While I was at my father's house during the Christmas holiday, we had an interesting discussion of the problems in Iraq and throughout the middle east. The three main sources of information were my brother-in law (an air force intelligence officer who has spent time with military personnel from a variety of middle eastern countries),...
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As I prognosticated back in March (along with a million other precient bloggers, I'm sure), the republican party suffered a severe drubbing in the midterm elections. It looks like the candidates didn't distance themselves enough from Bush, and although I'm a lot closer to being a republican than a democrat, I think they got what...
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A few weeks ago, I read about some Stanford professor's idea for how to ensure that the winner of the popular vote gets elected president. If a few states (only 11 would be needed if the big states signed on) agreed to give their electoral votes to the national winner of the popular vote, they...
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I remember in an economics class once hearing that everyone is better off if every place (country, state, town, region, whatever) produces and exports whatever they produce best and imports whatever somebody else can produce cheaper, and nobody puts up trade barriers. The idea seems great on it's face--everyone is creating as much value as...
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Wired News is reporting that the DOJ has dropped its investigation of the NSA's warrantless wiretaps of US citizens because the NSA won't give the DOJ lawyers security clearance. If somebody (ie. congress) doesn't step in and protect the American people, this is extremely disturbing--the Bush administration violates any law they want (including the Constitution),...
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The Bush administration, claiming national security concerns, plans to scuttle the suit alleging that AT&T illegally collaborated with the NSA to spy on US citizens. I'm becoming more and more convinced that, in the interest of the security of the citizens of the US, it's time for members of the republican party to collaborate with...
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I stumbled on a panel discussing the question of impeaching President Bush on CSPAN today (a replay of a recording from March 2), and it got me thinking about the risk the republican party is running of self destructing. First a little background.

I used to be a republican. It's been quite a few years...
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Personal liberty is one of the great ideals upon which U.S. society is founded. Liberty of thought and belief are critical to the preservation of a free society. Freedom of expression and of the press are necessary to protection of them. But freedom of action must often be constrained to preserve a civil society. No...
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Feng Shui, the Chinese art of arranging furniture so that it directs the energy flow in a room, is all the rage these days. Politicians have long practiced a related art: Deng Shui (pronounced "dung shway")--the art of framing a discussion so that when the mud slinging begins ("mud" being a euphamism here...), the filth...
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Congratulations to the people of Iraq, who in large numbers, showed courange in going to the polls in spite of the threat of violence, and took an important step to un-bust their part of the world! The best of success to them in the road ahead.