This week’s big environmental news, namely that President Obama has authorized major offshore drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and off Alaska, may not be popular with the left but it’s hardly a surprising move, or a necessarily wrong decision. Although he long opposed (and still does oppose) drilling for oil in Alaska’s spectacular Bristol Bay, Obama has consistently been [...]
The Obama administration environmental agenda reemerged on Thursday with the announcement of additional restrictions on strip mining, new fuel efficiency standards for cars, and expanded offshore drilling. These measures may have some merit, but a solution to America’s energy problems will require more comprehensive reform that reduces carbon emissions, eliminates dependence on foreign energy, minimizes economic impact, and is politically [...]
Professor Steven D. Levitt, an eminent popular economist from the University of Chicago and co-author of the widely successful books Freakonomics and SuperFreakonomics gave a lecture here on Monday. Despite being sparsely publicized, the lecture attracted around 200 people from around the campus, an obvious testament to the popularity of Levitt’s unorthodox economics style. While I was impressed with Professor [...]
On Tuesday night I went to the Harvard Political Union’s discussion on climate change, which was centered around the question of what steps the University should be taking to be greener and on the issue of global warming in general. As part of what seemed to be a minority of non-affiliated observers at the event — i.e. not being part [...]
Didn’t want to let this go by without comment. From the Feb. 18 edition (“What’s Wrong With Washington?”): Washington has its faults, some of which could easily be fixed. But much of the current fuss forgets the purpose of American government; and it lets current politicians (Mr Obama in particular) off the hook. America’s political structure was designed to make [...]
I think Glenn Greenwald is quite right about this. The Democratic Party has spent the last few years more or less conspicuously failing to deliver on every single one of its campaign promises. I count cap-and-trade, Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, the end of the Iraq War, a restoration of civil liberties, the closing of Guantanamo Bay, the end of domestic [...]
Jay Cost has a passionate response to recent liberal criticisms of the filibuster. In his view, it’s a good thing to pass legislation that has broad (and perhaps bipartisan) support, rather than to pass legislation with increasingly partisan “simple majorities.” But there are several little problems with Cost’s argument that need to be pointed out, and I think they add [...]
The U.S. Supreme Court may be about to render the most important business decision of the decidedly pro-business Roberts era, but one might not know it from the details of the case. The plaintiff is a small conservative advocacy group, not a major corporation; the focal point is a corporate-funded anti-Hillary Clinton documentary that was banned by the FEC, as [...]
Concerns over the role of the poll are misguided The high number of public opinion polls was impossible to miss during the 2008 election, and, though the horserace is on break, professional pollsters are keeping busy. Polling is no longer a part-time business, and a wide variety of opinion polls, covering everything from congressional and presidential job approval to health [...]
At this point, the only force that continues to pose an effective threat to a progressive agenda is the Democratic Party. Not the party institution as a whole, necessarily; it remains at least nominally devoted to the progressive program. However, its current status as the big-tent party necessarily means that it is composed of a large array of different interest [...]
The prospects for Obama's energy plan
Well, I don’t know quite where to start. Maybe it’d be hyperbole to say that it’s the most ambitious move for liberalism* in 40 years. But maybe not. I’m certainly happy with his instincts. One particularly wonky detail was a decisive cut to farm subsidies, which he is moving to cut decisively. This will, of course, be cut from the [...]
When I first heard Gov. Sarah Palin say, in the vice-presidential debate, that she would not “attribute every activity of man to the changes in the climate,” I wanted to believe it was a mere verbal gaffe. I assumed she meant that she didn’t attribute every change in the climate to the activities of men. She meant that we might [...]
