United gets OK to dump four pension plans

[Business Week]: United Airlines gained a significant financial victory with court approval to dump its four pension plans but faces a tough challenge to win back the support of angry employees. Oh, we do so like to carry on about the ‘rule of law’ and the...

Speaking of maps

[Social Design Notes]: Despite increasing consolidated and homogenous media and increasingly pervasive Internet access, ideology exists spatially. Six links in that posting. Click ’em all. You’ll see a fascinating range of cartographic interpretations on...

Not that this will help…

Corporate Welfare Runs Amok. Reforms to the corporate tax system must be debated on their merits, not under cover of some phony label like ‘job creation.’ [NYT > Opinion] Congress’s ostensible purpose for allowing the holiday is to unleash a flood...

Trade deficits, reality deficits

[John Robb]:  WSJ.  The US trade deficit rose to $60.3 billion in November (is there a link to the elections?).  A new record.  Despite a sinking dollar, the sale of US goods abroad dropped (down 2.3%).  This is terrible news.  The...

World views, worlds apart

Two very interesting, and very different, big picture views of our current world and current situation have come across my view recently. Both are worth your attention. Meta-historian William Irwin Thompson, writes, with his typical grand sweep, of Al Qaeda, the...