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TED Talks Hans Rosling reframes 10 years of UN data with his spectacular visuals, lighting up an astonishing -- mostly unreported -- piece of front-page-worthy good news: We're winning the war against child mortality. Along the way, he debunks one flawed approach to stats that blots out such vital s

Astonished? Then you have not been attentive. It is been a week of Nokia-related conjecture, mainly happening from a seep out note in which CEO of Nokia Mr. Stephen Elop, who previously effort at Microsoft, contrasted the current predicament of company to a "ablaze platform".

History shows that when spending is cut -- in the name of balancing the budget -- recessions immediately follow.

I've written before about the crisis of inequality in the United States and about the quasi-religious abhorrence of "wealth redistribution" that causes many Americans to oppose tax increases, even on the ultra rich. The conviction that taxation is intrinsically evil has achieved a sadomasochistic fervor in conservative circles-producing the Tea Party, their Republican zombies, and increasingly terrifying failures of governance. Happily, not all billionaires are content to hoard their money in silence. Earlier this week, Warren Buffett published an op-ed in the New York Times in which he criticized our current approach to raising revenue. As he has lamented many times before, he is taxed at a lower rate than his secretary is. Many conservatives pretend not to find this embarrassing. Conservatives view taxation as a species of theft-and to raise taxes, on anyone for any reason, is simply to steal more. Conservatives also believe that people become rich by creating value for others. Once rich, they cannot help but create more value by investing their wealth and spawning new jobs in the process. We should not punish our best and brightest for their success, and stealing their money is a form of punishment. Of course, this is just an economic cartoon. We don't have perfectly efficient markets, and many wealthy people don't create much in the way of value for others. In fact, as our recent financial crisis has shown, it is possible for a few people to become extraordinarily rich by wrecking the global economy. Nevertheless, the basic argument often holds: Many people have amassed fortunes because they (or their parent's, parent's, parents) created value. Steve Jobs resurrected Apple Computer and has since produced one gorgeous product after another. It isn't an accident that millions of us are happy to give him our money. But even in the ideal case, where obvious value has been created, how much wealth can one person be allowed to keep? A trillion doll

Barack Obama's receiving the Nobel Peace Prize should surprise and astonish exactly nobody. The prize committee has long since abandoned any pretense of being anything other than a leftist political body determined to undermine any and all actions by the United States or other democratic bodies who deign to defend themselves against murderous aggressors. This is the same committee that awarded the very same prize to the gangster Yasser Arafat, and frankly admitted that bestowing the award on Jimmy Carter was "a kick in the leg" to George W. Bush.

Having railed against the Democratic minorities' use of ANY filibuster in the last several Congressional sessions when Republicans were in the majority, the Republicans now hypocritically are taking the use of the filibuster to new heights. Forgotten are their own strident and indignant demands that the "people" deserved the Senate allowing an "up or down vote". And that they would (and did) use a "nuclear option" or reconciliation if necessary to make that happen. The filibuster - tool of obstruction in the U.S. Senate - is alternately blamed and praised for wilting President Barack Obama's ambitious agenda. Some even say it's made the nation ungovernable.