Froma Harrop from Creators Syndicate

Canada and France Also Have Health Care Debates for 09/22/2009

Tue, 22 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The debate over what kind of health care system we should have often includes the kinds others have. The programs in Canada and France have received special attention, and so those countries' efforts to fix their own programs should be of interest.

No health care system is set in stone. Whatever emerges from Congress will also be a work in progress.

Start with Canada. Under Canada ...

Updated: Tue Sep 22, 2009

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Lindsay Lohan and the Crash of Fashion for 09/24/2009

Thu, 24 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Every time the economy swoons and the racks groan with the weight of unsold women's clothing, purveyors of fashion talk up "investment dressing." Investment dressing entails buying a few well-constructed garments that will endure both physically and stylistically for several years.

Needless to say, the fashion business hates the concept, but it has no choice when customers are ...

Updated: Thu Sep 24, 2009

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Liberals -- Choose Your Friends Wisely for 09/29/2009

Tue, 29 Sep 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Nearly as unappetizing as the video of ACORN workers explaining how to run a prostitution business, cheat on taxes and import underage streetwalkers from Central America is the presence of Michael Moore's mug on TV screens everywhere.

Having helped throw the 2000 election to George W. Bush — moderate Democrats had to be punished — Moore is now promoting his new movie on the e ...

Updated: Tue Sep 29, 2009

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Fix Health Care Now, Remove Warts Later for 10/01/2009

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

"Rome was not built in a day," Montana Democrat Max Baucus said with resignation after the Senate committee he heads voted to reject a "public option." A government-run health plan that would compete with private insurers' offerings, the public option is a means to curb spiraling health care costs.

It's more than a little weird that something designed to ease the burd ...

Updated: Thu Oct 01, 2009

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We learned that in 1995, when native son Timothy McVeigh blew up a federal building in Oklahoma City, extinguishing 168 lives. for 10/06/2009

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

THE YEAR "1986" HAS BEEN CHANGED TO "1995." THE FOLLOWING IS THE CORRECTED COLUMN IN ITS ENTIRETY. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION. — CREATORS SYNDICATE

FROMA HARROP

RELEASE: TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2009, AND THEREAFTER

The Terrorist Within

What you need to know about Michael C. Finton is that he parked a v ...

Updated: Tue Oct 06, 2009

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The Terrorist Within for 10/06/2009

Tue, 06 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

What you need to know about Michael C. Finton is that he parked a van in front of a federal building in Springfield, Ill., believing it was loaded with explosives. He then twice made cell phone calls that he thought would detonate the bombs.

Finton never made contact with any real al-Qaida operatives, only FBI agents pretending to be such. The creepiest part is that Finton was a fry cook ...

Updated: Tue Oct 06, 2009

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Health Care Reform Helps Every Generation for 10/08/2009

Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

In terms of health coverage, one date separates the most secure Americans from the least secure: a person's 65th birthday. Age 65 is when one qualifies for Medicare, the government insurance program for the elderly and disabled. It's become a source of intergenerational strife — not so much between the old and young as between the old and the nearly old.

Baby boomers may not welcom ...

Updated: Thu Oct 08, 2009

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Weary of Culinary Spectacle, Spending and Sport for 10/13/2009

Tue, 13 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

I must be the only "foodie" who didn't love "Julie & Julia," the movie about Julia Child and the office worker she inspired, Julie Powell. Am I allowed?

And even though I grow heirloom beans and patronize local cheese makers, I remain dry-eyed over the imminent closing of Gourmet magazine. Put bluntly, I'm fed up with the transformation of the culinary arts into s ...

Updated: Tue Oct 13, 2009

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Science and the Female Brain for 10/15/2009

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The recent award of Nobel Prizes in biology and chemistry to three women dredges up Larry Summers' suggestion in 2005 that differences in the female brain may account for the dearth of top women scientists. Now President Obama's economic adviser, Summers was then speechifying as president of Harvard.

Carol Greider, who just won a Nobel for biology, recalls being astounded by the remark. ...

Updated: Thu Oct 15, 2009

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Social Security: Every Politician's Toy? for 10/20/2009

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Social Security is a glossy piece of paper on which nearly every politician wants to finger-paint an agenda. But Social Security has no need of ornament. It is a very grown-up program. Put some other toy into the political playpen.

