Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Although it bodes ill for our future, the following from Michael Pento is as succinct summary of our Fed's recent actions as one could want: It now appears that the United States has finally succeeded in its efforts to destroy confidence in the US dollar. Given the currency's reserve status, its ubiquity in financial markets, …
Continue reading "The Lesson of Ben Bernanke: You Can Always Fail If You Work Hard Enough At It"
In view of the massive demonstrations in America's Heartland, and especially Michelle Rhee's CNN article about breaking the iron grip of seniority on teacher hiring and retention, I'd like to repost this 2006 piece (which I wrote while on a superintendent search committee) on the role of the trade union in public education. No discussion …
Continue reading "Public Schools and Trade Unions: A Blast From the Past"
Last week I posted a piece on why it's important not to get too trimphalistic on the French rejection of same sex civil marriage. That brought a long series of comments from "MichaelPS" who is obviously very familiar with French jurisprudence on this subject. One of his observations was as follows: It is significant that, …
Continue reading "Civil Marriage: When the State Becomes God"
After yesterday's boffo performance by James Clapper and Leon Panetta, conservatives are justifiably upset at our intelligence community. But there's nothing new about this, as this wrap on the CIA's (in particular) uninspiring performance in the Cold War, from Derek Leebaert’s The Fifty Year Wound: The True Price of America’s Cold War Victory should remind …
Bill Muehlenberg is absolutely beside himself at the French Court of Cassation's (their plus ou moins equivalent of our SCOTUS) rejection of same sex civil marriage: But the real story here is about all those places which have not legalised it, and/or have fought against it. The media tends not to play up these stories. …
Continue reading "Clarifying the French Rejection of Same Sex Civil Marriage"
The right is very pleased with British PM David Cameron's attack on multiculturalism: 'Multiculturalism has failed," said British Prime Minister David Cameron last weekend in Munich. If anybody thought they had read those words before, it is because they have. Many times. Last October German Chancellor Angela Merkel (sitting onstage with Mr. Cameron when he …
Continue reading "The Downside to David Cameron's Attack on Multiculturism"
Liberals didn't like the idea of reading the Constitution in the House. What they didn't realise is that the wrong "branch of government" did the reading: No wonder people don't like civics classes...if our legislators don't understand how this system works, why should they?
In the UK, we have this: And when that Independent article was written, just two Muslims had been charged with stirring up 'hatred' for handing out leaflets outside a mosque suggesting that gay people should be executed. Razwan Javed, 30, and Kabir Ahmed, 27, were accused of handing out a leaflet entitled 'The Death Penalty?', …
Continue reading "Gays and Muslims: The Collision Course Finally Collides"
Barack Obama is, to some extent, correct on this: This is our generation’s Sputnik moment. Two years ago, I said that we needed to reach a level of research and development we haven’t seen since the height of the Space Race. In a few weeks, I will be sending a budget to Congress that helps …
Continue reading "The Difference Between Then and Now on the "Sputnik Moment""
In the middle of an excellent article on the nature of the "best and brightest" of American students, Heather Wilson makes this observation: When asked what are the important things for a leader to be able to do, one young applicant described some techniques and personal characteristics to manage a group and get a job …
Continue reading "Leaders Don't Set Agendas. Bureaucrats and Lawyers Do."
