Tag Archives: United States

Have National Politics Urbanized?

For those of us not living in the concentrated sprawl of the coastal and Midwestern metropoli, it is often extremely perplexing how urban Democratic mayors in places like Chicago and Philadelphia can compile lengthy and embarrassing records of incompetent and … Continue reading

Posted in Domestic Politics | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bring Back Welfare, Please

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics there are 11.6 million unemployed persons in the United States today. Meanwhile, the current estimate of the total cost of the spending package passed to alleviate this distress is $827 billion.  President Obama … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

The Rise of Decline

You know you’re in an American recession when British observers start reflecting on the inevitability of American decline, and volunteering their allegedly privileged perspective gained from the fall of the British Empire (Mark Steyn, as always, excepted). So it is … Continue reading

Posted in Domestic Politics, History | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Implications of the Pletka Purge

Roland picks up an interesting piece by Jacob Heilbrunn for the National Interest, describing an ongoing purge of neoconservative intellectuals from the American Enterprise Institute, allegedly instigated by Vice President Danielle Pletka. So far Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht … Continue reading

Posted in Foreign affairs, Lee's Page, Military Matters | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Eichmann Endures

Jerry Burger at Santa Clara University, has succeeded in partially replicating Stanley Milgram’s famous social obedience experiment, whereby test subjects torture strangers with electrical shocks when told to do so. Depressingly, mankind appears to remain as obedient to evil as … Continue reading

Posted in social science | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

China’s Hurt Feelings

Blogger FangKC queried the archive of the People’s Daily, the Chinese Communist Party’s mouthpiece, and discovered that 19 countries and organizations have been officially accused of hurting the feelings of the Chinese people. You can anticipate some such as the … Continue reading

Posted in Around the Web | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Philippines as Red State

Filipino writer Benjamin Pimentel is surprised to discover that his countrymen were among the very few foreign populations to prefer John McCain to Barack Obama in a Gallup international survey. A happy place for Republicans in a lonely world apparently, as … Continue reading

Posted in Domestic Politics, Election 2008, Foreign affairs | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Clear Blue Sky

(NASA) Today is the 11th. The unwelcome anniversary. Everyone remembers where they were when they heard. I was awoken by a phone call on the day. “The country’s under attack!” the phone said. You wake up rather fast when that’s … Continue reading

Posted in Lee's Page | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Rosy Future for Anti-Americanism?

Longtime Clinton ally Leon Panetta pronounces Barack Obama “intimidated” by Sarah Palin, and lost in a deepening cycle of reactive defense. With McCain now winning a majority of independents and erasing the gender gap, the blood is most definitely in … Continue reading

Posted in Domestic Politics, Election 2008 | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

A Shattered Idol in the Black Garden

(photo: Rahim Alizadeh) In Verdi’s opera Nabucco –the namesake of the western gas pipeline to Europe that holds the promise of partial independence from Russian energy reliance– the Jewish patriots take the daughter of the Babylonian king hostage, in order … Continue reading

Posted in Foreign affairs, Lee's Page | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Medvedev’s Caribbean Dream

A depressingly confused analogy from Medvedev on US aid to Georgia: “I wonder how they would like it if we sent humanitarian assistance using our navy to countries of the Caribbean that have suffered from the recent hurricanes.” (AFP) We’d … Continue reading

Posted in Foreign affairs, Lee's Page | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Declinism as Exceptionalism

Francis Fukuyama argues in the Financial Times that the United States should have traded European missile defense and/or Kosovar independence in order to pacify a resurgent Russia. This strange proposal of strategic charity work for the Kremlin, is animated by … Continue reading

Posted in Foreign affairs, Lee's Page | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

China and Provincial Secessionism

Extremely interesting post from Seth Weinberger on the opportunity for pulling China in the pro-Georgia camp, after the SCO failed to endorse Russian actions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Seth is as mystified as I am that the Russian foreign … Continue reading

Posted in Foreign affairs, Lee's Page | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Georgia Cuts Loose

