Over the weekend, the US made its case about Iranian involvement in Iraq, but their evidence was received with a great deal of skepticism. Public opinion, both domestically and internationally, is heavily influenced by what was said in the build-up to Iraq, and short of an Iranian official standing up and saying, “Yes, we’re supplying arms and trying to fuel the violence”, it’s hard to imagine anything strong enough to overcome the Bush administration’s lack of credibility. Would...

So. He’s in. Barack Obama’s theme — the underlying core message — is so radically different from what we’re used to hearing from politicians, I can’t help but respond to it. It’s a visceral reaction — a balm to a wound I didn’t even realize I had. Of course, how he intends to implement his visions are another matter. Health care, foreign policy, immigration reform — those aren’t trivial issues, and while I’ve seen...

In an email from the Hillary campaign team was the following problem statement: It’s time to end our country’s dependence on foreign oil. Unstable prices at the pump are a burden for families. Our dependence props up extremist regimes that threaten our national security. And the threat to our environment from burning fossil fuels is very real. Hillary is proposing a plan that puts “some of the oil industry’s windfall profits into a fund that would help develop practical new...

From the Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Fort Lewis this week will become ground zero for the peace movement. Activists have called for a national day of action today, when the court-martial of 28-year-old 1st Lt. Ehren Watada begins. In the past year, Watada has become a lightning rod for the anti-war movement as the only known U.S. military officer to publicly refuse to be sent to Iraq. Peace groups and such celebrity activists as Susan Sarandon and Martin Sheen have taken up the lieutenant’s...

I clearly recall the first time someone took my fingerprints: it was part of the application / screening process to become a Deputy Sheriff. Since then, it’s happened many times, and I think we take it for granted these days that fingerprinting is merely part of an identification process. Are we ready to grant such casual acceptance to DNA sampling? More here.

Resolutions calling for an apology for slavery have been proposed and rejected many times, and the most recent debate is occurring in Virginia. The discussions are heated and hostile (as they always are), with some claiming they, personally, have no responsibility, some suggesting that those who should apologize — and those to whom they would say it — are long-dead, others saying it’s a meaningless, empty symbol, and still others insisting that America has to “fix the damage”. The...

Every time I approach the question of education or reform, I find that people respond from many different directions, with radically diverse assumptions. Thus, it appears to me that we don’t have a consensus on what, exactly, we’re trying to accomplish with our public education system. Perhaps I missed the mission statement. Is the goal a literate society whose citizens can support themselves? To participate in / understand the issues that affect them? Or is it to compete in a global...

Last month, the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce proposed massive, comprehensive reformation of our public educational system. Response to their report, Tough Choices or Tough Times, was tepid from a number of quarters. From the NEA: “Tough Choices or Tough Times has shed light on some very real issues. However, we urge caution in calling for drastic changes that could potentially disenfranchise poorer communities and eliminate community voices in the reform conversation. [snip] “In...

In Tuesday night’s State of the Union address, Bush talked about a number of issues — all of which are pressing and valid. Unfortunately, he was silent about the Gulf Coast, and New Orleans. Silence is sometimes its own sound, and in this case I’m worred — no, sad – that what it articulated was thunderous indifference from both the federal government, and the people it represents. I wrote more about this here.

After Bush’s “surge” speech last night, Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin gave the Democrats’ response, and hearing them back-to-back gave me — for the first time in many weeks– some clarity about Iraq. This new view stemmed from the most basic of suppositions — that escalation is not what the Americans voted for; this is not what we want. That’s true… but I don’t think Americans want the outcome of withdrawal, either, and that was the basis...

One week shy of a year ago, the Bring New Orleans Back commission unveiled their recommendations for recovery and rebuilding NOLA. The response was underwhelming, as the Washington Post wrote in January 2006: Hundreds of residents packed into a hotel ballroom interrupted the presentation of the long-awaited proposal with shouts and taunts, booed its main architect and unrolled a litany of complaints. One by one, homeowners stepped to a microphone to lampoon the plan — which contemplates a much...

I have good news and bad news. The good news is that Americans are living longer. The bad news? Same thing. Are we ready for the parental pig in the python?

We’d been anticipating Saddam Hussein’s execution all day, but when the news finally came last night, I was a bit surprised at my lack of reaction. As I wrote this morning — it seems so irrelevant somehow.

