The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Islamists’ Growing Sway Raises Questions for Libya,” describes an albeit chaotic situation in the newly liberated country, but one that Islamists can readily take advantage of to rise to power.

Unlike some who see Islamic plots everywhere, there are real reasons to fear an Islamic takeover in Libya. The most powerful military leader, Abdel Belhaj, was once believed to be part of Al Qaeda, and Ali Sallabi, an Islamic scholar, is thought to be the most respected person in the nation. Moreover, like Egypt and Tunisia, the Arab Spring in Libya deposed an autocrat who actively suppressed Islamic movements. As a result of moving underground, these movements became highly organized and can now take advantage of that organization to run an effect political campaign.

Many liberals in Libya, therefore, are pushing for more time to organize to catch up with movements such as Etilaf and the Muslim Brotherhood. Meanwhile, Etilaf is issuing decrees or fatwas that sound ominous, such as one prohibiting women from driving.

However, all hope is not lost. It should be noted that the current Prime Minister, Mahmoud Jibril, is an American-educated moderate and so is the Finance and Oil Minister, Ali Tarhouni. Hopefully, they can sheperd all parties to democratic pluralism such as the system in Turkey.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Europeans Talk of Sharp Change in Fiscal Affairs,” analyzed some of the weak points of Euro zone countries and how they could be addressed. The Euro has declined significantly as Greece has undergone a sovereign debt crisis, and the lack of central financial institutions has hampered the ability of all Euro-zone countries to assist them.

The problem is the unwieldy nature of the European financial union, and its requirement for unanimous approval by all Euro zone countries before any significant action can occur. The Parliament of any member nation can veto a deal as well.

The article compares the Euro zone legal requirements with the United States’ Articles of Confederation before the Constitution was established. The inability to succeed as a loose grouping of States and the way it was fixed may portend a similar solution by the European Union, creating, in effect, a United States of Europe. Cautious whisperings are already taking place about how to centralize financial authority.

Meanwhile, though, world stock markets continued a significant decline yesterday, with the U.S. markets opening today amid a history of volatility over the past few weeks. Its obvious that a structural fix is needed, but it remains to be seen if the political will exists to accomplish it.

The lead story in today’s New York Times, “Justice Inquiry is Said to Focus on S&P Ratings,” describes a business environment filled with inherent contradictions, conflict of interest and corruption. In addition to an investigation by the Justice Department, the Securities and Exchange Commission is also looking into possible malfeasance by Standards and Poors (S&P), and both inquiries were started before the debt ceiling debacle gained full steam in Washington.

Apparently, it is not unusual for the entitities being rated by S&P to pay in advance for that rating, and this situation causes an obvious conflict of interest. The fees can reach as high as hundreds of thousands of dollars. Of course, the ratings agencies, which includes Moody’s and Fitch as well as S&P, first gained notoriety for their inability to predict the housing market crash that set off the financial crisis in 2008 that we are still recovering from. And, most notably, they all ranked mortgage bonds and the related collateralized debt obligations as possessing a AAA rating.

The recent downgrade of U.S. Treasury bonds by S&P, of course, brings much more prominence to this story. But so does the lack of accountability of any financial organization for the financial crash we all experienced.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Debt Bill Signed, Ending Crisis and Fractious Battle,” is somewhat of an anticlimax given the titanic struggles that preceded it. As expected, the Senate passed the debt bill by a substantial margin, 74-26, and the President signed it, raising the debt ceiling a mere 12 hours before it was set to expire.

The new super-commission established by the legislation is commanded to find more than $1 trillion in additional cuts; otherwise, an automatic across-the-board spending cut will take place affecting legislative priorities important for each party: Medicare for the Democrats and Defense for the Republicans. And more vitriolic debate has already broken out about the commission. Republicans say it is not empowered to consider any tax revenue while Senate Leader Harry Reid vociferously contradicted that stand.

And amidst all this debate about the debt, the real concern of the American people, the issue that the Republicans ran on in 2010, is jobs. There are several steps the Congress can take to improve the job situation — if they hadn’t broken for summer recess until September 7th. These include trade pacts, an extension of the payroll tax reduction and improvement in the patent process to encourage entrepreneurs.

So when Congress gets back, enough about debt. Let’s finally move on to jobs.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “House Passes Deal to Raise Debt Cap and Defuse Crisis,” describes the new debt deal compromise and its passage in the House of Representatives by a 269-to-161 vote. Democrats delayed voting, and the bill seemed stuck at 20 votes short with two minutes to go when Representative Gabrielle Giffords, recovered from an assassination attempt, appeared on the floor to vote for it. To thunderous applause, she seemed to “melt away” the rancor of the past weeks and give a renewed sense of hope.

