the invisible heart
Yglesias highlights an interesting interview with Jeb Bush on Sweden’s education system, which in short utilizes all sorts of neat ideas like credit-based learning a la four year colleges, and voucher systems that allow...
Monthly Archive: February 2009
climate partisanship
George Will isn’t the only conservative partisan using global warming as a wedge issue. Both sides of the debate, to some degree, have used climate change theory to their political advantage. Al Gore has...
more on Kaus
Conor Friedersdorf and Erik are joing Daniel Larison in pushing back strongly against me in the comments of my previous post. Like I said in the update, I must concede to them that Kaus...
Phony in-house Conservative Battles
My former political editor at the late-great Culture11, James Poulos makes an excellent contribution to a roundtable discussing Sam Tanenhaus’ piece declaring the death of movement conservativism. Tanenhaus’ original article is here. The roundtable...
the continuing fraud of Mickey Kaus
Daniel Larison once took me to task (check the comments) for saying that Mickey Kaus is a faux-liberal; it’s been my opinion that Kaus’s “I’m a liberal, just a reformer!” shtick is just that,...
Commonhood Liberaltarianism
As one of the two resident unidentifiable (politically) members of the League, I thought I might give some sense of where I’m coming by riffing off Mark’s excellent post on Liberaltarianism in the Obama...
goodnight, Sunday, and Monday tomorrow
So I had a long post all written out, and I don’t know, maybe I will rework it someday. It has been an emotionally wrenching day today and I am spent in the good...
A letter to Avigdor Lieberman
I wanted to give a quick shout-out to blogger Max Socol who has a really interesting op-ed up at the Jerusalem Post. His take on the rise of Avigdor Lieberman and the Yisrael Beitenu...
Liberaltarianism in a Liberal Age
Robert Stacy McCain has a scathing post that seeks to permanently douse the concept of a left-libertarian coalition ever being a real possibility, which includes this little bit: As a political impulse, the sort...
…speaking of socialism…
There is a point at which the pursuit of the American Dream can be wholly boiled down to a capitalist pursuit, which is always tragic; taken a step further, that capitalist pursuit can be...
socialism creep
Okay, so I can’t quite follow this. I’m sure Peter’s right about the merits of The International; I haven’t seen it and don’t plan to. But I have a hard time following the logical...
politics and poetry
“And just as I often fret that my hopes for a right-of-center majority lie somewhere back in the wreckage of the Bush years, I think the liberaltarians ought to worry, just a little, that...
Young Turks and Defeatists
A symptom of the conservative movement mentality–something I’d say is bound inextricably to the very concept of a movement, which requires cliquishness and membership requirements and all that jazz just to be a part...
The Death of Art?
If Freddie’s post is a perfect example of “declinist, doom and gloomism” mine will be an example of me at my most optimistic. You see, to answer the question posed in the title of...
The Risk Problem…
Being a finance geek, I can’t help myself from making a few comments… E.D. Kain writes… Here we see another rather conservative approach to Government involvement in home ownership. Rather than subsidize home owners,...
Two words, Benjamin: Economic Oblivion
I’m not normally a declinist, gloom and doom-ism being the kissing cousin of the absurd optimistic teleology that has also been, strangely, permanently en vogue. But one place where I’m afraid I’m almost entirely pessimistic is the survival...
The Failed Obama Administration
So it appears Judd Gregg has withdrawn his nomination for Commerce Secretary, signaling yet another blow to bi-partisanship in an increasingly partisan Washington. Business, it would seem, shall proceed as usual. Two things about...
M. van Buren: 25 Random Things about Me
25 Random Things About Me by Martin Van Buren, CITIZEN of the REPUBLIC 1) Whilst campaigning for Gen. Jackson’s reelection in our nation’s Capitol in 1832, I became embroiled in a heated argument with...
Can The (Economic) Ladder Be Restored?
ED “Why Don’t You Sanction Me?” Kain promised a coming thread on protectionism a couple of days back but so far no (copyright protected) dice. So I thought I would initiate the discussion. I...
Israel, Alone
There is something remarkable and frightening about the fact that Avigdor Lieberman’s Party, Yisrael Beiteinu, came in third in Israel’s recent parliamentary elections, gaining 15 seats in the Knesset, only 13 fewer than Tipi...
