Category: Soap Box

Start Soapbox On January 18th, there were some high-profile websites—Wikipedia among them—that actively opposed two pieces of intellectual property rights and privacy legislation by adding black banners in protest. The outcry was so effective that the legislation was, at least temporarily, blocked. In the US Senate it was the Protect Intellectual Property Act (PIPA) and…

START SOAPBOX As our legislators fight over the deficit and some look at the increasing costs of providing health care to the poor and elderly, we should be taking a look at the enormous wasted resources we allocate to fight wars and maintain our military bases all over the world. I think we have our…

Start Soapbox While the US House of Representatives voted this week to repeal the health care reform law, Vermont legislators heard on Wednesday from Dr. William Hsiao, Professor of Economics at Harvard and the designer of the much acclaimed Taiwanese health care system. Dr. Hsiao and his team of 20 experts were asked by the…

Start Soapbox Vermont’s congressional delegation all voted against the tax compromise worked out by the President and members of congress.   The extension of the Bush tax cuts that were a big part of turning a surplus into a deficit is a compromise that does not serve our country well and is born of political considerations…

I wrote last week about the new AppleTV. After reading that piece of literary genius (it made Dan Brown** cry, it was so good) I got the sense that I may have left it at a bit of a cliffhanger. What kind of development could happen with the AppleTV? So I have a list of…

START SOAPBOX As we invent more and more ways to communicate with each other, it is also important to establish standards for appropriate times to use that technology. There was a move to allow cell phone use on planes that at first, I thought would be just fine. That was until I imagined myself trying…

START SOAPBOX I am watching the huge BP oil spill on the news every day. I am not happy with the cavalier attitude of BP and the US Coast Guard in controlling the flow of information, much less controlling the flow of oil. The environmental devastation is compounded by the enormous economic devastation that will…

START SOAPBOX You all probably know that I am not a fan of nuclear energy as a path for energy independence, but even if I was put in charge of Vermont’s only nuclear plant, I could not have done a better job of undermining their chances for a license renewal than they did on their…

As I watch the battle over health care reform play out in Congress and on the airways, I am struck with how much of this debate is driven by greed. In this case, it is the greed of the health insurance companies that are fighting tooth and nail to protect the 30% of our health…

Start Soapbox This week marks the 64th anniversary of the first use of an atomic weapon. The US atomic bombing of Hiroshima marked the start of the atomic age and also killed 260,000 people with a single bomb, marking a new height in man’s inhumanity to man. While I do not want to debate the…