From the "you can’t make this stuff up" file comes news that the National Institutes of Health is 70% finished with a bioterrorism lab that would examine microbes like anthrax, smallpox, and Ebola located in . . . the center of Boston. (more…)

Once again, business is calling for government to do more — this time on a global level.  In a 2-page advertisement in the Financial Times, 150 global corporations including Coca-Cola, Nike, Shell, and General Electric have called for decisive government action around the world to stave off the threat of climate change.
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Medicare is often touted as the system that doesn’t overpay, but Charles Duhigg of the New York Times has a different story.  Medicare overpays for a much-needed product that is, however, in plentiful supply:  oxygen.  But when Medicare officials and politicians approach suppliers to lower prices, these companies insinuate to their elderly customers that the government is cutting them off, turning them into lobbyists for private industry.  Full story here.

Writing in Foreign Policy magazine for November/December 2007, Veejay Vaitheeswaran offers a wide-angle view of the future of oil and debunks seven widely-accepted ideas about oil’s vise grip on creative policymaking.  One is the idea that government can, with the help of a "visionary leader," quickly move a country away from oil dependence.  (more…)

National Public Radio’s Dina Temple-Raston reports that the Justice Department’s is testing various U.S. criminal statutes to see if they apply to the Blackwater guards who killed 16 people in Baghdad’s Mansour Square on Sept. 16, 2007. Temple-Raston quotes a former U.S. attorney saying that Justice may have to "shoehorn" the incident into a law that just doesn’t fit.  [Get story]

The FCC is meeting today to consider changing cable television regulations, giving consumers more flexibility in choosing channels and smaller content providers with cheaper rates for access to allotted channels.  The Associated Press delivers this summary, and Marketplace’s John Dimsdale reports on Big Cable’s response:  apparently, lower prices and more choice could be "devastating to consumers."

On the front lines of American foreign policy, culture and communication can be as important as Humvees and RTEs.  In this spirit, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has called for more funding for . . . the State Department.  Thom Shanker of the New York Times reports that Gates has called for a "dramatic increase in spending on the civilian instruments of national security." The plain-speaking secretary also noted that America has been "miserable at communicating to the rest of the world" what America is all about.

The green revolution of the mid-20th century brought progressive farming techniques and land conservation planning to the world’s poor.  The Washington Post, in an article by Rick Weiss [here] explains that another green revolution will be needed to halt the vise closing around the world’s poorest people today.  Population growth and climate change are producing an alarming trend:  more people and less food to feed them. (more…)

Columnist and author E.J. Dionne points out in the Washington Post that budget-balancing success in the state of Maryland shows politicians acting like adults — cutting spending and raising taxes.  But he notes also that Maryland governor Martin O’Malley and the Democrats and Republicans in the state legislature have shied away from pushing a larger message about government’s role in making society work. (more…)