Memo To David Axelrod: Take A Nap

by Tony Schwartz Added 09.03.2010
David Axelrod, President Obama's chief political adviser, sleeps "five fitful hours a night," the New York Times reported yesterday. "I think he's getting close to a burnout kind of thing," Axelrod's friend Sam Smith was quoted as saying....

Memo to Republicans: Want to Vote Against Health Care Reform? -- Go Ahead, Make My Day

by Robert Creamer Added 08.03.2010
Over the last several weeks various pundits - and Republican talkers - have fanned out across the airwaves to proclaim that Democrats face grave political danger this fall if they are so bold as to pass health care reform in the face of united...

The Last Labour Adventurer: Remembering Michael Foot

by Binoy Kampmark Added 06.03.2010
He was called a walking obituary of the British Labour Party more prone to writing suicide notes (in the political sense), than manifestoes for survival. In a sense, Chris Patten had been right when he used that somewhat cruel description of...

The Real Threat to Israel’s National Security

by Alon Ben-Meir Added 05.03.2010
It is time for the Israeli government to be realistic with the changing political conditions in the Middle East. The national security paranoia that has defined its policy toward the Arab world is dated, and no longer helps Israel in dealing...

The Coming Battle of the Ritz Carlton

by Robert Creamer Added 04.03.2010
President Obama's announcement yesterday began the final chapter in the 14-month war over health care reform. The decisive battle will obviously take place on the floor of Congress. But the most symbolically powerful battle may take place next...

'Empathic Civilization': When Money No Longer Buys Happiness

by Richard Layard Added 03.03.2010
Competition is lonely. It is good to have it between organisations. Within organisations, though, it may or may not increase productivity, but it does not increase happiness. To extol it is to make a fundamental misjudgment about human nature....

For America to Succeed in the 21st Century, Senate Rules Must Change

by Robert Creamer Added 01.03.2010
As momentum grows to change the rules of the United States Senate, it's important to look beyond partisan battles and evaluate the effect of the way we make major decisions on the prospects for American success in the 21st Century. In his book...

Abuse of Language Threatens American Freedoms

by James J. Zogby Added 01.03.2010
The last Administration displayed a rather perverse and dangerous penchant for dressing up their behavior, providing it with religious or patriotic intent. President Bush packaged the Iraq war, for example, as America's mission - having been...

The Great Recession: A Spiritual Crisis

by Jim Wallis Added 26.02.2010
The Great Recession is not just an economic crisis, it is the result of a loss of values, a moral crisis. And to say that it is a moral crisis is also to say that it is a spiritual crisis. At the center of most religions is the question of who...

Now or Never

by Dylan Loewe Added 25.02.2010
If Barack Obama signs a health care reform bill later this year, today will have been its turning point. For a White House that admitted after Scott Brown's victory that it was facing a new political calculus without a contingency plan, today's...

Who's to Blame for Stalling Key Parts of the Obama Agenda?

by Robert Creamer Added 24.02.2010
Those who don't live in the nation's capital may so far have been spared the columnist-generated imbroglio over who is "to blame" for the fact that many of President Obama's flagship initiatives have yet to pass into law. Many candidates have...

Sugar May Be Bad But This Sweetener Is Far More Deadly

by Joseph Mercola Added 24.02.2010
Study after study are taking their place in a growing lineup of scientific research demonstrating that consuming high-fructose corn syrup is the fastest way to trash your health. It is now known without a doubt that sugar in your food, in all...

Blunt Instrument of the Dark Side: Alexander Haig

by Binoy Kampmark Added 24.02.2010
The bluff and bluster of history stills itself from time to time, leaving in its wake the busy activity of revisionism and more sympathetic readings of its figures. A figure who is unlikely to deserve such treatment is the late Alexander Haig, a...

Unfulfilled Promises: Guantanamo and Torture, Difficulties in Burying Sins of the Past

by James J. Zogby Added 23.02.2010
Last April we polled across the Arab World asking what Arabs thought was the most positive early action President Obama had taken to improve U.S.-Arab relations. High up on the list (barely topped by the decision to leave Iraq) was the...

Obama Proposal to Regulate Premiums of Insurance Companies is a Game Changer

by Robert Creamer Added 22.02.2010
President Obama's proposal to regulate the premiums charged by health insurance companies is a game changer. And this week's health care summit will almost certainly serve as a tipping point in the year-long health care debate. The President's...