Saakashvili has finally severed all Georgian diplomatic ties with Russia. A bit overdue, I must say. Meanwhile, Putin, in his ongoing effort to legitimize the Russian invasion of Georgia, again compared his country’s actions to the NATO intervention against Serbia … Continue reading

Posted in Around the Web | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bernanke has a solution

FROM: Dr Ben Bernanke Central Bank of United States of America 01-658-555-1234 TO: CEO Lagos, Nigeria Dear Friend: I have been requested by the regional members Federal Reserve of the USA to contact you for assistance in resolving a matter. … Continue reading

Posted in Economics, Humor, Lance's Page | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Saakashvili has a Future

Last night Joshua argued that Saakashvili, having quite obviously failed to recapture his renegade territories, is certain to be finished one way or the other. Either overthrown by the Russian army, or by the Georgian people at the ballot box. … Continue reading

Posted in Foreign affairs, Lee's Page | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Yaoch!

The United States pulverizes China 101-70.

Posted in Around the Web | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Choosing Sides on South Ossetia

After an ambiguous initial reaction, the State Department appears to have realized that despite whatever Russia contends, it is physically impossible for Georgia to invade its own country: “We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and … Continue reading

Posted in Foreign affairs, Lee's Page | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

A Line in the Sand

*Gasp* Is that a border? A real, defined, fenced, national border? For our country?? Trick photography surely.

Posted in Around the Web | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

A New Libertarianism of Paranoid Revolt

Jordan Page (who is a kind of Ronpaulist Joan Baez) reflects on the “Revolution March,” a July 12th Ron Paul protest rally in Washington DC, in part organized by Adam Kokesh (who of late believes the Washington police are involved … Continue reading

Posted in Lee's Page, Libertarianism | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 24 Comments

How Supermarkets Can End Poverty

Namibian supermarket selection (photo: Olivier Peyre) One of great inequities in the modern world is that in relative terms, food in poor and starving countries often costs far more than in the wealthy developed world. That’s because industrial countries tend … Continue reading

Posted in Developmental economics, Economics, Foreign affairs, Lee's Page | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia Speaks to the American Electorate

Sober, secular and educated new residents to New Mexico can often be found painting the frames of their doors and windows a vivid bright blue. Having seen the habit practiced on the homes of locals, the newcomers invariably assume it’s … Continue reading

Posted in Foreign affairs, Lee's Page | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Tidal Empires of War

(photo: Charles Roffey – Charles & Fred) Someone once said that in Damascus you truly can get a little bit pregnant. It’s a good aphorism, because if you asked the foreign minister of almost any state in the Middle East … Continue reading

Posted in Foreign affairs, Lee's Page, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Retreating Periphery

(photo: Mani Babbar) After 9/11 widened Al Qaeda’s ambitious war against most of the world, Osama bin Laden described his own axis-o-evil as being composed of “Crusaders, Zionists and Hindus.” But at some point, without anyone much noticing, that seems … Continue reading

Posted in Foreign affairs, Lee's Page, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Another Western Way of War

From a somewhat shocking interview of Victor Davis Hanson by Swiss newspaper Junge Freiheit, Abe Greenwald clips a portion where Hanson ferociously thrashes the contemporary European Weltanschuuang. He calls it a secularized, socialist pacifism, that has deluded a continent into … Continue reading

Posted in Around the Web | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Inside Al Qaeda’s Crisis in Iraq

A Concerned Local Citizens (CLC) member in Arab Jabour, Iraq (photo: DoD) In extraordinary documents confiscated in November by the United States, we get an enemy’s eye view of the Awakening in Iraq, and further confirmation about how debilitating the … Continue reading

Posted in Military Matters, Notes on the war | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Hottest Governor

Draft Sarah Palin has some excerpts from Alaska Magazine‘s profile of “America’s Hottest Governor.” Palin also happens to be the most popular governor in America. Indeed, with approval ratings often in the 90s, the conservative Republican is perhaps the most … Continue reading

Posted in Around the Web | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Single Mother Country

What would a war be without a baby boom(let)? Alone in the Occident, Americans continue to invest in the future with strong population growth, while Europe continues to die off faster than it reproduces. Will these new babies be the … Continue reading

Posted in Around the Web | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments