Politics and other nightmares

Will the 2012 presidential election be a referendum on democracy?

So long and good riddance to Keynesian economic theory?

While the rest of hyperconnected, interweb-powered planet Earth has now seen Keynesian economic intervention tested in real time and discredited beyond any intelligent doubt, the Times, I quickly learned, is a walled garden where the ideas of John Maynard Keynes remain not only viable but so evidently true as to require no factual support.

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The food police are getting more and more tiresome, but once in a while they make a good point:

School districts across the country are revamping their menus to serve healthier fare, but most schools give students so little time to eat that they could be contributing unwittingly to the childhood obesity problem.

The green future is here:

For the first time ever, more of the corn crop may go into gas tanks than into the stomachs of cattle and poultry destined for kitchen tables.

I'm afraid I agree with this criticism:

Republican mayoral candidate Paula Hughes is trying to mislead voters by resurrecting concerns that Mayor Tom Henry wants to bring a casino to the city, according to Henry campaign officials.

The Henry “administration put forth a proposal for a casino to be located downtown,” Hughes told reporters Thursday, speaking of ideas on how to spend $75 million from the lease and sale of the old City Light utility to Indiana Michigan Power Co.

Gary has discovered a new path to wealth. Encourage movie makers to come and film your urban decay, blight and rot:

Last year the action blockbuster “Transformers: Dark of the Moon,” filmed at Gary's abandoned City Methodist Church, which is falling apart from the inside out. The year before, “A Nightmare On Elm Street” also shot scenes there.

Still haven't wiped out sexism in the workplace, I notice. Even mean women are losing out and falling behind:

Hey, kids, let's really go all John Galt on this nation of thieves and parasites and start our own country!

Kind of a srange editorial about capital punishment in the Evansville Courier & Press. It is built on the recent news story that Daniel Ray Wilkes, who killed an Evansville woman and her two daughters, has had his sentence reduced from death to life without parole. Two points are then pressed. One is that death-penalty cases are much more expensive to prosecute -- about $450,000, compared with a $42,658 average for a life-without-parole trial.

My new hero:

Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Howard Schultz is winning support for his call to withhold political contributions from U.S. lawmakers until they strike a "fair, bipartisan" deal on the country's debt, revenue and spending.