The Dark Side of American Liberty
Dr. Tristram Riley-Smith
On the Newsstand:Russia
Corruption is Hardly a Third-World Phenomenon
Recent news that BHP Billiton and Hewlett Packard are now under serious investigation for bribery should serve as a reminder that corruption at the highest level is not reserved for developing countries. Although whilte-collar crime in Wall Street has been well-known for a long time and, indeed, bankers and financiers have never had a worse reputation, we tend to reserve ... Read More
Georgian President Vows “No Wine For Russia” at IOP
Well, not completely. But Mikheil Saakashvili, the President of Georgia, did boast yesterday that the wine produced in Georgia is simply so good (thanks to his free market reforms) that he hopes the Russians continue their embargo, because to sell it on the Russian market would be a waste – the Russians, he explained, will drink just about anything. If ... Read More
Lack of Diversity in Harvard Faculty
Yesterday, President Drew Faust sent out another one of her overly lengthy and strangely timed emails to the Harvard community, this one ironically entitled, “Diversity and Excellence at Harvard”. She sums up the sad history of faculty diversity at Harvard in 900 words, presenting the following dismal statistics: Approximately 17 percent of Harvard’s ladder faculty are minorities, an all-time high, ... Read More
Has ‘Engagement’ with Iran Failed?
Ahmadinejad’s recent announcement that Iran will proceed to weapons-grade enrichment of uranium has brought much of the Western world to its senses about talking the world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism into giving up its nuclear quest. On Obama’s recent call for sanctions, the BBC reports (emphasis mine): The president sounded not unlike his predecessor George W Bush, who worked ... Read More
What Iran and America can(not) do
Last Wednesday, the Director of National Intelligence, Dennis Blair, at last treated Iran’s nuclear program with some of the honesty it deserves: he admitted that it’s up to Iran whether or not it wants to build the bomb. Although on one level this forms the latest round in saga of political posturing between two sides, it is also a surprisingly frank ... Read More
The State of the Union – LIVEBLOG
Follow us as we watch President Obama’s State of the Union! Summary: Obama’s State of the Union Address was reminiscent of his victory speech on the day he was elected. He appealed to voters on all parts of the political spectrum by focusing on issues that are at the forefront of the minds of most Americans. Obama touched on nearly ... Read More
Ghosts of Peace Prizes Past
Obama would do well to learn from the post-Oslo experiences of two other Presidents The Nobel Prize Committee’s recent decision to award the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama touched off a firestorm across the world. Reactions have ranged from rancor from much from the right wing for the supposed lack of justification, to delight from the American left and ... Read More
Strategy and Lord of the Rings
It’s a rainy afternoon, and so I’m watching The Two Towers, the second film in the Lord of the Rings series (Ed: I hated the books and didn’t even finish, but those movies are great). Tolkien’s politics are not my own, not so much because of their noxiousness as simply their anachronism. Regardless, the novels are rich in pretty interesting ... Read More
Georgian Reflections
The EU has faulted both sides in the 2008 Russia-Georgia conflict for violations of international law. Russia, unsurprisingly, broke international law by its invasion of Georgia and its attacks on Georgian civilian infrastructure. Though if that’s against international law, color me confused as to nations are supposed to fight wars and if any of them have ever done so. The ... Read More
On Guard Against Hypothetical Threats
When you’re working to govern an entire nation, you can’t please everyone. Particularly people with highly particular political preferences; they tend to be the most prickly when disappointed (though you’d think they’d get used to it). So it’s a rare joy when a political figure does something that seems eminently sensible and pleasing, and with Obama’s announcement on missile defense ... Read More
Averting Armaggedon: Apposite Approaches
In one strictly limited sense, modern man has become as God; he has acquired the ability to destroy the world. After the invention of the atomic bomb in 1945, the United States and the Soviet Union acquired massive reserves of the devices. While many in both nations would like to decrease the megatonnage they aim at each other, the prospect ... Read More
Summer 2009
Urban America Volume 36, Number 2, Summer 2009. Letter from the Editor The Ten-Year Plan IAN MERRIFIELD Daring to end homelessness The Future of Urban Education Tiffany wen and jyoti jasrasaria The impact of new innovation on urban school systems Cities Without Limits Chris danello and ashley fabrizio How long-term factors drive municipal economies A New Approach to a Chronic ... Read More
Things to Come
George Friedman’s geopolitical prophecy The Next 100 Years: A Forecast for the 21st Century is a book that admits it will not get everything right. The author George Friedman, founder of the private intelligence firm STRATFOR, takes up the prophet’s mantle and tells us what the 21st century might look like. His contentions seem, at first glance, fantastic: in 2050, ... Read More