‘Terrifying’ Narcissism: J. D. Salinger’s Legacy

by Binoy Kampmark Added 17.02.2010
How will we remember J.D. Salinger? The painfully reclusive author of the monumental work on childhood alienation The Catcher in the Rye (1951)? A rather cranky voice for silenced youth? Certainly, many adolescents who opened the pages of the...

The Tea Party Movement Frightens Me

by James J. Zogby Added 16.02.2010
Last weekend, when Washington was being hit by its worst-ever snow storm, the Tea Party Movement was holding its first national meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. With nothing else to do, and unable to travel, I watched parts of their convention...

Syria Must Be a Top Priority

by Alon Ben-Meir Added 12.02.2010
Recently Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman caused yet another blunder for Israel's foreign image in a series of hawkish comments and threats toward Syria. Following the diplomatic breech with Turkey by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny...

T. Boone Pickens: Spoiling a Big Idea

by James J. Zogby Added 12.02.2010
T. Boone Pickens has a big idea. It may even be a good one. But when Pickens stoops to using fear and bigotry to sell this idea, it becomes small and unsavory. "The Pickens Plan", as it is known, proposes the far-reaching goal of ending the...

What the Iconic Labor Battle at Hugo Boss Means for Our Economic Future

by Robert Creamer Added 12.02.2010
It's the red carpet season in Hollywood. That means high-end apparel companies like Hugo Boss are promoting iconic celebrities to wear their clothing line at the Oscars and other award ceremonies.But for the workers who make these suits in...

New Recommendation: Why You Need More Vitamin D

by Andrew Weil, M.D Added 07.02.2010
I am raising my recommendation of 1,000 IU of vitamin D per day to 2,000 IU per day. Since 2005, when I raised it from 400 to 1,000 IU, clinical evidence has been accumulating to suggest that a higher dose is more appropriate to help maintain...

The Shelby Opening

by Dylan Loewe Added 05.02.2010
Last month, the Pew Research Center released a pollwhich found that only 26 percent of respondents know that 60 votes are required to break a filibuster. No wonder Democratic complaints about Republican obstructionists have thus far failed to...

Defining the Second Great Depression

by Dylan Loewe Added 03.02.2010
From the moment he was sworn into office, President Obama had a pretty overwhelming task ahead of him. In that month, the economy lost 700,000 jobs. It lost nearly as many the month before. The credit markets had frozen; the financial...

Immigration Reform is Necessary for America's Economic Recovery

by Robert Creamer Added 02.02.2010
Immigration Reform is Necessary for America's Economic Recovery In his State of the Union speech, President Obama committed his Administration to pass comprehensive immigration reform. There are those who claim that this year immigration reform...

Putting Middle East Peace Back On the Agenda

by James J. Zogby Added 02.02.2010
As we mark one year into the Obama era, several realities have become painfully clear. ● There are limits to what a U.S. President is willing or able to do. Obama began his term in a rush to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace, which he claimed...

What Would Jesus Do?

by Bill Schneider Added 01.02.2010
Will the culture wars ever end? We have now had three presidents in a row who promised to unite the country. They all failed. Bill Clinton said in 2004, "If you look back on the sixties and, on balance, you think there was more good than harm in...

Obama's Resurgent Address

by Stephen Schlesinger Added 28.01.2010
President Obama gave some spine back to the Democrats in his State of the Union speech. He told his fellow party members "don't head for the hills." He said that health care reform is still vital and that he and his party would not drop their...

Saudi Government Extremism and the U.S. Response

by Imam Talal Y. Eid and Nina Shea Added 28.01.2010
Terrorists are not born, they're made. Extremist indoctrination is the first step in this process, an indisputable fact accepted by security experts and terror cell leaders alike. Administration officials have openly acknowledged this, noting...

Turkey and Israel: Time to Rise Above the Fray

by Alon Ben-Meir Added 26.01.2010
Upon returning from an extensive trip to Turkey these past two weeks, I found my inbox flooded with commentary about the capricious nature of the current state of Turkish-Israeli relations. Many strong supporters of the bilateral relationship...

Why It's in the Political Interest of Democrats to Finish Comprehensive Health Care Reform

by Robert Creamer Added 26.01.2010
The frustration and disappointment is palpable among Democratic Members of Congress and staff. After nine months of difficult political labor, they were days from passing legislation that Presidents have unsuccessfully sought for half a century....

