Eliot Spitzer is writing for Slate after his fall from grace a few months ago. Spitzer says that the Obama government’s stimulus plan should focus not on essential infrastructure refurbishments but rather on “transformative investments” that might springboard the American economy ahead of its competitors. More than that, Spitzer says that it’s incumbent on Obama’s…
Author: marc
Marc is a software developer, writer, and part-time political know-it-all who currently resides in Texas in the good ol' U.S.A.
Sustainable Energy and You
Rick Strahl just wrote an excellent and timely post – now that oil prices are “back to normal” – about energy, alternatives to oil, peak production, and the impact of an unstable supply on the daily lives of most westerners. The first step in any attempt to change our energy consumption habits is to really…
A More Correct Definition of Tolerance
The International Herald Tribune reports that the Netherlands’ Labor Party is moving toward a more realistic definition of what it means to accommodate Muslim immigrants, many of whom have refused to do the one thing necessary to deserve it – assimilate. Lilianne Ploumen, Labor’s chairperson: Ploumen says, “Integration calls on the greatest effort from the…
Kurdish Girls Suffer Sexual Abuse, Mutilation
The Washington Post reports that more than 60% of Kurdish women in the northern part of Iraq have had their clitoris “circumcised” as part of what some Kurdish women consider a cleansing procedure demanded by Islam. Is there a more vile crime a woman could inflict on another woman? Usually it takes a man inflict…
Making an End to Political Succession
Voters in New York should take the number one lesson from the Bush years to heart and refuse to vote Caroline Kennedy into the U.S. Senate as Hillary Clinton’s replacement. Ms. Kennedy says that she has good relationships in Washington that could help the people of her state. But what exactly are her qualifications for…
Tolerance at Christmas in Israel
Merry Christmas! If you believe in that nonsense, that is. CNSNews has this from Nazareth: As Nazareth’s Christians prepare to celebrate Christmas, they are playing down the appearance of a confrontational Islamic banner that challenges an elemental Christian belief. Journalists visiting the city saw two large banners–one in English, one in Arabic–hanging in the plaza…
Military Spending as an Economic Stimuli
Martin Feldstein says that the planned budget cuts at the Department of Defense shouldn’t happen. At first read the idea seems ludicrous. The U.S. already has a huge budget deficit caused in large part by excessive military spending. But Feldstein argues that depleted supplies and overworked equipment should be replaced now and that doing so…
Warren Derangement Syndrome, Take 2
Many on the far left are beside themselves because Barack Obama selected well-known pastor Rick Warren to give his inaugural invocation. But they’re not the only ones howling at the moon – Southern Baptist Pastor Wiley Drake took a swipe at Warren this week, saying that God is going to punish the author of The…
Casualties of the American Drug War
America’s War on Drugs is a known failure and it’s south-of-the-border derivative is literally the cause of blood – and decapitated heads – in the streets of Mexico. Drug lords there regularly defy the government’s efforts to stop narco-terrorism and Sunday dumped twelve headless, tortured bodies in Chilpancingo along with a love note to police…
Competition No Longer an American Ideal?
Michael Lind says that southern states have waged an economic civil war on the rest of America, the real America, in Lind’s mind, by creating an economic environment in which companies want to do business and bringing jobs from the heavily unionized north of the country and from overseas. This, Lind Says, creates wage competition…