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Charley Underwood

Minneapolis, MN
Commenter for
5 years 14 weeks

Recent Comments

Posted on 01/22/10 at 01:13 pm in response to Twins ballpark tax a picture of financial health, weakness

Interesting clause: "Whatever you think of the wisdom of the ballpark tax...." Sorry, but that is entirely too quick for me on several levels. First, there are really major questions about whether the tax-payers in Hennepin County can actually afford this tax in today's economic circumstances. People are already losing their homes, skipping purchase of prescription drugs for life-threatening conditions, flooding the food shelves in record numbers. So we really have to hesitate a bit...

Posted on 01/14/10 at 10:39 pm in response to Franken's report from Afghanistan: A lukewarm endorsement of the surge

Didn't the Soviet Union have a similar situation in Afghanistan a few years back? Whatever happened to them anyway?

Posted on 01/06/10 at 03:16 pm in response to Susan Gaertner says she'll take her gubernatorial campaign to DFL primary

I am not only still angry about her continued prosecution of the RNC-8. That would be bad enough. There is no evidence that any of them did anything whatsoever illegal, unless it is now illegal to arrange food, housing and transportation for these major political events.

What burns me even more about Gaertner is that there were many illegal activities on the part of "law enforcement" and Gaertner has done absolutely nothing as county prosecutor to address these crimes and...

Posted on 12/21/09 at 03:36 pm in response to Dean's nuclear option: Why it didn't happen on health care

Eric Ferguson, you ask an great question. You ask what Congressional dynamics are going to change before the next time we try reform.

Let me broaden your excellent question just a bit with a bit of doom and gloom. Before the next 15 years have passed, just about everything will change. The U.S. will have lost the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan and anywhere else we choose to invade. All forms of fossil fuels will be fundamentally out of reach for the average member of the...

Posted on 12/21/09 at 01:16 pm in response to Dean's nuclear option: Why it didn't happen on health care

I completely agree with those who find this bill completely undeserving of the "nuclear option."

As it now stands, this bill is merely another government subsidy for big insurance and big pharma. Why would ANYONE support it? It does nothing to make healthcare more affordable or more accessible. It accomplishes none of the goals of healthcare reform. Let it fail and start over with the single-payer bill that would actually create meaningful reform.

Posted on 12/05/09 at 02:07 am in response to The day after Obama's Afghan surge speech

You mention Obama's claim that Afghanistan is different from Vietnam because, only in the case of Afghanistan, "we were attacked from there." This supposed difference is simply not historical. In fact, the Congressional resolution that supposedly justified the long, bloody and pointless war in Vietnam was the "Gulf of Tonkin" resolution, so named because supposedly North Vietnam attacked a U.S. warship in those international waters. Those who paid attention in the years since that war now...

Posted on 11/07/09 at 01:03 pm in response to Looking back 20 years: Who deserves credit for ending the Cold War?

In my view, two things hastened the end of the Soviet empire. First, they spent their economy into oblivion with a senseless arms race. Second, Afghanistan.

Tragically, the United States is now ending its empire on the same tragic note. We are spending money insanely, with the false hope that multiple wars and high-tech arms will somehow defeat "terrorism." And then there is (again) Afghanistan, which has ended several empires over the centuries. Nobody seems to notice, but our...

Posted on 11/05/09 at 12:30 pm in response to One more failed attempt to promote charter change in Minneapolis

Two problems occur to me. First, nobody much is paying attention to city business, so lacking a compelling reason for change, voters are going to figure that the status quo is still fine. (Notice how little difficulty most incumbents had in getting re-elected.) Second, those who are paying attention have serious concerns about a power-grab by the council and mayor, so they oppose the change.

Note the gutting of the Neighborhood Revitalization Program. Note the loss of...

Posted on 11/03/09 at 01:13 pm in response to With demise of Big Stone II, the days of King Coal are over for now

Instead of replacing coal with natural gas as a source of energy for making electricity, why not consider methane? If every single sewage treatment plant, every large feedlot and every landfill had an anaerobic digester or methane recovery system, we could use the methane to power our turbines, just like natural gas. That would save the atmosphere from a gas that is over 20 times worse than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas. It would complement perfectly with exiting and new wind...

Posted on 10/28/09 at 11:46 am in response to Debate over Afghanistan divides Minnesota congressional delegation

Back in the Vietnam war days, there was considerable discussion whether the U.S. economy would collapse under the weight of both the guns and butter of L.B.J.'s twin initiatives of the war and the Great Society expenditures. Somehow we survived, although 4.5 million Vietnamese and just under 60,000 Americans did not.

This juncture seems different. Manufacturing has been shipped overseas and our own economy is principally propped up by Asian loans. The military is over-stretched,...