After Massachusetts: The Road Ahead

by James J. Zogby Added 26.01.2010
Losing a senate seat in Massachusetts to a Republican was not the way Barack Obama wanted to celebrate his one year anniversary in the White House. The loss was a blow, for several reasons. First and foremost is the all important matter of...

"Citizens United" for More Corporate Power

by Joseph A. Palermo Added 25.01.2010
With the Supreme Court ruling by the "Fabulous Five," Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, a single corporation will be able tap into its deep pockets and disfranchise a million citizens. A group calling itself "Citizens United" has...

"The Autobiography of an Execution"

by David R. Dow Added 25.01.2010
I've written a book called "The Autobiography of an Execution", published by Twelve. It's about my life with my wife Katya and our nine-year-old son, Lincoln. I've adored fatherhood since Lincoln was six weeks old (before that was a different...

Democratic Panic and the Meaning of Massachusetts

by Jerome Karabel Added 23.01.2010
"Those who do not learn the lessons of history," George Santayana famously said, "are condemned to repeat them." But those who overinterpret the lessons of history may also draw erroneous - even catastrophic - inferences about their meaning. As...

Saving Health Care After Coakley

by Dylan Loewe Added 20.01.2010
Over the next 24 hours, there will be plenty written about the ineptitude required to lose a Senate race in Massachusetts as a Democrat. There are simply an endless number of reasons to criticize Martha Coakley today. That her campaign chose to...

Lessons from the Massachusetts Defeat

by Robert Creamer Added 20.01.2010
The Massachusetts Senate race is a watershed event that has enormous implications for this political year. The media is intent on making it a referendum on President Obama and his health care reform plan. But that interpretation of the results...

Iran’s Republic of Fear

by Mehdi Khalaji Added 19.01.2010
WASHINGTON, DC - Iran's clerical regime governs by a simple formula: he who is the most frightening, wins. "Victory by terrifying" is trope that is present in many of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's speeches. Indeed, it is a reliable...

Another Robertson Outrage: Time for Accountability

by James J. Zogby Added 19.01.2010
On Jan 13th, television evangelist Pat Robertson pontificated on the horrific earthquake that had struck the country of Haiti. Noting how many recent tragedies had befallen the Haitian people, Robertson told his TV audience that, "something...

Friends Don't Let Friends Not Vote in Massachusetts' Senate Election

by Robert Creamer Added 18.01.2010
Here's the bottom line: an enormous amount is at stake in Tuesday's election in Massachusetts to fill Senator Ted Kennedy's seat. So much is at stake that every Democrat - and every independent who wants fundamental change in Washington - has to...

Haiti Gets Worse Before It Gets Better

by Evelyn Leopold Added 16.01.2010
UNITED NATIONS - Roads are jammed with the homeless sleeping under open skies. The promised food, water and medicine are slow in reaching them. The dead litter byways, some scooped up in dump trucks and unloaded into mass graves. And tens of...

It is Our Moral Responsibility to Help Haiti - And It's In America's Interest

by Robert Creamer Added 14.01.2010
For those of us who have a special place in our hearts for the long-suffering people of Haiti, the horrific pictures and tragic news reports of the earthquake's devastation seem as though they were lifted directly from the biblical Book of Job....

We Are Not Europe

by James J. Zogby Added 11.01.2010
In the wake of the Ft. Hood massacre and recent arrests involving some young men seeking association with dangerous international terrorist activity and others who appeared to be on the verge of carrying out terrorist actions in the U.S.,...

To Reduce Political Polarization in Washington, We Must Reduce the Economic Polarization of America

by Robert Creamer Added 11.01.2010
We frequently hear pundits pontificating about the rising level of political polarization in Congress. Often the blame is ascribed to plummeting levels of civility among Members. In fact, ten years ago the House actually conducted several...

What Next in the Battle for Health Care Reform?

by Robert Creamer Added 24.12.2009
The expected Christmas Eve Senate vote to pass a health care reform bill will be a remarkable, historic event. Given the power of the economic forces that have been hell-bent on stopping health care reform dead in its tracks, it is extraordinary...

We Are Not Europe

by James J. Zogby Added 24.12.2009
In the wake of the Ft. Hood massacre and recent arrests involving some young men seeking association with dangerous international terrorist activity and others who appeared to be on the verge of carrying out terrorist actions in the U.S.,...

