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In an important development for class action suits in the United States and internationally, the Amsterdam Court of Appeals recently upheld a settlement between Royal Dutch Shell and a group of more than 150 institutional investors from 17 European countries, Canada, and Australia. The proposed settlement originally emerged in 2007 after Royal Dutch Shell side-stepped a class action filed in U.S. District Court that sought to include claims from both U.S. and non-U.S. investors, by independently pursuing a settlement in The Netherlands with the non-U.S. claimants.

In about 49 states (Hawaii being a notable exception), public schools are run by local districts. The districts may be units of city/town government, or of a county, or be independent districts. But they're always smaller than the state. This is an old American tradition that people treat as a good thing, but which is really incredibly expensive and harmful in many ways. It's not just education that suffers, either.

Over the last sixty years, Iranians have demanded human rights, democracy and freedom. They have done it repeatedly, and the U.S. government has failed to craft a policy to respond to this genuine and deep-seated demand. The Obama administration, if it pitches its message in terms of universal human rights standards, and seeks to work through multilateral channels, can bring the world along in rejecting an Iranian regime that denies human rights, freedom and dignity to its people.

Growing up poor in America increases one's chance for a variety of diseases -- like asthma, chronic bronchitis, coronary artery disease and congestive heart failure -- all of which can keep Johnny from breathing and our society from prospering.

As the debate over health care reform heats up, Republicans in Congress are predictably regurgitating the talking points penned by GOP spinmeister Frank Luntz to once again block progress. Perhaps none of the GOP fearmongers has been more prolific than Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. Time and again, McConnell has warned that President Obama's proposal "denies, delays, or rations health care." Of course, health care that is denied, delayed and rationed is exactly the crisis Americans face today.

James Mitchell and John Bruce Jessen, the ex-military psychologists identified as primary architects of the CIA's "enhanced interrogations techniques" torture program, apparently did not spend all their time on the battlefield. As the Bush administration-approved coercive interrogation techniques spread from Guantanamo and Afghanistan to the new war in Iraq, Mitchell and Jessen were cashing in on their new-found influence.

In Washington perception is often reality and, based on the reported results of two new surveys, one by the New York Times and CBS and the other by the Wall Street Journal and NBC, the perception du jour in DC is that President Barack Obama has lost ground because of public concern with government spending, the deficit, and, perhaps most of all, the General Motors "bailout." But a look beneath the headlines to the survey data itself indicates that New York Times writers, or at least their headline writer, may have misread their own poll results.

Like many I was against the War in Iraq, but believed we had some business to conduct operations in Afganistan in a responsible way. Now, hundreds of billions and probably over a trillion dollars later it does not feel very warm and fuzzy to be proven right on Iraq, and on the "War on Terror" in general. It also does my ego no good to watch my party continue the failed initiatives of the worst president in American history.

I have spent my time polishing my resume networking, practicing my interviewing skills an filling out job applications, and posting my resume to all the recommended job boards. So far I have gotten a few, thanks but no thanks, notices from companies that I have applied. The positive responses that I have gotten have been from the health/life insurance industry.

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