Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
Eastern Adams County's Only Independent Voice Since 1887
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Can you imagine a nation’s president, a former guerilla fighter with socialist leanings, enacting policies that favor business and encourage foreign investment? How about a leader who prefers living in a farmhouse rather than the presidential mansion? That person is José Mujica, the 79-year-old president of Uruguay who finishes his five-year term in March. Uruguay, a small South American country sandwiched between Argentina and Brazil, does not allow a president to stand for reelection, so later this spring, Mujica will ta...
With gas prices plummeting to less than $2 a gallon, some politicians think this is the ideal time to increase state and federal gas taxes. The theory is when gasoline is expensive, voters vehemently oppose higher gas taxes; but when the price drops, motorists don’t pay as much attention. They just fill up and drive off, thankful for the savings. The flaw in that theory is that gas prices will inevitably climb again. But a larger concern is that the debate over fuel taxes distracts us from the real question: what is the b...
Designers of the International Space Station (ISS) had to make it self-sustaining because, once aboard, astronauts had no way to get water or discharge sewage and no connection to Earth’s power grids. Today, ISS has abundant power, clean water and breathable air at the right temperature and humidity – 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Without such careful water recycling, 40,000 pounds of water from Earth would be required each year to supply just four crew members. {more}} Bringing that scientific innovation down to Ear...
Last month, the U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Detroit approved $178 million in legal and consulting fees as the city exited bankruptcy protection. It is the most expensive municipal restructuring in our nation’s history and the money paid to lawyers and consultants alone is more than it cost to run the entire Seattle City Fire Department last year. To put its total debt in perspective, the amount Detroit owes its creditors is equivalent to the entire Washington state budget for this year. Once America’s fifth largest city, Detroit...
It’s that time of year when we count our blessings. In America, they are abundant, especially this year. For starters, the unemployment rate is down from seven percent last December to 5.8 percent. Washington State mirrors the national average. Housing starts, retail sales and our gross domestic product are all up from last year, signs of an improving economy. Since consumer spending drives economic growth, low interest rates have helped. Home mortgages and auto loans hover in the 3 to 4 percent range. Contrast that to Russia...
Christmas is a difficult time for anyone grieving for a lost loved one. It is especially painful for America’s military families whose son, daughter, spouse or parent was killed in action this year. Normally, the fallen are remembered on Memorial Day in late May, but thanks to a Maine family and thousands of donors and volunteers, nearly half a million wreaths are laid on the tombstones of our fallen soldiers, sailors and airmen during the Christmas holidays. The panoramic view of Arlington’s Cemetery’s rolling hills with...
Rioters in Ferguson, Missouri shattered the windows of Natalie’s Cakes and More and vandalized the baking equipment. However, when owner Natalie Dubose put her story on the internet, Americans immediately responded, donating more than $260,000 to help her rebuild her business. The money was more than Dubose, an African-American small business owner, needed so she used the surplus donations to help the other 60 or so proprietors rebuild in the St. Louis suburb. The contributions were timely, because it helped her i... Full story
Jonathon Gruber recently created a stir with his comments about Obamacare and “the stupidity of the American voter.” Gruber, an MIT economist, was one of the architects of the President’s health reform law. Recently, videotape surfaced of Gruber’s appearances over the past several years in which he described how the drafters of Obamacare used deception and manipulation to get the bill passed. In one venue, Gruber noted that because taxes were a hard sell politically, “This bill was written in a tortured way to make sure [the...
For some, Thanksgiving is a time to gather with family and friends and give thanks for the blessings we enjoy. For others, it’s a time to volunteer at soup kitchens to help the less fortunate. For still others, it’s simply a chance to eat a huge meal and watch football. In reality, most Americans have no idea how fortunate we are. With the exception of military families, too few of us have fought to protect the freedoms we have. Few people alive today experienced the depravation of the Great Depression. A full one-third of... Full story
Hurricane Katrina devastated the gulf coast in 2005, flooding cities and towns in four states and killing more than 1,800 people. The government response to Katrina, especially by FEMA (Federal Emergency Management Agency), became the poster child for an inept and incompetent bureaucracy. But out of this disaster has come a story of success. The hurricane gave New Orleans educators the opportunity to reinvent the city’s failing public schools. Two years before the storm struck, the state had created the Louisiana Recovery S...
There is a new look to Bavarian tourism these days. In the past, tourists flocked to Munich’s city square like Seattle’s New Year’s revelers at the Space Needle. They came to see the ancient Glockenspiel, a giant cuckoo clock on the city hall tower, and then dash to the nearby famed Hofbrauhaus for beer, brats and Bavarian music. Now the Glockenspiel has some real competition. It is BMW World, a mammoth, ultramodern, high tech new car showroom adjacent to the 1972 Olympic Stadium. It is so large prospective buyers can take...
While the merger of United Airlines and Continental left a gaping hole at the ticket counter at SeaTac International Airport, frequent fliers are noticing an expansion of Delta and Alaska check-in stations these days. That expansion could mean a great boost to Boeing and Washington’s economy in the future – if state lawmakers hold the line on taxes and regulatory costs. According to airport statistics, those two airlines now account for half the passengers flying through Seattle, and they are expanding. Alaska and Delta have... Full story
November’s election needs to be about the people who are unemployed or underemployed and how best to increase wages. It worked for Bill Clinton. “It’s the economy, stupid” was coined by Clinton’s campaign strategist James Carville in Clinton’s successful 1992 presidential campaign against President George H. W. Bush. In March 1991, days after the ground invasion to liberate Kuwait, 90 percent of Americans approved of President Bush’s job performance. The following year when the economy soured and the President had to swallo... Full story
Entrepreneurs helped make America great. Many of the “big businesses” we know today started in the imaginations of immigrants who came to America, the land of opportunity – a place of boundless possibilities where your station in life didn’t matter, a land where hard work, innovation and perseverance held the key to the American dream. The story of M&Ms is a good example. Today, we know the Mars Company as a global giant marketing its candy and products in 100 nations. But it didn’t start that way. The Mars Company was founde... Full story