Of all the candidates, bills, and proposals on ballots around the
country yesterday, one of the most exciting is a proposition that
didn't pass.
The biggest roadblock standing in the way of many people's recognition of the importance of the commons came tumbling down when Indiana University professor Elinor Ostrom won the Nobel Prize for Economics.
NEW DELHI, India - Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh argued Thursday that innovations in "green" technology should be shared with developing countries in much the same fashion as HIV/AIDS drugs.
Labelling new, clean-energy discoveries "global public goods," Singh said the attached legal copyright regime should balance rewards for the innovators with the need to promote the common good of humanity.
Things
aren't looking pretty for drinking water these days. Recent articles
from The New York Times and the Associated Press have
exposed unchecked pollution, grave gaps in oversight, decaying
infrastructure, and concerns about emerging contaminants.
The official photo gallery of Elinor Ostrom, joint winner of this
year's Nobel memorial prize in economics, says it all. In one picture,
she stands behind a lectern in a tie-dyed T-shirt, gesticulating wildly
with her right arm. In another, she squats for a portrait in
traditional Nepalese garb in an otherwise male group studying local
irrigation systems.
It is no coincidence the same
year that brought us the global financial crisis brought us the first
female winner in the prize's 41-year history. Economics is changing.
On Wednesday, President Obama will address a joint session of Congress
on health care. Later this year he will decide whether to deploy
additional troops to the war in Afghanistan, in addition to the 69,000
troops already deployed. The struggle for health care and the struggle
to end warfare are inextricably linked. The cost for substantive
(though imperfect) health care reform as envisioned in the House of
Representatives approach (with the public option) is projected to
average $100 billion per year for the next 10 years. The cost to
continue the wars in Iraq and Afghanist
I sat on the tall stool, facing the class of 9th graders. I put a cigarette between my lips and flicked on the lighter.
"Anyone mind if I smoke?"
Yes, they did mind: "That's disgusting." "It's against the law to smoke here." "There's secondhand smoke and it smells bad."
Upper-income earners who actually want to pay higher taxes have launched a public campaign calling for an immediate rollback of the tax cuts enacted under President George W. Bush.
The group, which calls itself Wealth for the Common Good, believes that people who have taxable income of more than $235,000 a year should support restoring their top federal income tax rate to 39.6 percent from 35 percent - and now, not in 2011, when the higher rate is scheduled to return anyway.
From their Web site:
