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Sound judgement makes good decisions

Columns

Making decisions and choices are something we must do every day. Decisions have consequences. How they are made, and what they are based on, can determine if they end up being good or bad decisions. What we decide will follow how we size-up, understand, or judge a situation. Hopefully, that judgment is based on gathering enough information, reviewing that information, checking each option and its value, coming to a conclusion, and finally making the decision. Hopefully we have also tried to anticipate or predict the outcome of acting on that decision. A correct decision depends on ...

Which Party Will Recover First From Its Current Self-Harm?

Columns

Tuesday saw the usual first-week-of-June gaggle of state primary elections. It's a feature of the American federal system that states choose when to hold primary and local elections. Back in the 1850s, as historian Roy Franklin Nichols notes, there was an election in all but one or two of ...

Price Gouging Is Whose Problem?

Columns

Horrors. The profiteers running this year's World Cup are forcing fans to shell out thousands for a single ticket. But they're not. FIFA, which oversees the once-every-four-years soccer tournament, is slapping astounding prices on the tickets. No one has to buy them. This should be very ...

Will this be the unhappy American birthday?

Columns

In one month, the United States will observe its 250th birthday. It is shaping up more like a memorial service for a lost loved one than a party to celebrate something special. Rather than anticipating a happy occasion, America at 250 is increasingly characterized by anger, name- calling and ...

Keep Politicians Out of College Sports

Columns

Nearly everyone who is a college sports fan, myself included, knows the state of affairs in the NCAA is one fine mess. Especially regarding football and men's basketball, the two major money-making sports, things have changed massively in the last few years — and mostly not in a good ...

Politics and failures

Columns

Politics is the only profession of which I am aware in which competence doesn't seem to matter. One can fail miserably; one can be corrupt and one can get away with crimes that if committed by someone outside of elective office, arrest, prosecution and a stint in jail would be the result. Yet ...