Sailing the Last Voyage with Newton and Pascal
Sure sounds that way, as the U.S. House Third District (TN) Republican candidate's campaign manager lashes out against Mike Huckabee's endorsement of her opponent: "Given Huckabee’s history of denouncing candidates for office that contribute large sums of money to their campaigns in order to win elections, it is curious that he would choose to support …
Continue reading "Robin Smith and the Politics of Resentment"
Recently an "old China hand" friend of mine sent around an email with this piece about the analogies between our current situation and that of Nazi Germany in the 1930's. Leaving aside the attribution problems of the piece itself, I'd like to address this issue, because I keep hearing it come up in our discourse. …
Continue reading "Is the US Really Headed Down the Road of Nazi Germany?"
That's what our Transportation Secretary said: Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has announced a “major policy revision” that aims to give bicycling and walking the same policy and economic consideration as driving. “Today I want to announce a sea change,” he wrote on his blog last week. “This is the end of favoring motorized transportation at …
Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari assures us that higher fuel taxes aren't in the cards: President Obama remains opposed to raising federal fuel taxes while the economy is trying to recover despite calls in Congress to increase those fees to fund new legislation, said Deputy Transportation Secretary John Porcari. The DOT’s second-highest official assured the …
Continue reading "Don't Want Higher Fuel Taxes? Be Seeing You!"
Nolan Finley at the Detroit News hits the nail on the head: Passage of a national health care bill begins fulfilling the fantasy of the left of making over America into something resembling its refined and compassionate European cousins. Throughout the health care battle, President Barack Obama asked, if European nations can deliver expansive universal …
Continue reading "From US to Europe, Without Leaving the Country"
This past Sunday's passage of the "health care reform" has brought something I heard a long time ago back to mind, and it seems appropriate to repeat it in the wake of this monumental legislation. In the wake of the collapse of the old Soviet Union, many American churches attempted to establish a viable presence …
Continue reading "Health Care Reform: Our Past is Your Future"
In this case, the United Kingdom: The image of three young Kosovans, found dead, roped together, at the foot of a Glasgow high-rise, deserves to go down in the annals of British shame alongside the pictures of the Chinese cockle-pickers who drowned in Morecambe Bay. In their detail, of course, the tragedies are quite different. …
Continue reading "Asylum Seeking in the Country Which Everyone Wanted to Leave"
Thomas Farr at the Washington Post thinks that the Obama Administration is side-lining both American law and policy on this subject: Religious freedom advocates were encouraged by the President's stated views and allowed themselves to hope that America's international religious freedom policy, long isolated at the State Department, would be strengthened under the new administration. …
Continue reading "The Changing Priority on Religious Freedom"
Although it's a deadly serious subject, there's an enormous amount of irony in this: The top U.S. diplomat in Pakistan says the Obama administration does not know how many Americans might have disappeared overseas to train with al-Qaida or other terrorist groups. The number is not thought to be large, but Ambassador to Pakistan Anne …
Continue reading "Where "Radicalised" Americans Are Depends Upon What Kind You're Looking For"
Doesn't look that way: Increasingly, senior administration officials shrug when you mention the November mid-term elections. “We did all we could,” and “it’s not our fault” is the line; their point being that if jobs (miraculously at this point) come back quickly, the Democrats have a fighting chance – but not otherwise. It may be true, at …
Continue reading "Does Obama Really Want to Win in 2010? If the Termites Hold Hands…"
Positive Infinity 