Most recently updated columns from Creators Syndicate

New Various UT Authors for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Far be it for me to grumble about our collective descending fortunes while pointing out that Niall Ferguson's "The Ascent of Money: A Financial History of the World" (Penguin Press, 442 pages, $29.95) should be required reading for all the Wall Street wizards who took Le Grand Dump on us and created the current unfortunate economic situation.

Ferguson — Harvard professor, ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Cheryl Lavin for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Dear Cheryl,

My husband and I have been married for 15 years. We're friendly with two couples. Recently, I became aware that one of the husbands is having an affair with the other wife. I'm sure their spouses don't know. I'm not sure how to handle this situation. Should I tell the other spouses?

Should I keep my mouth shut? Should my husband and I just stop seeing both of these c ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Various Sports Writers for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The capacity of Allianz Arena in Munich is 66,000. It is where Bayern Munich will host TSG 1899 Hoffenheim in a weekend showdown for first place in the famed Bundesliga soccer league as the season approaches its midpoint.

That's Bayern Munich, Germany's largest, wealthiest, most popular and most successful club.

And Hoffenheim, from a village so small that all of its residents cou ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Marilyn Beck & Stacy Jenel Smith for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Timothy Hutton tells us he wasn't particularly in the market to take on another series when TNT's "Leverage" came his way. After all, the Oscar-winning actor has been busy going from feature assignment to assignment — the upcoming "The Killing Room" with Chloe Sevigny, and the Cheryl Hines-directed comedy "Serious Moonlight" with Kristin Bell and Meg Ryan, to ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Newspaper Contributors for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Private health insurance plans were supposed to control costs and improve the quality of care delivered to millions of elderly Americans under Medicare.

But that's not the way things have worked out. Three new studies, published last week in the respected journal Health Affairs, show that private plans have hiked costs while offering scant evidence of improved quality. And if history is ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Mona Charen for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

I can see it now. The world will be very different. The president of the United States will receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his lifesaving aid to victims of disease in Africa. Government and civic leaders from Europe and Asia will express their admiration. Americans will walk a little taller. Barack Obama will bow his head as the ribboned medal is extended …

But wait. The president who ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Oliver North for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

WASHINGTON — Freedom Alliance is an educational and charitable foundation that, among other things, provides college scholarships to the offspring of U.S. military personnel killed in action. Every year, coincident with the Army-Navy game, the organization presents its "Defender of Freedom Award" to an individual whose character, courage and selfless deeds inspire virtuous servi ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New David Sirota for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

A month after Barack Obama's triumphant victory, we are still celebrating America's only authentic national religion, and it isn't Christianity — it's presidentialism, the worship of the president as an all-powerful, all-knowing deity who is the only important political actor in our country.

This theology explains why both the public and the press corps seem far more interested in ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Pat Buchanan for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Having savaged each other for a year, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have now formed a rare partnership in power. Not since James Garfield chose James G. Blaine has a new president chosen his principal rival to be secretary of state.

What does this tell us?

First, don't take campaign oratory all that seriously.

Second, unlike Dennis Kucinich, Ted Kennedy, Ron Paul or Jess ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Alexander Cockburn for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

In the wake of the terrorist attacks in Mumbai, out goes the top federal official, the minister for home affairs, Shivraj Patil. He says he should have done better. Popular indignation ratifies his judgment. Since Mumbai is in the state of Maharashtra, the chief minister, Vilasrao Deshmukh, has offered his resignation and his No. 2, R.R. Patil, has quit. Deshmukh says he "accepts moral res ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Suzanne Fields for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Barack Obama has been accused of hubris and arrogance for his continuing references of identification with Abraham Lincoln, who by the measure of many was the greatest of all our presidents.

"In Lincoln's rise from poverty, his ultimate mastery of language and law, his capacity to overcome personal loss and remain determined in the face of repeated defeat ... he reminded me not just ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Roland S. Martin for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

I personally have witnessed how drugs and poverty can form a combustible combination that can destroy a community that once saw children freely run the streets and neighbors spend time outside talking with one another, as opposed to turning their homes into armed fortresses and never venturing beyond their front doors.

So a part of me truly understands the anger and frustration of St. Lo ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Linda Chavez for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

It's time we 'fess up: Nobody has any idea how to get us out of the economic mess we're in. The Big Three automakers were on Capitol Hill again this week begging for a bailout. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson is considering direct federal intervention into the mortgage market by subsidizing new loans at very low interest rates. The stock market continues its roller coaster ride, down hundre ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Michelle Malkin for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Did you know that Sarah Palin-haters are still trying to prove she didn't give birth to her youngest son, Trig? These tinfoil hat-wearers are as obnoxious and unhinged as the 9/11 Truth cultists who insist that America engineered the jihadi attacks on itself. The presidential campaign may be over, but there's no expiration date on Palin Derangement Syndrome.

Jack Bogdanski, a law profess ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New L. Brent Bozell for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Hollywood can still mount a soapbox and recall the dark days when people lost their jobs in show business for daring to take an unpopular political position that was outside the mainstream. Whenever they're criticized, they proclaim, "McCarthyism," accuse their critics of "blacklisting," and condemn the deplorable "intolerance."

Hollywood has yet to accept, ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Newspaper Contributors for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Congress seems intent on siphoning billions of dollars from the federal well in hopes of priming the nation's economic pump. A stimulus bill likely will cost $500 billion, says Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.

Given the gravity of the economic distress, Congress should act. But it should target projects that offer the promise of real results. The keys: helping poor and middle-in ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Movie Reviewers for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The less you know about the blues and American music history, the more you'll enjoy "Cadillac Records," which features BeyoncŽ as Etta James, Jeffrey Wright as Muddy Waters and Oscar-winner Adrien Brody as Polish-born record label maven Leonard Chess.

As engaging as it is factually flawed, the film packs a lot into its 107 minutes, but also omits a lot. Wright is riveting as Wa ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Paul Craig Roberts for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

"In a government of law, the existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invit ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New David Limbaugh for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

The cult mystique of Barack Obama continues while his fawning supporters blindly accept every move he makes, proving their support for him in the general election was not based as much on policy as personality. This could play right into Obama's hands if, as I believe, he does have major change on his mind.

From a policy standpoint, Obama's campaign was fueled — initially, at least ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008

New Roger Simon for 12/05/2008

Fri, 05 Dec 2008 00:00:00 -0800

Richard Nixon is hot again. Though it has been 34 years since he was forced to resign his presidency and 14 years since he died of a stroke, he is now all the rage.

Tuesday, the National Archives released nearly 200 more hours of Nixon White House tapes that revealed more of him ranting about everything from George McGovern to "working" people and tokenism.

A few months ...

Updated: Fri Dec 05, 2008