I'm generally not a big fan of the outrage police, but something recently hit a nerve for me. The American Society of Landscape Architects recently gave an award to a project by a major landscape architecture firm, CMG, called the Crack Garden. How can a major firm like CMG name an urban space the crack garden and how can the ASLA give it an award? Are they that insensitive or clueless?

The official story is that the $108 billion for the International Monetary Fund that the House leadership wants to attach to the war supplemental on Tuesday is "global stimulus," "foreign aid," "money for poor people in poor countries." Critics like Mark Weisbrot of the Center for Economic and Policy Research say this is a ruse, and that the money is intended to bail out European banks from their exposure in Eastern Europe.

On a night when we just saw Stephen Colbert clowning with and being mobbed by thousands of troops in Camp Victory, Iraq, let's recall how important it was to the 2006 campaign to have soldiers like Joe Sestak and Patrick Murphy and Eric Massa running as Democrats. After the Republicans successfully trashed the military career two years earlier of John Kerry, it was important to see soldiers coming on board to lead the Democratic Party.

If I was pressed to guess who will be the GOP's nominee for the 2010 Governor's race in Minnesota, I would say "Norm Coleman!". Coleman's career is an interesting one. In three elections for major office, he has lost to a pair of entertainers who had never before sought public office, while he has beaten a former Vice President, United States senator and ambassador to Japan (albeit in a highly unusual race in which he likely would have lost to his original opponent had that opponent, Paul Wellstone, not died in a plane crash). I regret to say that I do not think Minnesota has seen the last of Norm Coleman on a ballot.

The current drift in U.S. policy toward North Korea is exposing the weakness of President Obama's foreign policy team, specifically the absence of both a lead strategic voice and an advisor with North Korean expertise.

Jacob currently lives in a group home within our school district, and the boys who live there go to our school while they reside, there. Each boy's history is different, but all share dysfunctional/abusive family experiences that usually led to some acting out behavior requiring juvenile justice and family services interventions. Most of these boys are only with us for a few months before another family member opens up their home to the boy, and they leave us. Jacob is different. This is just one real story about one real child who is about to be profoundly affected by the state budget cuts that we hear about daily.

In the wake of the surprisingly strong showing by the pro-Western coalition in Sunday's elections in Lebanon, the debate is raging as whether President Obama can take any credit for it. McClatchy, Newsweek, Politico, the AP and a host of others pondered whether the President's dazzling speech in Cairo and recent diplomatic efforts in Beirut amounted to an "Obama Effect" which helped blunt Hezbollah and its allies, or instead played little role in the face of competing Christian factions, Saudi cash and other decidedly local factors.

As wonderful as my employee benefits company is (and their fees are reasonable), the health care expense for my family is nonetheless extraordinary, and illustrative of the inviability of continuing a market based health care system that relies on for-profit insurance providers. Why isn't the U.S. Chamber of Commerce demanding single payer universal healthcare on our behalf? Why aren't the Republicans that abhor needless bureaucratic burden on businesses demanding single payer?

Mirabile Investment Corporation (MIC), a major owner of Burger King franchises in Tennessee, Arkansas, and Mississippi, decided to sell climate change denial along with their high fat, sodium, and calorie menu options. The store signs for MIC Burger King franchises were used to sell bull manure with their miscellaneous beef byproducts, announcing that "Global Warming is Baloney."

A system of elected judges simply cannot work. Elected judges become additional legislatures. Want to get rid of punitive damages against corporations? Bankroll a candidate who supports corporate interests. Can't get the legislature to pass a gay-marriage bill? Bankroll 3-5 gay-marriage supporters and stack the state supreme court. Judicial elections are cheaper anyway, so you save money by focusing on elected judges instead of elected representatives.

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