Lieberman Betrayal Illustrates Why Senate Filibuster Rules Must Change

by Robert Creamer Added 16.12.2009
Senator Joe Lieberman's successful maneuver to eliminate any form of public option from the Senate health reform bill makes one thing perfectly clear: to pass the most important elements of the progressive agenda, the Senate must change its...

Israel's Fictional Undivided Jerusalem

by James J. Zogby Added 15.12.2009
Israel's near hysterical reaction to a Swedish proposal to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, their stubborn refusal to include East Jerusalem in their questionable "settlement freeze" and their defense of...

Barack Obama's Oslo Speech: A Caption-Summary With Excerpts

by David Bromwich Added 12.12.2009
Barack Obama's speech accepting the Nobel Prize for Peace, delivered in Oslo, on December 10, 2009, elicited a good deal of appreciative and bewildered comment. The speech presents itself as a meditation by a benevolent man of power on questions...

America Needs a Jobs Bill, and the Federal Deficit Shouldn't Stand in the Way

by Robert Creamer Added 08.12.2009
Last month's drop in the unemployment rate and continued reduction of job losses is certainly good news. It indicates that the U.S. economy may have finally stopped shedding jobs. But without additional government action there is little...

Another Tumultuous Week

by James J. Zogby Added 08.12.2009
Another tumultuous Washington week has come to a close and the dust has settled on President Obama's Afghanistan speech. Critical issues were addressed, though little changed in our fractious political environment. The Senate is still struggling...
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No significant global warming since 1995

by Jarl R. Ahlbeck 36917 downloads
The recovery of the earth's climate from the little ice age started about 200 years ago, but the concentration of the atmospheric carbon dioxide started to increase significantly as late as in the 1950s, probably due to rapidly increased burning...

Genetically modified plants benefit everybody

by Petter Portin 9188 downloads
We consume approximately one gram's worth of genes in every meal. This may not seem like very much, but each of our meals contains trillions of individual genes. The transfer-genes contained in genetically modified food-stuffs are identical to...

Brzezinski: Russia's Invasion of Georgia Is Reminiscent of Stalin's Attack on Finland

by Nathan Gardels 7071 downloads
On Sunday (Editor's note: August 10, 2008) I talked with Zbigniew Brzezinski, the elder statesman who was national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter, about the Russian invasion of Georgia. He long tangled with Soviet power. Now he takes...

Putin's doctrine surfaces

by Stefan Forss 6171 downloads
A few Georgian battalions - trained to fight terrorists, not to manoeuvre against a powerful Russian army! - undertook a militarily deficient offensive against Tskhinvali in South Ossetia on August 8. The Russians replied promptly and...

Firewalls to Freedom

by Rebecca MacKinnon and Evgeny Morozov 5695 downloads
NEW YORK - Even the most cold-hearted realists would agree that the failure of Communist censorship played a role in the collapse of the Iron Curtain: Voice of America, the fax machine, rock 'n' roll, and the lure of Western capitalism helped to...

Fareed Zakaria: The Post-American World – A Book Review

by Olli Raade 5693 downloads
Above there is an interview with Fareed Zakaria by the New Perspectives Quarterly about his book "The Post-American World". Below there is a summary of the book as for a background for the interview. Zakaria argues that America's relative weight...

New cheap power source heading for independent tests

by Michael Johnson 5429 downloads
As Middle East oil climbs to record highs, research into alternative energy sources is attracting a wave of new science, much of it still experimental and untested. One of the most advanced concepts, scheduled to go live about a year from now,...

What does Ms. Palin’s tattoo tell us?

by Michael Johnson 4793 downloads
BORDEAUX - I have witnessed the gradual penetration of tattoo culture into the middle classes in Europe and the United States over the past two or three years but I always thought it would go away. So I was stunned to see that now we have...

Wilson Is the Poster "Child" for the New Republican Party

by Robert Creamer 4479 downloads
When Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) yelled out that President Obama was a "liar" in the middle of Obama's nationally televised address to a joint session of Congress, he became the poster child for the new Republican Party. I definitely mean...

Odd couple share Cliburn gold

by Michael Johnson 4129 downloads
The Van Cliburn International Piano Competition in Fort Worth, Texas, ended Sunday on a somewhat sour note, with some critics and former winners wondering how the jury could award the top prize jointly to the two young winners - one a Chinese...

How the French take their sex in stride

by Michael Johnson 4025 downloads
BORDEAUX -- Our glamorous, doe-eyed Minister of Justice, Rachida Dati, is the talk of France again - this time over her surprise pregnancy. Always controversial, she has now added spice to the gossip by politely declining to reveal who the...

