The Hindsight Factor

The Big Oil Quintet made an appearance before Congress on May 22, singing their old standard: “The Magic of the Free Market.”

read more

The Beijing Olympics present a huge dilemma for me.

read more

    Tigali - European leaders are ignoring French involvement in the Rwandan genocide 14 years ago, the country's foreign minister has told The Telegraph.

    A damning report has accused France of knowing that a genocide was being planned as early as 1990. It also claims that French soldiers took part in rape, sexual harassment and torture during the period in 1994 when 800,000 people were killed in ethnic violence.

read more

    On August 8, a small team of six athletes from Burma is scheduled to participate in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing. Very few back home, however, may be wondering on this occasion about the team's fortunes in the field, track, swimming, archery, rowing and canoeing events to follow. To millions of Burmese, the day will only bring agonizing memories of a defeated uprising for democracy.

read more

    Washington - The Environmental Protection Agency rejected on Thursday a request to cut the quota for the use of ethanol in cars, concluding, for the time being, that the goal of reducing the nation's reliance on oil trumps any effect on food prices from making fuel from corn.

    The EPA administrator, Stephen L. Johnson, said that the mandate was "strengthening our nation's energy security and supporting American farming communities," and that it was not causing "severe harm to the economy or the environment."

read more

    In recent weeks, former vice president Al Gore challenged Americans to commit to producing 100 percent of electricity from "renewable energy and clean carbon-free sources" within 10 years. And former senator John Edwards launched a Half in Ten campaign "to reduce poverty in the United States by 50 percent within 10 years." Two bold, audacious goals. Same starting dates.

read more

    The need for a criminal inquiry into the Crandall Canyon mine disaster is shockingly clear now that investigators have detailed how greedy mine operators concealed danger warnings and literally chiseled underground pillar supports to the breaking point. The roof of the Utah mine collapsed last summer, killing six miners and leading three would-be rescuers to their deaths.

read more

    When Kristina McCauley looks back on her time in boot camp, one scene sticks out: she's standing in the sun as blood flows down her wrist, hoping no one will notice her among the rows of trainees chanting and brandishing bayonets.

    Thinking back, she's not sure why she grabbed her weapon the wrong way during that drill. But when she saw that the bayonet on her rifle had sliced cleanly across her hand, she knew calling for help would only invite her drill sergeants to make her life more miserable.

read more

read more

    San Francisco - Computer engineer Alan Dechert didn't like what he saw during the controversial vote tallying in Florida in 2000's presidential election.

    That was when he decided that there had to be a better way for U.S. citizens to safely and accurately cast their ballots.

read more