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Welcome to the recovery! That's what Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner wrote in the New York Times this week. And such good news! We've all been waiting to be told that the economy was improving, after all.

War has become normal, and the wars we engage in have become open-ended enterprises, notes historian and best-selling author Andrew Bacevich. More importantly, our ongoing state of war is one that has been created by politicians from both parties, and our entire way of life in the U.S. is implicated in its creation.

"Anything BP does and doesn't do is to preserve their profits and their future ability to operate in the United States, no more, no less." That's according to "Martha," a hazardous waste worker in the Gulf, who joins us via Skype anonymously to report on the conditions workers are facing cleaning up BP's mess.

"Anything BP does and doesn't do is to preserve their profits and their future ability to operate in the United States, no more, no less." That's according to "Martha," a hazardous waste worker in the Gulf, who joins us via Skype anonymously to report on the conditions workers are facing cleaning up BP's mess.

What are teachers really worth? That's the question, as the Senate puts off a vote on $10 billion for state and local governments to prevent teacher layoffs. Senate leadership wanted the bill to be deficit neutral—a line never applied to war funding, where no spending's too great because we're killing for peace. Estimates are that it costs $1 million per soldier per year to keep troops in Afghanistan. But enough of that.

"Plantation" isn't the word for Firestone. Think "state within a state." Firestone originally controlled one million acres—four percent of the country, or nearly 10 percent of arable land. The current government, under Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, renegotiated the concession to encompass 100,000. The company runs the schools, provides housing and water and markets; it even operates the only hospital, one of the few in the country.

The death in the Senate of the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill this week, Charles Komanoff argues, "clears the way for genuine solutions to global warming­­—solutions that ordinary Americans can understand and support." But many others, including David Roberts of Grist.org, say that no climate bill will pass while certain structural roadblocks remain: chief among them, the need for a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate.

The death in the Senate of the Kerry-Lieberman climate bill this week, Charles Komanoff argues, "clears the way for genuine solutions to global warming­­—solutions that ordinary Americans can understand and support." But many others, including David Roberts of Grist.org, say that no climate bill will pass while certain structural roadblocks remain: chief among them, the need for a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate.