Sept. 23, 2006

Management has been holding birthday parties all over the hospital. They’ve improved pensions. They’re even raising wages. For the most part, people realize that this is all because of the union drive.

Chickens are now coming home to roost in the housing market. Option ARMs have risen from under 1 percent of deals in the ’90s to at least 12.5 percent in 2005. Business Week likens option ARMs to the neutron bomb: the people are blown up but the houses are still standing.

SAN DIEGO — Nearly 200 members and allies of Pride at Work, AFL-CIO, met for its national convention this past weekend. In a pre-convention interview, PAW Executive Director Jeremy Bishop described the purpose of the meeting, titled “No Turning Back in 2006,” as both educational and a moment to relax before the election season struggles.

Although the 9/11 commemorations are over, more than 40,000 rescue and recovery workers, mostly union members, who risked their lives in what was one of the largest rescue efforts in world history, hope their country doesn’t forget them.

Having had the good fortune to spend time in Cuba in the late 1990s studying their cutting-edge organic agriculture program, I would suggest that anyone with a genuine interest in the country try to do the same, although a recent U.S. crackdown on travel to the Cuba has made it harder than ever for U.S. citizens to go and “see for themselves.”

Religious leaders from the Catholic peace group Pax Christi, the Muslim American Society and the World Conference of Religions for Peace convened a news conference in Washington Sept. 20 to condemn religious intolerance and to call for “solidarity” with Muslims.

Today, Puerto Rico is a U.S. colony. In the final document of its just-completed summit conference in Havana, the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries reiterated its support for the right of the Puerto Rico nation to independence and self-determination. The affirmation by most of the world’s countries of Puerto Rico’s right to be free and sovereign came just before the 138th anniversary of El Grito de Lares, the historic Sept. 23, 1868, revolt against Spanish colonialism.

Ham radio anyone?
Wal-Mart fallacy
How to steal an election
Scare tactic vs. reality
Ignore Coulter at your peril

It is complete hypocrisy for Joe Lieberman to claim that he is above “partisan politics.” Quite the opposite: Lieberman has been a consistent enabler for the partisan politics of George W. Bush, against the interests of the people. The price has been high for the country and for Connecticut’s working families.

For years NASA insisted it couldn’t be done. Beyond the orbit of Mars, NASA said, solar energy could not be used to generate electricity for onboard power on space devices. So the agency used the extremely dangerous nuclear substance plutonium — and people on Earth were put at great risk in the event of an accident.