A Tribunal for Kenya: the Waki Commission Report

by Binoy Kampmark 4009 downloads
The Waki commission, charged with the task of investigating post-election violence in the aftermath of the Kenyan elections last December, has called for a special tribunal to try various perpetrators. The Commission of Inquiry into...

Finland show the way to coffee binge-drinking

by Michael Johnson 3841 downloads
I was between jobs a few years ago when I stumbled into a bit of public relations work for the coffee industry. The coffee marketers seemed a decent lot, just men and women trying to make a living. They had only one characteristic that bothered...

Effects of banning smoking in restaurants

by Pentti Huovinen 3690 downloads
Latest research shows that the banning of smoking in restaurants has reduced heart attacks by as much as a fifth. Researchers in the University of California have analysed relevant studies undertaken after 2004. In all the studies it was...

Behind the scenes at piano competitions

by Michael Johnson 3608 downloads
Has the time come to rethink the concept of piano competitions? Many participants and leading musicians believe so. The proliferation of international competitions - now numbering more than 750 - is producing hundreds of annual laureates who...

Republicans Take Huge Political Risk Opposing Obama Jobs Bill

by Robert Creamer 3523 downloads
You'd think that the results of November's election -- coupled with the collapse of the economy -- would begin to make Republican lawmakers question the consequences of their blind commitment to right wing economic orthodoxy. Apparently most...

Fareed Zakaria: Facing a Post-American World - An Interview

by Nathan Gardels 3434 downloads
Fareed Zakaria is author of The Post-American World and editor-in-chief of Newsweek International. He spoke with NPQ editor Nathan Gardels in June. NPQ | Barack Obama has been reading your book The Post-American World. If he becomes president,...

Nathan Gardels interviews Joseph Stiglitz about Wall Street meltdown

by Nathan Gardels 3389 downloads
Joseph Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2001. I spoke with him on Tuesday (Editor's note September 16, 2008) about the Wall Street meltdown. Nathan Gardels: Barack Obama has said the Wall Street meltdown is the greatest...

Time to Nationalize Insolvent Banks

by Nouriel Roubini 3221 downloads
NEW YORK - A year ago, I predicted that the losses of US financial institutions would reach at least $1 trillion and possibly go as high as $2 trillion. At that time, the consensus among economists and policymakers was that these estimates were...

The Coming Battle of the Atlantic: Euro vs. the Dollar

by Kenichi Ohmae 3008 downloads
Tokyo - Because Americans are more proactive than the Japanese, they are likely to avoid the same kind of deep slump as we had for almost a decade. Nonetheless, with the value of their key assets-their homes-diminished, they will become a land...

Global Warming – Man-made or Natural?

by Kenneth Rundt 2855 downloads
One of the most interesting global questions today is whether the climate is changing and, if it really is, whether the reasons are man-made (anthropogenic) or natural - or maybe even both. The United Nations appointed Intergovernmental Panel on...

Renewable Energy: The Cold Facts

by David Eichler 2761 downloads
Renewable energy sources, such as wind, direct solar power, hydroelectric power, and biomass and the biofuels derived from it may be the basis for future civilization. The primary source of energy that generates each of these forms, however, is...

France banking on laser research

by Michael Johnson 2717 downloads
At the heart of the French advanced research program is a little-known project for a giant laser cannon -- not for shooting down satellites but for something potentially much more powerful. It will test theories for the next generation of...

The crash course that educated Mrs. Palin

by Michael Johnson 2678 downloads
Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for vice president of the United States, finally submitted to a television interview after intense coaching from top-level White House advisers. Never in U.S. history has a candidate for high office had to...

Starving the Archive: Dick Cheney and his Records

by Binoy Kampmark 2601 downloads
What are we going to do about old Dick's subterfuge and an office he did much to undermine during his time in power? All sorts of conjecturing has been taking place about how best to deprive the archival records of the US Vice President's papers...

Bush's legacy will be NGOs with a truly global vision

by Jean-Paul Marthoz 2534 downloads
A year from now, the Bush administration will be history. Opinion polls around the world assessing the unpopularity of the current US president suggest that the departure of one of the most controversial administrations in American history will...

"God's Continent" by Philip Jenkins - A Book Review

by Olli Raade 2424 downloads
Jenkins writes about Islam in Europe and Islam's impact on Europe, Christianity, and about Islam itself. He examines a number of undesirable trends generally attributed to Islam. Jenkins, however, argues that phenomena such as high criminality...

