Monthly Archives: June, 2011

An irony of modern times is the people most inclined to quote Jefferson’s “wall of separation” between church and state are the same people who have turned politics into a religion. In order to enter into the secular humanist heaven we must support politically correct causes. That leads to demonization of those who disagree with [...]

Lucy Kellaway writes in the Financial Times about rules for writing emails (You Have Got Mail But You Need to Get Your Life Back.) Her focus is more on style than substance, but she caused me to think about my days in school. Teachers made certain comments that stayed with me. I remember my speech [...]

Yesterday the Wall Street Journal had a lengthy editorial about drilling for shale gas (The Facts About Fracking,) and today the New York Times has a lead story about the same subject (Insiders Sound an Alarm Amid a Natural Gas Rush.) The WSJ focus is on the environmental  and health safety of hydraulic fracturing, which [...]

Kimberley A. Strassel writes in the Wall Street Journal that Republicans who oppose what Barack Obama is doing in Libya are guilty of political opportunism (The GOP’s War Powers Opportunism.) I dislike having to disagree with Ms. Strassel, but I have a lot of trouble understanding her argument. It seems that she is saying that [...]

Philip Stephens writes in the Financial Times that the European project is threatened by the unwillingness of governments to “separate narrow national from wider mutual interests” (Europe’s Return to Westphalia.) Germany is the principal offender. Stephens writes that “Germany is too big and too powerful for Europe to survive its pursuit of narrowly defined national [...]

Barack Obama thinks the ATM machine contributes to unemployment. He says that one of the structural issues affecting our economy is that businesses have figured out how to get more production with fewer workers. If we did not have ATM’s there would be more jobs for bank tellers.
In a recent article in the Financial Times [...]

The Financial Times writes that Russia’s president, Dmitry Medvedev, is a supporter of political freedom and the free market, but it does not matter much because he is probably only reflecting the views of 15 % of the population (Moscow’s Enigma.) His chief rival, Vladimir Putin, is likely to return to the presidency next year, [...]

Jon Stewart told Chris Wallace of Fox News that he does not have to be accurate when he comments on the news because he is primarily a comedian who is looking for absurdities. That means he is free to leave out the things that do not serve to heighten the absurdities. Stewart says his humor [...]

One of my readers said the other day that part of what I wrote was useful, and the rest was predictable. What I think she meant was that the predictable part was consistent with my ideology, and therefore not surprising.
Pundits typically express opinions that reflect their ideology, which means they tend to leave out information [...]

The Wall Street Journal writes editorially that Republicans should not join antiwar Democrats in opposition to what Barack Obama is doing in Libya (Leading Libya From Behind.) WSJ says it is “happy to support Mr. Obama on Libya, but it would help if the President seemed to believe in his own policy and power.” They [...]