Okay, I have a few non-political, that is non-partisan, questions about an alleged Bush Administration cover-up of a CIA program that, if implemented, would have authorized killing foreign leaders. My questions go beyond the legality of such a program or about whether it was right for the former administration to conceal it from the Congress. I hope that those more steeped in constitutional law than I am can answer my questions. First, this question: How did Vice President Dick Cheney, who reportedly...

It’s become an accepted piece of conventional wisdom. The United States, it’s said, is at risk of falling behind the rest of the world because of continuing shortage of scientists and engineers. Maybe not. [This has also been posted on my personal blog.]

Here. [Also posted at my personal blog.]

Here. Contrary to the stereotyping coming from some corners these days, not all who believe in the existence of God are bigoted, closed-minded, or anti-science. Francis Collins is one demonstration of that. He’s a theist and an outstanding scientist. Politically, this is yet another shrewd appointment on the part of Barack Obama. As he pursues such hot potato issues as stem cell research, Collins will likely be able to talk to all sides. [This has been crossposted at my personal blog.]

While the Vice President put his foot in his mouth (twice) and his seasoned political pro, Rahm Emanuel, did the same, President Obama was acomplishing quite a lot during his trip to Russia. The BBC reports: US President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have reached an outline agreement to cut back their nations’ stockpiles of nuclear weapons. The “joint understanding” signed in Moscow would see reductions of deployed nuclear warheads to below 1,700 each within...

Michael Jackson has died at age 50. Like many, I’ve watched him degenerate from an articulate, confident child star to a strange, reclusive adult. Four years ago, I wrote this piece inspired by Jackson on the effects of fame on the famous. If Michael Jackson had not been introduced to the addictive power of fame, might he have lived an obscure and happy life? We’ll never know. This video is of Jackson’s performance at the Twenty-Fifth Anniversary bash for Motown Records back in...

There are, says BBC correspondent John Simpson, present for protests at both points in history. His reflections suggest that any pro-democracy celebrations in other parts of the world may be premature: When I go out into the streets now and see the crowds with their green ribbons and scarves and face-paint and balloons, it occurs to me that I am looking at a coalition of interests as complex as the one that marched along the same streets 30 years ago. Then, liberal, middle-class, Westernised people...

I heard an interview on NPR with Elie Wiesel, the famed author, Nobel laureate, and Holocaust survivor, on Thursday. He was asked for his reactions to the shooting which occurred at the US Holocaust Museum on Wednesday. Of course, Wiesel said, he was shocked. But he also asserted that the actions of a deranged Holocaust-denier did not represent a growing body of opinion. In fact, quite the contrary. More people acknowledge and are conversant with the facts surrounding Adolf Hitler’s extermination...

They’ve been signaling their mutual interest in a musical collaboration quite a lot in the past several years. The most recent issue of ‘Rolling Stone’ contains an excellent Dylan profile by historian Douglas Brinkley in which Dylan is, by turns, uncharacteristically candid, then typically obscurantist. There, he makes clear–or, as clear as Dylan makes things–that he would love to work with McCartney. Now, according to Gibson Lifestyle, that collaboration will happen: Recent...

The thing ought to be dismantled.

“God save me from my enemies…and from my friends.” The prayer is attributed to Martin Luther, but it might well fit President Barack Obama’s mood as he ponders recent statements made by some of his fellow liberals. They’re hot over Obama’s decision not to release photographs of alleged terrorist detainees taken during the Bush Administration. The assumption is that the pictures will buttress the belief that under Bush, the US engaged in criminal interrogation...

The Chinese government has submitted its claimed maritime boundaries in the South China Sea. Its proposals give credence to notions that the Beijing regime intends to exercise unquestioned hegemony in Asia, at the expense of neighboring nations. Read the BBC news article on their proposals here or, cut to the chase, and look at their proposed boundaries on a map. I’ve been writing with considerable concern about the threat to international peace and stability represented by the Chinese government....

[This is being crossposted at my personal blog.]

So we won’t be hearing Marty McFly’s guitar solo on Johnny B. Goode. But it would be great if we did! Tonight, in our church fellowship hall, we’ll be offering a Middle-of-the-Night Breakfast to the kids who attend the evening’s Logan High School Prom. It’ll be fun. But if Biff shows up, I may need some help. [This has been crossposted at my personal blog.]

not to be confused with the WaPo columnist, is blogging again. Read his wonderful post on ubiquity and openness to the promise of each new day. I’m so glad to be reading Richard’s honest, insightful prose again.

I’m a Christian and I’m an American. Therefore, I oppose the use of torture. Ever. No exceptions. Because ours is an imperfect world, I accept the fact that nations must sometimes go to war, just as I accept that when lives are threatened–be it one’s own life or the lives of others–defensive action that may result in an attacker’s death is justified. As a Christian, I accept the notion of just war. But torture is never just.

Maine Senator Olympia Snowe is among the last moderate Republican officeholders remaining. In the New York Times she laments the departure of her friend and fellow moderate Arlen Specter for the Democratic Party, claiming that her party has failed to appreciate the need for moderates as well as conservatives in order to win. Then she pulls out the big guns, quoting Ronald Reagan: “We should emphasize the things that unite us and make these the only ‘litmus test’ of what constitutes a Republican:...

That’s the picture one gets from Glenn Reynolds’ profile of today’s tea party tax protesters. But can they be as constructive as they are critical? See here. Also see here.

We know what they’re against, argues Andrew Sullivan, but what do they favor? Although he engages in a bit of what seems to me an ad hominem attack on Glenn Reynolds, the question is a good one: All protests against spending that do not tell us how to reduce it are fatuous pieces of theater, not constructive acts of politics. And until the right is able to make a constructive and specific argument about how they intend to reduce spending and debt and borrowing, they deserve to be dismissed...

“Taxes are what we pay for civilized society.” (Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., U.S. Supreme Court Justice)

When a government’s one-child policy meets a culture’s bias against females, this is what happens. Also see here. [This has been crossposted at my personal blog.]

The President will attack immigration reform in a big way starting next month. The last Democratic president to have so many ambitious priorities was Jimmy Carter. Through most of his term, Carter was largely thwarted by a Democratic Congress anxious to assert itself after Richard Nixon’s imperial presidency. (He was finally undone by the Iran hostage crisis and a sluggish economy, of course.) Carter was much better at eliciting the support of conservative Republicans than he was of liberal...

Here

I don’t know whether Shaun Reins approves or disapproves of President Obama’s performance as a leader during the the president’s second month in office. That isn’t the point of this article from Forbes. In it, he analyzes Obama’s second thirty day period as president for lessons, some positive and some negative, that other leaders, particularly in the business world, can use. It’s interesting, similar to the unbiased analysis of presidents-as-leaders I try to...

Barack Obama is a scintillating orator. That’s partly because, like his Illinois progenitor, Abraham Lincoln, he’s a talented writer who can turn memorable and meaningful phrases. Unlike Lincoln, who loathed extemporaneous speaking, Obama, who began his presidential campaign as an indifferent debater, has become more than passably good in response to questioning, in spite of the long uhs that punctuate his responses. As more than one commentator has mentioned in the past ten hours, the...