Monique Chartier
So say two unknown medical types in the Lancet magazine. By way of reference, this is the same magazine which published the discredited claim of 600,000 civilian deaths in Iraq – a number which proved to be four times too high. The Lancet requires a subscription or registration or something (sorry, no patience for a…
From today’s Valley Breeze. It is said that every man and every woman – somewhere over the course of their life – must have their moment. It is a moment of recognition that something larger than the day to day details of our own family life is beckoning and we must answer to it. I…
The appraisals which justified and, therefore, facilitated the purchase of wet, polluted, unusable land from former Mayor William Macera (D-Johnston) and his family by the RIRRC, aka the Central Landfill, for many times its actual value. Mike Stanton reported in Sunday’s Providence Journal: Resource Recovery paid $163,000 an acre for the property, the current audit…
From an interesting blog called Pension Risk Matters: Attorney General Andrew Cuomo is investigating “alleged abuses of the state pension fund” at school district, town and village levels. External contractors may be costing Empire State taxpayers a bundle in the form of “undeserved” retirement benefits. (See “Cuomo expanding pension probe,” April 14, 2008.) The TimesUnion…
… old political scandals. Senator Barack Obama said today that a scandal from Senator John McCain’s past – the Keating Five – was just as relevant to the presidential campaign as questions about who Mr. Obama has associated with over the years. In a news conference here, Mr. Obama was asked whether his campaign intended…
In a leave-no-stone-unturned search for more revenue, the Massachusetts legislature has ordered a study of the implementation of a 2.5% “annual assessment” on college and university endowments which exceed $1 billion. Nine Massachusetts institutions of higher learning would be affected by what would be a first of its kind assessment. Glenn Beck points out the…
The United Nations was forced to temporarily suspend aid shipments to Myanmar because the ruling junta confiscated the intial materiel sent, saying that it preferred to distribute aid “with its own resources“. In order, presumably, to control exactly who receives the badly needed food and supplies. Because of unprecedented and unconscionable foot-dragging by Myanmar’s government,…
For almost thirty years, lucky Massachusetts has had Proposition Two and a Half. But it can be overridden by voters on the local level. On Sunday, Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr highlighted some justifications offered to elicit “yes” votes in advance of Brookline’s override ballot two days ago. A snooty editorial writer for a local…
From today’s Providence Journal: The School Committee voted late Tuesday night to sue the city for $4.9 million in additional education aid, setting the stage for a costly, bruising legal battle. The committee became the second in the state this year, after the West Warwick board, to authorize a lawsuit seeking more cash from a…
… namely, the quality of his own presidency. From the Telegraph (UK): Standing in his cowboy boots on the back of a 1941 Ford pick-up truck in tiny Zebulon (population: 4,329), Bill Clinton bestowed on his wife Hillary what he perhaps considers the ultimate accolade. She would, he stated gallantly, be an even better president…