Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Evidently Robert Gibbs isn't happy about the discovery either: Dinesh D'Souza has drawn a torrent of criticism with a Forbes cover story that accuses President Obama of adopting "the cause of anti-colonialism" from his Kenyan father. But while most detractors focus on the author--and Newt Gingrich, who embraced the critique--the White House is aiming its …
Continue reading "The Real Origin of Barack Obama's Attitude Toward the Country He Leads"
The "man after God's own heart" started it all: David therefore departed thence, and escaped to the cave Adullam: and when his brethren and all his father’s house heard it, they went down thither to him. And every one that was in distress, and every one that was in debt, and every one that was …
Continue reading "The Original Tea Party, Led by King David"
They're starting out to do just that: Communist Cuba will shift hundreds of thousands of state employees to the private sector in 2011 as the government prunes more than 500,000 workers from its payroll. The official trade union federation said on Monday that eventually more than a million jobs would be cut. “Job options will …
Continue reading "If Cuba Can Reduce the Public Sector, Why Can't We?"
This, I suppose, is the "9/11 commemorative piece" for today, but actually I first wrote it in 2005. It was a unique experience for my wife and I to attend the Arab Worldwide Evangelical Ministers Association (AWEMA) meeting at The Cove (Billy Graham's conference centre) in April 2003. It was the first time we had …
For those who look at this objectively, the dead end of green jobs stimulus is unsurprising: Noticeably absent from President Obama's latest economic-stimulus package are any further attempts to create jobs through "green" energy projects, reflecting a year in which the administration's original, loudly trumpeted efforts proved largely unfruitful. The long delays typical with environmentally …
The trade union strikes back in the face of the LA Times publishing teacher performance data: Although the Times acknowledged that this measure does "not capture everything that goes into making a good teacher," that's exactly how the paper used this data. In its race to create dramatic headlines, the paper sacrificed both the tenets …
Continue reading "Rating Teachers Would be Simpler Without the State Supported Monopoly"
The Wall Street Journal, eminent publication that it is, is misleading people with opening lines like this: Rising tensions in the Mideast cast a shadow over the start of the first direct Israeli-Palestinian peace talks in nearly two years Wednesday, and leaders at the Washington summit vowed to press on with negotiations. "Rising tensions" imply …
Continue reading "In the Middle East, Tensions Really Don't Rise at Times Like This"
Detail #1 is the fact that President of the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Mahmoud Abbas doesn't have the authority with his own people to make it stick: Whether these talks succeed or collapse, this will probably be the last task for the aging Palestinian leader, also known as Abu Mazen. At 75, Abbas, chairman of …
Continue reading "On the Road to Middle East Peace, the Devil is in the Details"
Rebecca Solnit at The Nation may have unwittingly stumbled upon something in her fifth anniversary article on Katrina: Those in power, on the other hand, often run amok. They did in San Francisco in 1906, when an obsessive fear that private property would be misappropriated led to the mayor's shoot-to-kill proclamation; a massive military and …
Continue reading "Élite Panic: A Lesson From Katrina, A Lesson for Today"
It's amazing what happens when the shoe is on the other foot: Pentagon lawyers believe that online whistleblower group WikiLeaks acted illegally in disclosing thousands of classified Afghanistan war reports and other material, and federal prosecutors are exploring possible criminal charges, officials familiar with the matter said. A joint investigation by the Army and the …
Continue reading "Obama Becomes Nixon: Going After WikiLeaks"
Positive Infinity 