Come January, for the first time since 1975, Social Security payments will not be ratcheted upward for inflation. The reason is simple: no inflation.

B ...

Updated: Tue Oct 20, 2009

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Social Security: Every Politician's Toy? for 10/20/2009

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Come January, for the first time since 1975, Social Security payments will not be ratcheted upward for inflation. The reason is simple: no inflation.

B ...

Updated: Tue Oct 20, 2009

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'America's Best Idea' Meets One of the Worst for 10/22/2009

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The Ken Burns series "The National Parks: America's Best Idea" got me thinking about one of America's worst ideas, the war on drugs. Particularly ill-conceived is the crusade against marijuana.

That bad idea is now threatening the good idea, as Mexican drug cartels — hampered by a tighter border — swarm over large swaths of U.S. public land to grow pot. There they d ...

Updated: Thu Oct 22, 2009

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The Phantom of the Option for 10/27/2009

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

The public option, we hear, is about to take earthly form. While congressional leaders working to combine five health care reform bills will determine its final shape, a government-run health plan to compete with the private offerings will almost surely become reality. And the specter of a populist uprising against it will haunt centrist Democrats no more.

It's been quite an ordeal. Seve ...

Updated: Tue Oct 27, 2009

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What Does the FHA Think It Is Doing? for 10/29/2009

Thu, 29 Oct 2009 00:00:00 -0700

Exactly who made Bernadine Shimon think that she could buy a new house shortly after declaring bankruptcy and losing another home to foreclosure? The American taxpayer, that's who.

Without a Federal Housing Administration willing to guarantee a $125,000-plus mortgage, this Denver-area schoolteacher's recurring "dream of homeownership" could not come to pass. Shimon's down payme ...

Updated: Thu Oct 29, 2009

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The Population Boomerang in Iran for 11/03/2009

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Iranian students are engaging this week in Round Two of their street-level struggle for reform. Round One took place last June, when young people protested the fixed re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

About 30 people died in those huge demonstrations. That was a remarkably low number given the brutal tendencies of the hardliners and the in-your-face challenge of the protestors ...

Updated: Tue Nov 03, 2009

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The Tea-Baggers Were Carpetbaggers for 11/05/2009

Thu, 05 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

The Tea Party wing of the Republican Party had the perfect strategy for upstate New York's 23rd congressional district:

1. Support a candidate who doesn't live in the district — in this case, Conservative Douglas Hoffman. Savage the local Republican choice, Dede Scozzafava, and hound her into dropping out.

2. Condemn the local Republicans who had picked the moderate Scozzafa ...

Updated: Thu Nov 05, 2009

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Two Dots Don't Make a Political Map for 11/10/2009

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

It is the duty of every pundit to be all-knowing on what the recent elections mean for the future of American politics. They may have only three dots to connect — and two dots may have been state-level contests mostly about local issues — but the confident ones plot detailed maps of political change.

The "story" out of the recent gubernatorial races in Virginia and ...

Updated: Tue Nov 10, 2009

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Casinos Take Money From States for 11/12/2009

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

In Las Vegas, house prices have dropped 55 percent since peaking in August 2006, and the foreclosure rate is seven times the national average. Gigantic new condo towers sit nearly empty (real-estate pros call them "see-through buildings"), and unemployment tops 13 percent. The recession has sent casino revenues plunging 20 percent from two years ago.

"Up until the '90s, we ...

Updated: Thu Nov 12, 2009

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The Party of Fiscal Babies for 11/17/2009

Tue, 17 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Nearly every Republican these days calls for tax cuts and lower deficits, and in the same sentence. Point out that these goals clash — that taxes pay for government and not paying for government causes deficits, and the Republican counters, "We must shrink government, instead."

Sure. And you're just the boys to do it.

There hasn't been a balanced budget since t ...

Updated: Tue Nov 17, 2009

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The Civic Price of Courting Corporations for 11/19/2009

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 00:00:00 -0800

Amtrak riders passing through New London, Conn., can catch an odd sight in an otherwise picturesque New England setting: a fancy corporate center standing next to a street grid emptied of nearly all its buildings. This used to be the Fort Trumbull neighborhood, a working class enclave that would have been largely forgotten had it not been central to a controversial 2005 U.S. Supreme Court rulin ...

Updated: Thu Nov 19, 2009

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