Month: November 2010

The gradual emergence of Big Pot

Recent publication of a book on the economic strength of “medical” marijuana calls attention to the fact that whether it’s characterized as “medical” or “recreational,” the criminal market that has been developing under the noses of NIDA and the DEA over the past 40 years is much bigger than anyone realized (or the feds could […]

LANCASTER INTELLIGENCER NEW ERA

The Intell editorial “GM bailout pays off” points out the GM bailout “has returned billions of dollars o the public treasury, GM is still a major American employer – with many more workers at affiliated car dealers- with interesting vehicles now for sale and in the pipeline.”

Home prices falling faster in most metro areas

From USA TODAY: Home prices are falling faster in the largest U.S. cities, and a record number of foreclosures are expected to push prices down further through next year. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released Tuesday fell 0.7% in September from August. Eighteen of the cities recorded monthly price declines. The 20-city […]

Pennsylvania isn’t doing enough to help the poor quit smoking

By Dr. Jeffrey Rosch From the PITTSBURGH POST-GAZETTE: …The Department of Public Welfare’s refusal to correct a glaring disparity in the level of smoking-cessation coverage offered to Pennsylvania’s Medicaid recipients isn’t helping. The department has directed managed-care plans covering Medicaid recipients to provide access to all Food and Drug Administration-approved smoking-cessation treatments, but some still […]

Will Walmart be the next to sell wine?

FromTHE PATRIOT NEWS: …The state Liquor Control Board has asked Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to allow self-serve kiosks in two of its midstate stores. If Wal-Mart agrees, the LCB could see the broadest launch yet of its new service. “We’re trying to improve customer convenience, so it seems like a natural partnership,” said Stacy Kriedeman, spokeswoman […]

Tea Partiers (and others) should watch Charles Ferguson on Charlie Rose

Tea Partiers are simply barking up the wrong tree, turning their ire on high government spending and the so called ‘welfare state’ but missing the main cause of the joblessness and fiscal deficits. If they devoted twenty minutes to watching the Charlie Rose conversation with filmmaker Charles Ferguson concerning his forthcoming documentary “Inside Job” on how the financial industries (‘Wall Street’) have systematically lied, cheated, stolen and exploited America…

Election Chaos Pushes Haiti to Brink of Turmoil

From AOL NEWS: Haitians entered election day hoping for the best. Within hours, ballot boxes were ripped to pieces, protesters were on the streets and nearly every presidential hopeful was united against the government. Add it to Haiti’s list: Already reeling from a catastrophic earthquake, one of the world’s poorest economies, storms, a deadly cholera […]

LGH only partly follows Confucian philosophy

In “When the Chinese Rule the world”, author Martin Jacques explains:  “In the Confucian view, the exclusion of people from government was regarded as a positive virtue, allowing government officials to be responsive to the ethics and ideal with which they had been inculcated.” This approach was endorsed, probably unwittingly, by Alexander Henderson III, Esq. in his […]

Mexican Drug War Update

From the DRUG WAR CHRONICLE: Mexican drug trafficking organizations make billions each year smuggling drugs into the United States, profiting enormously from the prohibitionist drug policies of the US government. Since Mexican president Felipe Calderon took office in December 2006 and called the armed forces into the fight against the so-called cartels, prohibition-related violence has […]

Iceland Is No Ireland as State Kept Free of Bank Debt

BLOOMBERG:   Iceland’s President Olafur R. Grimsson said his country is better off than Ireland thanks to the government’s decision to allow the banks to fail two years ago and because the krona could be devalued. “The difference is that in Iceland we allowed the banks to fail,” Grimsson said in an interview with Bloomberg Television’s […]

Game wardens face danger daily

ALTOONA MIRROR:  Monday is expected to bring the annual influx of hunters to woods across the state as the two-week rifle season for deer kicks off,,. The danger of their jobs has been painfully obvious in recent weeks with the shooting death of a game warden near Gettysburg on Nov. 11 and shots fired at […]

Inquirer Editorial: Time for real reforms

PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER:…Speaker-designee Sam Smith (R., Jefferson) and his colleagues want to adopt several reforms to make state government more transparent. Among them are immediate online disclosure of campaign donations, stronger “whistle-blower” protections for state employees who uncover corruption, and a one-year ban for campaign donors from receiving state contracts. The Republican leadership recognizes that public […]