The United States' recent decision to pursue a different tack with Burma has been cited by reports to be the reason for the unusual Chinese rebuke of the Burmese over a recent border spat. According to a recent Inter Press Agency article, the recent Chinese-Burmese border bust up may have been compounded by Chinese concerns over its long-time client state's future relations with the U.S.Some background: This latest Chinese rebuke comes as the United States has… More »
Ignore the odds-makers. Forget the vote. Who should host the Olympics?
So after much chatter, we are only finally seeing the start of the long climate-change bill fight. Senate Democrats introduced a draft of a climate bill Wednesday that suggests the legislation will include a more ambitious greenhouse gas emissions target than one passed by the House. The New York Times reports: The measure, sponsored by Senators Barbara Boxer of California and John Kerry of Massachusetts, seeks to achieve by 2020 a 20 percent reduction from 2005… More »
Census Bureau may have added urgency to Obama's moral imperative More »
Washingtonians remember Sen. Edward Kennedy at a vigil in Dupont Circle Wednesday night. More »
Washington Post's Ian Shapira fired the latest salvo in the ongoing debate about paid media content with his thoughtful "rant" over the weekend about Gawker "stealing" his story. But he raised the bar by invoking legal considerations, wondering aloud if Gawker's (mis)use of his work amounted to copyright infringement. More »
Washington Post's Ian Shapira fired the latest salvo in the ongoing debate about paid media content with his thoughtful "rant" over the weekend about Gawker "stealing" his story. But he raised the bar by invoking legal considerations, wondering aloud if Gawker's (mis)use of his work amounted to copyright infringement. More »
If the Obama administration is really interested in conducting America's foreign relations differently, it should take a deep seated interest in the situation in Nigeria right now.The New York Times reported Nigerian security forces on Thursday confirmed the death of the leader of a fundamentalist Islamic sect in the city of Maiduguri, apparently ending a fierce five-day campaign against the group that may have left hundreds dead across northern Nigeria.The… More »
Inflation is a tax on cash balances and on fixed-interest loans. It is not an efficient tax, but few taxes actually imposed in our political system are efficient. It would be interesting to see a serious economic study of the social costs, and possible social benefits, of allowing inflation to rise above normal levels in the recovery phase from the current economic situation. More »
Some may view buying a house as putting down roots, but Michael now sees it as accepting chains of bondage. Living in a RV park grants a kind of freedom...The only white picket fences appearing in this revised American Dream would be the quaint scenery he passes while driving down a long open road with the travel trailer hitched to his truck. More »
But if Gates is really invested in "teaching" the public about the absurdity of all this...then he had best start with those who assume that racism is dead and gone, that class and professional status insulate folks of color from discrimination, that this kind of thing doesn't happen in broad daylight to a slight, well-dressed, Harvard professor. More »
We think of price as objective, flat, purely informational, but it is not. Price sparks emotion like little else. Price can lead us to make decisions that we might not otherwise make - both personal and political. More »
Back home, we newspaper guys tend to get nervous with the entertainment quest, seeing that as potentially minimizing an air of authority, and have a devil of a time having fun in a smart, sophisticated way. When it comes to being truly fun, we're a bit repressed, consumed by honorable notions of balance and don't have the courage of our darker impulses. More »
And we ought to be careful in how broadly we apply the term "hero", in any genre, lest we diminish its meaning for those who are truly deserving of the title. More »
So my advice to my students is this: Follow your heart. Remember why you entered this field. Do what you really love to be doing, and don't worry about lifestyle, reimbursement and the like. More »
Commentary on Clinton's speech focused on politics--and missed the substance. More »
