Could we Win if We Had to Fight World War II Today? by Rick Moran The debate over “The Greatest Generation” and whether the way America is today could duplicate their stunning achievements in winning two wars and fighting through a depression while maintaining unity has been hashed and rehashed by far superior minds than mine. But I just can’t help thinking about it after watching the History...

So many tasty morsels so many are uncovering. (All that and not one link to Andrew Sullivan. I’ll spend Saturday enjoying his finds.) One topic Sarah touches on that’s relevant to my interest in food is her love of meat. From page 18: I love meat. I eat pork chops, thick bacon-burgers, and the seared fatty edges of a medium-well-done steak. But I especially love moose and caribou. Note, especially,...

I have frequently written on patriotism, “supporting the troops,” the cost of war as measured in “bullets and dollars” and, most important, on the cost of war as measured by the sweat, blood, tears and lives of our valiant troops. This, while Americans back home are not asked to sacrifice in any meaningful manner, and are even encouraged to “go shopping.” My words, however, are woefully inadequate...

Is Rep. Virginia Foxx crazy? I don’t know, but she certainly says some crazy things. Consider a couple of things she said yesterday: – “Actually, the GOP has been the leader in starting good environmental programs in this country.” Maybe, if you go all the way back to the days of Teddy Roosevelt. More recently, the GOP is the party of global warming denialism and opposition to environmental...

I told you so 7 months ago in my TMV post dated 3/19/09 and titled “It’s Time to Throw Geithner under the Bus.” Considering the growing chorus from the left, right and middle now calling for his termination or resignation, I re-read my original post. As always, I was prescient, accurate, and possibly clairvoyant on this matter. Yours truly also predicted this entire economic collapse at least 5 years...

While many proposed infrastructure expenditures are long-overdue and greatly needed across our country, most of the projects will take years to plan, design, meet various regulatory requirements, and build. Associated new employment will be well-paying but cannot materialize quickly. Furthermore, they constitute a long-term policy for the country separate from the immediate need to address high unemployment...

Republican House member (from North Carolina) Virginia Foxx, it is pretty safe to say, has never met a fact she could not challenge.  This morning, Rep. Foxx launched an attack on what she calls “revisionist history” about which political party should get the credit for passing historic  civil rights legislation in the 1960s….. by engaging in her own revisionist history — which was...

The story of Stephanie Spielman, wife of Ohio State University and NFL star Chris Spielman, mother of four children, who was a 30 year old woman 12 years ago who gave herself a self-breast exam and discovered a lump that she then had examined and screened, died of breast cancer today at age 42. Her story represents the stories that I dread will become absolutely the norm and her story represents the stories...

Tomorrow, he turns 92 after passing another milestone as the longest-serving member of Congress in history, almost 57 years. With such longevity, Sen. Robert Byrd embodies almost a century of American history that transformed a nation of backwaters dotted by big cities into a metropolitan sprawl with access to 24/7 knowledge about the whole world. Byrd, a self-made man if there ever was one, started as a gas...

Ezra Klein reads over 2,000 pages of legislative language so you don’t have to. His conclusion: This bill is a “grand bargain” that achieves impressive levels of coverage while still cutting costs:

National Healthcare Insurance Reform has moved a bit closer to reality, though it could still be derailed in the Senate. We now have a House Bill and a Senate Bill that will have to be merged into a single bill via an appointed Joint Conference Committee. The committee members will be chosen by Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi so a final bill can be written and voted upon by the Senate...

A study of 200 students published in the British Journal of Criminology found that many wrongly blame the effects of a “bad night out” on date-rape drugs when, in fact, they just drank too much. Some are in “active denial” and fears of date-rape drugs are so pervasive that students think it happens more often than the abuse as a consequence of drugs, binge drinking, or walking alone at...

On my trips abroad, I have rarely found an Indian restaurant that would satisfy my native taste buds. In the West, there has been a “curry” revolution and its impact has been the most in Britain. However, there is a growing realization that Indian cooking is not just meant to set your tongue on fire or titillate the palate, it actually mixes common sense with the ancient science of Ayurveda, gaining...

A new study out from George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services concludes that the Stupak-Pitts Amendment will have an expansive effect on abortion coverage over the entire insurance industry, “eliminating coverage of medically indicated abortions over time for all women, not only those whose coverage is derived through a health insurance exchange.”

A “dog warning card” arrived with my mail today. Thanks to a New Jersey branch of the National Association of Letter Carriers, you can see the form online. The form provides invaluable advice, such as “Do not deliver mail if you feel endangered by an animal.” For a better understanding of the threats faced by America’s letter carriers, I recommend the following passage from The...

In what could be a significant development a federal judge in California has ordered damages to be paid by Sears to a same sex couple that was married during the five month period that same sex marriages were legal. This ruling would support the concept that any marriages performed during the period remain valid. I would think even those who oppose marriage equality would have to agree that since it was legal...

The media will continue to speculate about the outcome of President Barack Obama’s visit to China. However, small gestures matter. The Times of London observes that Obama carrying his own umbrella while alighting from the Air Force One “may be just the right stick for China”. “Perhaps that simple umbrella moment really mattered. It showed China’s people that the arrogant America of...

Over the weekend, I wrote a lighthearted piece on one of the ways the Aggies are preparing for the big Thanksgiving football game against their archrival, the University of Texas. Exactly 10 years ago tonight, the Aggies were also preparing for the game, when tragedy struck. One of the great traditions at Texas A& M—a 90-year-old tradition—has been to build a huge bonfire stack and to burn...

In the years that we have pursued this project, today’s posting is one of the strangest international press articles I can recall. And while it indicates that Hamas may be allowing more press freedom than we thought – the conclusions of the author are anything but comforting. Keeping in mind that the accused killer is of Palestinian origin, the author of this article from the Al Watan Voice, a newspaper...

There has been a lot of angst, criticism and just plain political hysteria surrounding the Obama administration’s decision to try Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the alleged 9/11 mastermind, and other terrorists, in a federal civilian court, just blocks from Ground Zero. I will be the last one to pass judgment on the emotions and feelings—pro or con this decision—of relatives and friends of New York’s...

WASHINGTON — Imagine a time when government work was exciting, widely admired, and much sought after. It seems an outlandish thought at a moment when you cannot turn on your television without hearing government spoken of as almost an alien creature. It is cast as far removed from the lives of average Americans and more likely to destroy the achievements of private citizens than to accomplish anything...

My initial five or six draft postings on this issue found their way to the cutting room floor because of the outrage I felt over the loss of life at Ft. Hood. My outrage has shifted from the shooter to the enablers of this tragedy: the people who passed the buck at Walter Reed. According to the linked article by NPR, several members of the psychiatric staff at Walter Reed asked if MAJ Nidal Hasan was psychotic?...

I’m sure we’re all very shocked to hear that the man who subverted and perverted the law to give his masters the pseudo-legal cover to run a torture program against Arab and Muslim detainees doesn’t want the methods used against Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to be revealed in open court.

One of the goals Barack Obama set for his presidency was the elimination of hunger among children by 2015. Whether or not he achieves that goal, Obama is the first American president even to commit to achieving it. Having said that, he has a difficult road ahead of him, because more Americans — including children — are living with hunger at least some of the time:

According to China’s state-run Global Geographic Times, the state-controlled Internet chat rooms are filled with tough questions for, and sharp criticism of, President Obama. On his Global Geographic Times blog page, a man named Tian Yifeng lays out some of the comments and explains why they show the insight of Chinese Netizens. The topics of the comments run the gamut, from economics, to history, to...