Demanding Democratic answers on Iraq and mercenaries

This Guardian story references a rumor that, when the British pull out of Basra, instead of leaving a vacuum for U.S. troops to fill, they’ll instead have their places taken by mercenaries.

This is another reason Obama’s and Clinton’s partial draw-down is simply not acceptable. Their plans say nothing about the Blackwaters of the world in Iraq, as to whether their numbers will be kept the same, or even increased.

Beyond Iraq, we need Democratic candidates to honestly address the question of U.S.-incorporated mercenary companies like DynCorp in places like Columbia, as well, especially since they are now fixing their eyes on getting a slice of U.N. peacekeeping budgets in war-torn areas where the U.N. is trying to step in.

Speed kills — your wallet

Ted Rall has it exactly right. It’s ridiculous how state legislatures have put together the combination of fines for speeding itself, fines for points on your license (more and more states have gone to a point system), fines for getting your license reinstated when you get too many points, and so forth.

Despite these legislatures’ public safety cries, it’s really a massive hidden tax.

Oil corrupts, and Big Oil corrupts absolutely, right here at home

A lot of people are fond of pointing out all the governmental corruption in places like Saudi Arabia, Nigeria and other OPEC countries. But, as Josh Marshall points out, all you need to do is look at Alaska.

Or, go back to LBJ’s days of getting under-the-table money from Kellogg, Brown and Root. There’s plenty of history of Big Oil corruption right here in the U.S. of A.

Neo-cons must be running scared of Ron Paul

In National Review, AEI scholar Michael Ledeen fires a shotgun blast at Paul, including the old canard that anti-Zionism equates to anti-Semitism. With lies like that, neoconservatives have nobody to blame but themselves.

Why I will NEVER AGAIN buy a GM

You just lost me forever with a Rush Limbaugh commercial.

Capitalism amok at U.S. colleges and universities: Different costs for different degrees, with no concern for the poor

And, it seems to be a growing practice. But, a professor at one of the universities doing this lament the many things that are being discarded along with this:

“I want students in the College of Engineering at Iowa State to take courses in the humanities and to take courses in the social sciences,” said Mark J. Kushner, the dean of that college. To address problems like climate change, Mr. Kushner said, graduates will need to understand much more than technology. “That’s sociology, that’s economics, that’s politics, that’s public policy.”
Undergraduate juniors and seniors in the engineering school at Iowa State last year began paying about $500 more annually, he said, and the size of that additional payment is scheduled to rise by $500 a year for at least the next two years.
Mr. Kushner said he thought society was no longer looking at higher education as a common good but rather as a way for individuals to increase their earning power.
“There was a time, not that long ago, 10 to 15 years ago, that the vast majority of the cost of education at public universities was borne by the state, and that was why tuition was so low,” he said. “That was based on the premise that the education of an individual is a public good, that individuals go out and become schoolteachers and businessmen and doctors and lawyers, that makes society better. That’s no longer the perception.”

Here in Texas, you have someone like State Rep. Lois Kolkhorst, who has said she wants the business model applied even to the extent of having universities run by CEO types rather than academically grounded presidents or chancellors.