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Archive for February 2012

This week’s articles of note

“The lost party,” New York Magazine, by John Heilemann [on the Republican primary contest] “The emperor of vanished kingdoms,” Wall Street Journal, by Raymond Zhang [Interview with Norman Davies, historian of Europe] “Party crasher: Ron Paul’s unique brand of libertarianism,” The New Yorker, by Kelefa Sanneh “True innovation,” The New York Times, by Jon Gertner […]

Greece: no rescue

The eurozone finance ministers’ €130 billion bailout package for Greece announced on Tuesday, the second in two years, will not “rescue” Greece. It makes the economic situation worse, and represents a further tightening of the European Union’s stranglehold on national sovereignty and democracy in Greece. Euro bureaucrats claimed the deal was a success. “The new […]

Food prigs and “happy” pigs

Mark Bittman is a food journalist and the author of the recently-published book Food Matters, which he describes as ” a look at the links among eating too much meat, obesity, global warming, and other nasty features of modern life”. Naturally, Bittman is a critic of McDonald’s, but he lauds the firm for its latest move, which requires […]

Republicans taking the bait on the contraception issue?

In the cover story for Newsweek, Andrew Sullivan argues Obama’s compromise offer on the birth control and religious freedom controversy has “set a trap for the right”: The more Machiavellian observer might even suspect this is actually an improved bait and switch by Obama to more firmly identify the religious right with opposition to contraception, its weakest issue […]

What happened to illegitimacy? Births outside marriage now the norm

Thumbnail : What happened to illegitimacy? Births outside marriage now the norm

Yesterday’s New York Times led with a remarkable statistic: for the first time, a majority of women under 30 who give birth are unmarried. As the Times reports: Once largely limited to poor women and minorities, motherhood without marriage has settled deeply into middle America. The fastest growth in the last two decades has occurred among white […]

With focus on lame Republicans, Obama’s prospects have improved

Thumbnail : With focus on lame Republicans, Obama’s prospects have improved

The latest New York Times/CBS News pollconfirms a recent trend since the end of last year: President Obama’s political standing is improving. Obama’s job approval rating is now 50 percent, an “important baseline in presidential politics” according to the Times.  The president’s approval rating has not been around 50 percent since the end of 2009, which was just […]

This week’s articles of note

“The future of history: can liberal democracy survive the decline of the middle class?” Foreign Affairs, by Francis Fukuyama “Billionaire Peter Thiel is worried about America’s future,” Newsweek, by Niall Ferguson “California’s demographic revolution,” City Journal, by Heather MacDonald “The factory jobs aren’t coming back,” Salon, by Robert Reich “Goodnight sunshine: Germany is cutting solar-power […]

Why the contraception controversy matters

Thumbnail : Why the contraception controversy matters

American liberals are wrong: Obama’s contraception rule is a violation of important religious liberties. Read my spiked article in full here.

Contraception and religious liberty: a debate liberals don’t want to have

Liberals who support the Obama administration’s rule that requires insurance plans operated by Catholic-affiliated institutions, such as universities and hospitals, to offer contraception generally think that the criticisms raised by Catholic bishops, Republican politicians and other are driven by narrow political concerns, rather than the principle of religious freedom. They are right in one sense: […]

Whitney Houston, 1963-2012

How did she hit that note (at 3:38)? What an amazing voice

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