever.

Toyota Embraces Fuel-Cell Cars for Post-Gasoline Future – Businessweek.

Princeton Professor says Knowlege ain’t everything!

This Paul Krugman piece is great. I followed one of the links to a lecture by Larry Summers supporting that education is not the issue.
Shout out to Don Cardwell for putting on my Faceboook page the piece by Krugman, Salvation Gets Cheap from April 17, 2014. I thought I had posted it to this blog, but couldn’t find it. It’s here now, under a new category, Paul Krugman, the Oracle from Princeton.

Knowledge Isn’t Power

Why education isn’t the answer to inequality.

nytimes.com|By Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman on IPCC’s good news about sustainable energy! 4/17/2014 NYT

• Don Cardwell Doc’s most recent column on climate change: http://www.nytimes.com/…/krugman-salvation-gets-cheap…

  

  Salvation Gets Cheap

  The incredible recent decline in the cost of renewable energy, solar power in particular, have improved the…

  nytimes.com|By Paul Krugman

  February 20 at 7:15pm · Unlike · 1 · Remove Preview
• 

David Lindsay Wow, this is great, but I’ve read it. Didn’t I already post it? Krugman ends his piece:”So is the climate threat solved? Well, it should be. The science is solid; the technology is there; the economics look far more favorable than anyone expected. All that stands in the way of saving the planet is a combination of ignorance, prejudice and vested interests. What could go wrong? Oh, wait.”