On Wikileaks

Here are some recent articles on Wikileaks that are worth reading. Glenn Greenwald: The WikiLeaks disclosure has revealed not only numerous government secrets, but also the driving mentality of major factions in our political and media class.  Simply put, there are few countries in the world with citizenries and especially media outlets more devoted to [...]

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Gary Johnson

I often write about politicians running for office but I am rarely really excited about any of them. (When I say really excited, I mean excited enough to donate serious money, and passionately hope, and perhaps volunteer, and do everything else I can to help them win.) A little clarification here: I am talking of [...]

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Marco Rubio: The Obama of the right?

Whatever you think about Obama — and he is not very popular these days — the fact remains that he is one of the most talented politicians of our age. At his best, he gives a heck of a speech, he is undoubtedly intelligent and thoughtful, and while I disagree with most of his policies, [...]

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A doomed alliance?

A pretty fair article by Ed Kilgore on the widening rift between progressives and libertarians. One mini-saga of the past decade in American politics has been the flirtation—with talk of a deeper partnership—between progressives and libertarians. These two groups were driven together, in the main, by common hostility to huge chunks of the Bush administration’s [...]

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On bias and extremism in politics

Megan’s article reminded me of some thoughts I have had in the past about political polarizations. There are several commonly held intellectual blinkers, or, to use a Robin Hanson terminology, roads to rationality ruin, that prevent us from properly appraising the value of a political position. This is true with respect to positions we support [...]

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Listening to the other side

A pretty great post by Megan McArdle on open-mindedness, spite and political polarization.

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The tea-partiers

Here’s a great article by Tunku Varadarajan on the tea-party movement. On right and left, “educated” people have given vent to their contempt for the Tea Party crowd, leading me to conclude that there must, surely, be considerable significance in a movement that has had scorn poured on it by such varied names [...] On [...]

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The failed airline bombing and our reaction

The reaction of the TSA — the umbrella organization formed after 9/11 to regulate airline security in the US — to the recent terrorist attempt has been along expected lines. More lines, more meaningless regulations, more stifling security measures. When Richard Reid had the bright idea a few years ago to hide explosives in his [...]

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Obama wins Nobel prize for Peace?

My reaction was, and remains: WTF. If I were to expand on that, it would be roughly on the lines of this oped. The award of this year’s Nobel peace prize to President Obama will be met with widespread incredulity, consternation in many capitals and probably deep embarrassment by the President himself. Rarely has an [...]

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Thoughts on John Mackey and Whole Foods

For those not following the Whole Foods controversy, this is roughly what happened: John Mackey, CEO and co-founder of Whole Foods, and a fairly committed libertarian who once debated Milton Friedman on corporate responsiblity to stakeholders, decided to pen an article against Obama-care at the WSJ. Here’s an excerpt. Many promoters of health-care reform believe [...]

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Manzi on global warming

While I am not an expert on global warming, the available literature seems to indicate that when everything is considered, the damage of global warming is probably not as high as the damage of the proposed solutions to global warming. That’s of course not to discount the danger or reality of the phenomenon — global [...]

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The extraordinary passion of belief and defiance

I had to share this. Politicians are generally fools, and Mausavi is probably only marginally better than his opponent, but there is no reason to doubt his assertion that “these masses were not brought by bus or by threat, they were not brought for potatoes; they came themselves.”

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That’s one of the best quotes I have read lately

“Obama is causing a lot of Rand fans to completely flip their lids in part because Obama and his devotees are Bizarro World Randian romantics in the grip of an adolescent faith in the generative powers of the state.” – Will Wilkinson.

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No fairness doctrine: Obama

This is terrific news. Around three months before the elections, I had listed the possible re-imposition of the fairness doctrine as one of the downsides of an Obama victory. Now that Obama has categorically ruled out that option, I think it is safe to strike it off from my list of fallouts.

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Some good signs from the Obama administration

• Tom Daschle — big government healthcare lord with plenty of tax issues  – is out. Obama admits he screwed up. Refreshing. • He might actually kill the terrible protectionist clause from the stimulus. I certainly did not expect this.  • He has selected an excellent nominee for the secretary of commerce post, it’s a Republican who once [...]

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