In this column I pose questions and raise issues. I don't always agree with the conclusion, implied or stated. The purpose is to put a slightly different spin on each item and to promote discussion.

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• Chapter 11 of NAFTA subjects every citizen to the rule of foreign and multinational corporations by allowing the corporations to sue for damages when a law prevents or cuts into their profits.
• Is Jerry Springer "America's Most Flaunted"?
• Human Resource Management attempts to psychologically match candidates with jobs, rather than simply hiring people who can do the job. This encourages candidates to lie. One more reason why the corporate culture has become so corrupt.
• To many feminists, liberation is a license to hate with pride.
• Extreme imbalances in the distribution of wealth, no matter which class it favors, invariably leads to a backlash. Social stability depends on a distribution of wealth that most people will agree is fair enough.
• In the politically correct paradigm, passive-aggressive behavior is an acceptable form of abuse.
• Proponents of international free trade contend it is selfish to oppose exporting manufacturing jobs to poor countries. But when we see corporate executives living like royalty, we know their real agenda.
• The difference between smoking and eating boogers? Eating boogers doesn't stink.
• Demanding the right to smoke in the work place is like demanding the right to come to work unwashed.
• George "Read My Lips" Bush, Bill "Let Me Feel Your Lips" Clinton and Ross Perot proved that Americans prefer leaders who lie over a man who tells them the truth.
• One of the more recent feminist jokes asserts that "women will never be equal to men until they can walk down the street with a bald head and a beer gut, and still think they are beautiful." Aren't all those men suffering from body image disorder?
• Is it possible the 9/11 attack was engineered, with the help of our Saudi allies, by our own government? If so, what purpose would it serve?
• Hate men - the only acceptable sexism? Hate whites - the only acceptable racism? Hate the rich - the only acceptable classism? Hate America - the only acceptable hate? All hate, no matter how politically correct, is ugly.
• Neither criticism nor statement of facts are, by themselves, evidence of bigotry, though a bigot may criticize and state facts.
• Why is President Bush implementing policy that increases our dependence on foreign oil?
• The first step in securing an alliance with the Iraqi people would be to discover what they need and want; the first step in conquering them, on the other hand, is to decide to take what we need and want.
• Conservatives and libertarians confuse individual liberty and rights with corporate liberty and rights. But they are two completely different animals.
• Americans ate lots of meat and potatoes, and drank milk. "That's bad," diet gurus said. So now Americans eat lots of cheese and simple carbohydrates, and drink soda. And diet gurus grow rich off the fat of the land.
• Feminist leaders claim liberation from patriarchy, but in reality they are rebelling against the ancient wisdom of their grandmothers.
• Most women like men who fit the sexist stereotypes, and dislike men who don't.
• Most women love men who tell them what to do, but hate men who tell them the truth.
• Shallow Hal is a "chick flick" about a guy who is forced to see past a woman's eating disorder and 100+ lbs of excess fat to her inner beauty. The male equivalent would be Shallow Sal, about a gal who is forced to see past a man's income and shyness.
• There's a huge difference between news reports that are "fair and balanced," and news reports that are honest and accurate.
• Proponents of international free trade, libertarianism, the World Trade Organization and even NAFTA may have logic on their side, but in politics no amount of logic can long prevail against the interests of the governed.
• The only reason a corporation like Microsoft would have to accumulate more than $40 billion in cash and cash equivalents is as a war chest.