Somehow, some way, our nation has pulled through once again. The institutions founded so many years ago, derided as dysfunctional over the past few weeks, nevertheless delivered. The deal provides for $2.1 trillion in spending cuts, a raise of the debt ceiling through the next election, and the creation of a joint select committee of 12 bipartisan members of the House and Senate, evenly split, to determine further deficit reductions. If the select committee is unable to agree, automatic triggers will cause painful cuts for both parties, to Medicare for the Democrats, and to the security budget for Republicans.

As the saying goes, democracy is the worst form of government, except for every other one. While the public initially might deride the “sausage making,” in the end, the sausage was completed.

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The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Greece Approves Tough Measures on the Economy,” shows a striking contrast between events in the Greek government and the reaction on the street, where sometimes violent protests continue to roil that nation.

The vote, it should be noted, is in conception only — the implementation remains to be approved. And the government of Prime Minister George Papandreou is getting weaker and weaker.

The measures are significant. They contain $1.4 billion in defense cuts and $2.9 billion in healthcare cuts as well as the selling of $72 billion in national assets. In addition, the wages of 800,000 public workers has been slashed by 10 percent.

Despite all these efforts, many economists say that the Greek debt will probably still have to be restructured with investors receiving only a certain percentage of their money. And it’s unclear whether the austerity measures will work or even make the problem worse. Meanwhile, Spain, Portugal and Ireland are waiting in the wings with very weak economies of their own.

Unfortunately, problems with the euro affect us in the United States, too. The world is so interconnected, especially financial networks, that a Greek default could have major global ramifications. And most think that Greece is just buying time with its latest budget, and a reckoning is waiting down the road.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “As U.S. Shutdown Looms, Obama Rejects a Stopgap,” clearly shows that the blame for any government shutdown will rest squarely with the Republicans in the House of Representatives and their Tea Party cohorts.

The Republican attempt to pass additional continuing resolutions with ever increasing budget cuts ground to a halt yesterday with President Obama’s refusal to play the game any longer. What the Republicans don’t seem to realize is that these numbers have real effects on real people. They involve cutting funds for Head Start, for lunch programs for poor children, for helping disabled veterans. Meanwhile, they want to lower corporate tax rates even more, “to help the American people.”

This blog has remained fairly non-partisan in the past, but I am fed up with Republican shenanigans and the attitude that it’s my way or the highway. It’s time for them to start acting like adults and realize they can not get everything they want in negotiations. Some of their proposed budget cuts can at best be described as cruel. What happened to the so-called “compassionate conservatism” of the Bush era? I never thought anyone could make George Bush look good, but they’re giving it their best shot.

So, it should be clear. If the government shuts down, it is the Republicans’ fault and their pre-determined desire to do so. All the additional hardships this causes will rest squarely on them.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “Lymph Node Study Shakes Breast Cancer Treatment,” shows what happens when doctors overtreat their patients. It describes a recent study that found a common procedure for breast cancer victims, the removal of lymph nodes in their armpits to prevent its spread, makes no difference in the survival rate for a large number of women.

According to the article, women who are undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatment for breast cancer show no difference in survival rates whether or not the lymph nodes are removed, a procedure that has been followed for 100 years. And the removal of these nodes can cause serious complications in about 20 percent of the cases, including numbness, shoulder pain and limitation of motion.

Still, the article described a reluctance among many, both doctors and patients alike, to cut out the treatment. It appears a lot easier to add more procedures when indicated by a study than it is to remove them.

Anyway, science marches on. The scientific method is no respecter of persons or opinions and is based solely on experimentation and neutral evaluation of the results. According to this process, the removal of armpit nodes for women undergoing radiation and chemotherapy for breast cancer is no longer necessary.

The lead article in today’s New York Times, “U.S. Identifies Mineral Riches in Afghanistan,” represents one of the few times this newspaper has actually uncovered a surprise story. Its facts go beyond a few deposits here and there as they convey an amazing amount and variety of riches that could actually transform the country.

Geologists have described the results as truly amazing with huge veins of copoper, iron, gold and lithium scattered throughout the country. The amount of iron and copper alone are described as so huge that they would make Afghanistan a “major world producer of both.”

How did all this go undiscovered for so long? Well, apparently the Soviet Union conducted preliminary research while they were occupying the country, then Afghan geologists hid the maps during the Taliban’s reign. In 2006, the United States Geological Survey conducted its own aerial survey, and they were so impressed that they flew over the country to conduct three-dimensional imaging.

Experts say that the amount of deposits would easily dwarf the country’s current reliance on narcotics and that international bidding on the mineral rights could take place very soon. Meanwhile, the U.S. is trying to set up the internal infrastructure so Afghanistan can manage the situation.

Imagine Afghanistan as a rich country with modern facilities and a prosperous citenzry. Truly, many of the last shall be first.