Wanna bet?--The contenders in the Republican and Democratic presidential primaries spent a reported combined total of $250 million. We readily concede that the presidential bid of the Socialist Workers Party is not likely to further swell that kind of spending. But we'll give odds that the socialist candidates will be the only ones to spotlight the ever-mounting social evils spawned by capitalism and offer a program for basic change.

A case in point--"Pollutants that waft from major industries are stifling precipitation in many regions of the world, in some cases eliminating almost all rain and snow produced by clouds, according to a new multinational study..."--News item.

Essence of Wall Street--Eleven New Yorkers, including stock brokers and strong-arm mobsters, are facing trial on charges of swindling a mass of investors. The brokers bought big blocks of stocks in four companies and inflated their value by flooding the market with false, misleading info about their value. At crash time, they would ignore the pleas of investors to sell. The stock peddlers apparently felt they couldn't ask the cops for protection from enraged investors and called in the hoods instead.

A "Labor" government?--Gordon Brown, England's labor minister, was slated to tell the jobless that he wants to replace the culture of government "handouts" with "a new work ethic." His program for the unemployed includes new tax breaks for companies and encouraging older jobless folks to start their own businesses

Enjoy your trip--"Safety Board finds 82 percent of cribs at hotels, motels to be unsafe"--News headline.

There are dogs and there are dogs--There's a significant disparity in the price of prescription drugs in a pharmacy and in a pet food store, a federal study found. For instance, at a drug counter, a month's supply of Lodine, an arthritis medicine, will set you back $108.90. At pet stores it's available for dogs at $37.80.

Or crackpots?--The Utah legislature is pondering a sex "education" bill. It would be limited to teaching that sexual activity outside marriage is a criminal no-no. One member of the House, who felt the measure was too liberal, groused, "We don't teach people how to be thieves."

How apologetic can you get?--Aetna, a ranking insurance company, apologized because in the early 1850s, it "may have" sold life insurance policies to slaveholders to cover the deaths of slaves.

The company assured that the number of such policies it "may have" sold amounted to no more than a dozen. It said Aetna was prompted to make the "apology" after being contacted by Deadria Farmer-Paellmann, who it said was a New York lawyer. The company said Farmer-Paellmann posed the issue of an apology--and reparations.  
 
 
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