President Obama’s Address to Parliament

While President Obama has had some amusing gaffes on his trip to London, including getting the year wrong in the guest book and an awkward toast to the Queen, his speech to Parliament today hit all the right notes.

Grow a Beard, Save the World

Save water: Grow a beard.

Tim Pawlenty Opens Campaign In Iowa With Call To End Ethanol Subsidies

You don’t often see a candidate for President tell Iowans that he wants to eliminate ethanol subsidies, but Tim Pawlenty did.

Fox News Frankenstein

Fox News chairman Roger Ailes has come to regret the direction he took the network after the 2008 election.

Ron Paul’s Election Problem: The Issues he Supports

No, Ron Paul is not a viable candidate for president.

Study: Obama Stimulus Destroyed Million Private Sector Jobs

Ohio State researchers: ARRA created/saved approximately 450 thousand state and local government jobs and destroyed/forestalled roughly one million private sector jobs.

Population Density and Crime

Are we safer in high population areas?

Mitt Romney Tries To Thread The ObamaCare/RomneyCare Needle

Mitt Romney began his effort to confront what is likely to be his biggest political liability in the 2012 campaign.

Health Care, the GOP Field, and Tribal Politics

How much of public opinion is about tribal political identification and how much is about the actual policies themselves?

How Perpetual War Became U.S. Ideology

Why the United States has found itself in a seemingly endless series of wars over the past two decades.

Public Turning Against Ryan Plan

The GOP seems to be losing the public relations battle over deficit reduction.

Osama bin Laden’s Death News Broken on Twitter

Keith Urbahn, chief of staff of former defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, broke the news.

What Shall We Call the Next Bit? Transcripters?

The birthers are dead (kinda), so long live the transcripters!

Why Nobody’s Running Against Obama

Why are many of the top Republicans are sitting out the race despite a seemingly vulnerable incumbent?

Pesticide Exposure Leads to Lower IQs in Children

A survey of three studies demonstrates consistently that exposure to certain pesticides used in farming diminishes mental development.

Disadvantages of an Elite Education

While elite schools confer many advantages on their graduates, they also wall them off from normal people and create an entitled, out-of-touch elite.

Military-Academic Conflict

America’s war colleges have some problems but we can’t close them.

How Do You Solve A Problem Like Donald Trump?

What is Donald Trump up to? Only he seems to know for sure.

Stupidly, House GOP Appears To Take Taxes Off The Table In Future Budget Talks

The GOP seems to be telling President Obama that revenue increases are off the table. That’s a huge mistake.

Public Supports Budget Deal, But Not Much Else

Two new polls show that the public supports the budget deal, but has no idea what to do to solve our long term problems.

Japan Nuclear Crisis Reaches Chernobyl Level

The Japan nuclear meltdown has now topped the scale used to measure such things, reaching the same level as the Chernobyl disaster. It’s a stupid scale.

Transparency and National Security

Should transparency stop at the water’s edge?

Republicans Losing the Center?

Can a candidate appealing enough to the base to win the Republican nomination beat Obama?

UNF Oral Sex Photo Controversy

A photo suggesting oral sex on the cover of a student newspaper has generated controversy.

The Fukushima Reactor Suffered a Partial Meltdown

The Japanese government has announced that the Fukushima Reactor suffered a partial meltdown.

The Plan In Libya? There Is No Plan

It has become quite apparent that neither the White House nor our coalition partners have any idea what the path to an endgame in Libya even looks like. That’s not good.

OTB Caption Contest Winners

The DON’T PANIC Edition OTB Caption ContestTM is now over.

Nixon Center Becomes Center for the National Interest

The Nixon Center has gone from one of the most controversially named think tanks in Washington to yet another blandly named one: Center for the National Interest.

Peak Coffee?

We’ve been hearing about peak oil for years. But now some experts are warning of an even more serious crisis: Peak coffee.

Will Malthus Have the Last Laugh?

We’re heading towards a future of higher food prices and more hunger.

Mitt Romney at Daytona 500 Mitt Romney at Daytona 500

Mitt Romney, Republican Frontrunner, Cipher

Mitt Romney starts his 2012 run as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. But, in reinventing himself yet again, the “authenticity” issue that troubled many of us in 2008 looms again.

Helium Reserves, Cutting Spending, and Prudence

The privitization of Federal helium reserves is a textbook example of the damage to the nation that can be caused by imprudent budget cutting.

Shirley Sherrod Sues Andrew Breitbart

Shirley Sherrod’s lawsuit against Andrew Brietbart promises to be an interesting test of the boundaries of defamation law in the political blogosphere.

Federal Budget Cuts That Exempt 65% of Spending

Ezra Klein dubs the Federal government “an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army.”

Questions for Conservatives

Do conservatives believe in evolution and global warming?

The “Social Responsibility” Of Business Is To Earn A Profit

President Obama is telling business they have a social responsibility to invest in America. He’s wrong.

Is Internet Access A Human Right?

The events in Egypt have led some to ask if the mere act of cutting off access to the Internet is, in itself, an human rights violation.