Paul Krugman brings us some very good news at a time when there is precious little good taking place at the leadership level in the US. The EPA's long overdue decision to regulate Mercury pollution from power plants will lead to tremendous health and productivity benefits for Americans but, of course, it is opposed vehemently by the anti-regulatory zeal of the Republican Party.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/opinion/krugman-springtime-for-toxics.html?ref=opinion
This is a first-hand account from a writer of "Family Guy" about the scene in LA when the cops moved in, paramilitary style, to forcefully remove the peaceful, nonviolent protesters from public space. It's a heart-wrenching account and the writer brings it all together at the end when he re-examines the motives of the Occupy Wall Street movement - the massive, unpunished, criminal fraud perpetrated upon the American public by the financial industry. If this piece doesn't get your dander up then, perhaps, it's time to take a good hard look at your own personal moral character and beliefs. A Democracy enshrined with a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that answers non-violent civil disobedience with brutality and violence is not, in truth, a Democracy.
http://culvercitycrossroads.com/2011/12/05/dear-editor-lapd-arrests-the-truth-at-occupy-la/
Unscrupulous Landmen and lawyers for oil and gas drilling companies have hoodwinked naive landowners throughout the country, ripping landowners off with deceptive legal language that enables the companies to indefinitely extend leases despite contaminating drinking water in huge swaths of rural land. It's among the most despicable industrial practices in America and, unless the people win a ban on fracking, it'll be coming soon to the Northeast.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/02/us/drilling-down-fighting-over-oil-and-gas-well-leases.html?hp
