Word: unioneers
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...Burma [Oct. 22]. I don't mean to discount the recent evaporation of the U.S.'s moral authority, but it has been decades since the U.S. or any other nation could effect change based on rectitude. During the cold war, our influence was directed to opposing the Soviet Union, regardless of the dictators we might back toward that end. Ruling élites have lost their moral compasses because they have been blinded in their quest for material wealth. David Horn, Oakland, Calif...
Every Easter, Venice's dignitaries board an official boat, sail out into the Adriatic and drop a gold ring into the water, symbolizing by this centuries-old ritual the city's marriage to the sea. For a long time, the union was a splendid and prosperous one. Thanks to its sprawling trade network, Venice became a wealthy imperial power in the 13th century, its institutions later mimicked by the Dutch and English. The city-state's mighty fleets patrolled the Mediterranean, while its merchants haggled at the far reaches of the Silk Road, dispatching the wonders of Asia back...
...businesses so that villagers do not have to resort to poaching, and Tommy Remengesau Jr., the President of the Pacific Island nation of Palau, who has led efforts to preserve a priceless marine environment. Some were activists, like Olga Tsepilova, who has exposed the dangerous legacy of the Soviet Union's nuclear program, and some were industrialists, like Tulsi Tanti, the wind-power king of India...
...versus $384,000 for U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and $391,000 for German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Sarkozy's official income is also dwarfed by that of European pay champion, Ireland's Bertie Ahern, who pulls in a cool $446,000. Nadine Morano, spokeswoman of Sarkozy's ruling Union for a Popular Movement party, argued that the increase was insignificant when viewed in broader terms. "Think about certain soccer players or television personalities," she said. "The raise requested is in no way unusual." Except, of course, that neither of those positions are paid with taxpayer money...
...Public discomfort over Sarkozy's raise may be accentuated by its timing. In just three weeks, the nation is set to undergo strikes potentially more paralyzing than those in October protesting cutbacks in certain public sector pension regimes. Union leaders have jumped on Sarkozy's pay hike to highlight what they call the President's reformist hypocrisy: clarifying and normalizing governmental pay scales by lifting them, while harmonizing public and private sector pension plans by scaling those downward. "There's a feeling the political class is helping itself while the French people are left on the sidewalk to fend...