West Coast
Coastal Comfort
This is hardly a surprise, but it appears the Pacific Coast states will give Democrats a nice sunset for an election day that's certainly been full of violent storms. If the exit polls are at all on track, not only are Barbara Boxer and Jerry Brown romping to comfortable victories, but we may not have to wait days or weeks to see if Patty Murray will survive. There's still a close governor's race in Oregon to resolve (the exits in that race feature the biggest gender gap I've ever seen, which may be attributable to the fact that Republican Chris Dudley is a former NBA player), and seven or READ MORE >>
China's Push to Master the Seas
Traitors to Their Class
For Barack Obama’s inauguration, Washington Dulles International Airport had to close a runway to accommodate private jet traffic. According to aviation authorities, the D.C. area had never before experienced so large an influx of corporate jets—around 500 in total, or almost double the number for George W. Bush’s second inauguration. And this was to celebrate the presidency of someone who had run on a platform that included tax hikes for the rich and a crackdown on Wall Street. READ MORE >>
Imagine (With Apologies to John Lennon)
For the sake of argument, imagine, if you can, an American foreign policy based on interest alone. To begin with, to use the current Wall Street phrase, it would need to overweight Latin America and underweight the Middle East. For whether the Obama administration believes it or not (in fairness, they are no worse than their predecessors, though they are no better either), crises are brewing in Latin America that pose potentially greater threats to the United States than those posed by Al Qaeda. READ MORE >>
Arizona Says No To Cap-And-Trade Out West
If Congress doesn't pass a climate bill this year, then, as I've mentioned before, individual states are likely to pick up the slack, either through their own efforts to promote clean energy or through regional carbon-trading systems. But an obvious pitfall of a regional system is that participation is totally voluntary, and a state can always leave for any reason. READ MORE >>
What The Snowpocalypse Tells Us About Global Warming
Saving Marriage, California Style
Some days I really miss the West Coast. State Drive Would Ban Divorce Sincere or mocking, the guy does have an excellent point. READ MORE >>
Economic Recovery? Not So Fast!
The Federal Reserve’s latest Beige Book, released yesterday, painted a cautiously optimistic portrait of the state of the nation’s economy. The New York Times, reporting on the Beige Book, heralded a “slow and still fragile recovery” that is “taking hold acros READ MORE >>
The Newt Bomb
Wishin' and Mopin'
Dusty!: Queen of the Postmods By Annie J. Randall (Oxford University Press, 219 pp., $24.95) READ MORE >>