Ten years old sounds so very young, doesn’t it? But it’s very nearly middle school, and that’s a whole new world. In today’s NY Times, Lawrence Downes writes: It’s hard to write this without sounding like a prig. But it’s just as hard to erase the images that planted the idea for this essay, so here goes. The scene is a middle school auditorium, where girls in teams of three or four are bopping to pop songs at a student talent show. Not bopping, actually, but...

Nothing underscores the chaotic post-Katrina conditions in New Orleans like the Danziger Bridge shootings. Yesterday, a grand jury indicted seven New Orleans police officers — four of them for first degree murder. It’s yet another chapter in a long, ugly story; I wrote about it here.

From the UK Telegraph: Iran’s oil exports are plummeting at 10pc a year on lack of investment and could be exhausted within a decade, depriving the world economy of its second-biggest source of crude supplies. [snip] “They need to invest $2.5bn (£1.28bn) a year just to stand still and they’re not doing it because it’s politically easier to spend the money on social welfare and the army than to wait four to six years for a return on investment,” he said. “They’ve...

Gerald Ford was an ordinary man called upon in extraordinary times. I’m glad somebody remembered to tell him, “Thank you“.

It’s Christmas Eve, and Polimom has triumphed over procrastination again. The presents are ready (and even wrapped!), we have all the ingredients to bake Santa’s cookies, and the stockings are hung. Gifts have been arriving all week, steadily expanding to inhabit every square inch of space beneath the tree. By tomorrow morning, they’ll have spread beyond the tree skirt — but we have a bit of unanticipated space there, because today, I’m removing a couple that have been...

I remember lots of things about being a teenager: braces, acne, boys (!), rebellious arguments with parents, and having entirely too much time on my hands. (Did I mention boys?) Of them all, though, it was “time” that impacted me the most. It wasn’t so much the lack of homework (although I had very little); it was because as a young person, Polimom was not a “joiner”. I started “hanging out” at a local fast food place (I can’t remember why, other than...

There are many excellent arguments against the death penalty, and TMV co-blogger elrod wrote passionately about them in an earlier post. From arbitrary and racist sentencing to the truly horrible risk of executing an innocent person, worries abound, because once the ultimate penalty has been carried out, there’s no going back. Yet this latest Great Debate about capital punishment didn’t come up for any of these reasons. Instead, they arose yet again from questions about lethal injection,...

We’ve all seen how the anonymity of the Internet can bring out the very worst in people. From vicious blog comments to fictitious rumors, the new media is a modern-day Wild West. Usually, the ugliness stays in virtual unreality-land; no real harm done beyond hurt feelings — but there’s real danger lurking there too. Who will read your son’s MySpace profile, and try to learn more? Where did your daughter meet the people with whom she chats for hours on end? What do these faceless...

In a jaw-dropping result Saturday, an underwhelming 16% of registered voters in Louisiana’s 2nd District returned William “Dollar Bill” Jefferson to Congress for another term. From NOLA’s Times-Picayune: Overcoming the specter of a roiling federal corruption probe that threatened to draw the curtain on his 16-year career on Capitol Hill, U.S. Rep. William Jefferson survived the fight of his political life Saturday, easily defeating state Rep. Karen Carter to win his ninth...

Ignorance is generally overcome through information and dialogue. For moderate Muslims, though, condemning terrorism (and terrorists), and responding to questions doesn’t seem to be enough. What more, if anything, can they do?

I sat down this morning to write about the reactions to Mary Cheney’s pregnancy, but as I mentally organized my thoughts, I was distracted by activity outside. It was my neighbor leaving for work, and I paused to watch as she wheeled out the trash cans, carried the recycle tubs, and then helped her young daughter into the backseat before closing the garage door and driving away. On the weekends there’s a lot of activity at their house, because my neighbor’s parents are often there....

The House pulled the offshore drilling bill from today’s agenda, but what is this really about? Is it Big Oil? (Washington Post) Foes of offshore drilling hoped that today’s move spelled the end of efforts to get the bill passed. “Let’s hope this is the end of Congress’ fling with Big Oil and that we can make a fresh start to achieving true energy security with the new year and the new Congress,” Athan Manuel of the Sierra Club said in a statement. For people...