French aren’t saying neigh to horsemeat

by Michael Johnson 2393 downloads
As Europe feels the effects of rising prices - mainly tied to energy costs - at least one sector is benefiting. The new big thing appears to be horsemeat, increasingly a viable alternative to expensive beef as desperate housewives look for...

The Secret World of Female Circumcision

by Juliet Torome 2375 downloads
NAIROBI - As a child in rural Kenya, I was a secret admirer of female genital mutilation. I was swayed by talk of friends and elders about how once a girl undergoes "the cut," she gains respect and grown men consider her suitable for marriage....

Is There Moral Progress?

by Peter Singer 2315 downloads
After a century that saw two world wars, the Nazi Holocaust, Stalin's Gulag, the killing fields of Cambodia, and more recent atrocities in Rwanda and now Darfur, the belief that we are progressing morally has become difficult to defend. Yet...

When a frog Is not a frog

by Michael Johnson 2285 downloads
The main French defense manufacturer called a group of experts and some economic journalists together a few years ago to unveil a new military helicopter. They wanted us to choose a name for it and I thought I had the perfect one: "The Frog". I...

How to kill a river: the Murray-Darling System

by Binoy Kampmark 2248 downloads
It's looking more than just grim. A vast river system in Australia, the Murray-Darling Basin, seems terminally affected by drought and decades of environmental abuse. Cosmetic measures have been suggested by the Australian authorities dealing...

After the war in Georgia…

by Göran Lindblad and Björn von Sydow 2247 downloads
Two European countries have waged war against each other - Georgia and Russia. Numerous civilians have been displaced and no one really knows how many have been killed or wounded. The current ceasefire agreement is fragile and the crisis has...

The last financial crisis?

by Tom Berglund 2175 downloads
" The more actors there are who can read the signs of an approaching crisis, the less serious will be the consequences when the crisis breaks out." The world's financial markets are going through a crisis that is rapidly developing into what...

Britain trades free speech for security

by Michael Johnson 2129 downloads
Britain's decision to ban outspoken Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders from entering the United Kingdom last week dramatizes the religious tensions that once again loom over humankind. Specifically, it is a sign that intolerant Muslim faithful...

Séraphine’ film wins 7 French Césars

by Michael Johnson 2122 downloads
Presenting a new and earthy face of French cinema, the outsider candidate "Séraphine" won seven awards at the Césars, the annual French film competition, including best film and best actress of 2008. The near-clean-sweep on Friday night...

The triumph of Game Theory in various sciences

by Vesa Kanniainen 2089 downloads
A book review: A Beautiful Math: John Nash, Game Theory, and the Modern Quest for a Code of Nature Author: Tom Siegfried, Science editor of Dallas Morning News Publisher: The Joseph Henry Press of the National Academy of Sciences Many of us saw...

Take Action against the non-democratic developments in Russia

by Björn von Sydow. The article was translated into English from Swedish by Jeffrey Ganellan. 2038 downloads
Russia's government - with considerable support from domestic opinion - has recently taken a turn towards a new, authoritarian system of governance, with control over the establishment of political parties and the nomination of candidates, the...

Danger: piano can take over your life

by Michael Johnson 2000 downloads
The late Glenn Gould made some powerful enemies in the music world when he decided to record Bach's Goldberg Variations at a slow tempo. He also made music history. The Canadian virtuoso pianist was tired of hearing the same old Goldberg played...

Do Human Rights Require a Strong State?

by Francis Fukuyama 1925 downloads
Washington - The fiasco of the Olympic torch relay has focused attention on the condition of human rights in China. What is the source of human rights abuses in that country today? Many people assume the problem is that China remains a Communist...

The best medicine yet – a good laugh

by Michael Johnson 1916 downloads
My sister died a year ago after a 13-year bout with various cancers. She had been cut to pieces by surgeons - mastectomy, hysterectomy, the lot -- but somehow she always managed to return to her productive normal role as wife and mother. She...

How the family dogs can touch your heart

by Robert Johnson 1914 downloads
My wife and I have had a succession of lovable dogs in our 52 years together, and all of them left us with great memories. Our latest attachment to a loving half-labrador took a particularly tragic turn, however. Hildy was the first -- a german...

Beijing’s Olympic Challenge

by Linda Jakobson 1894 downloads
BEIJING - The Beijing government appears to be facing a daunting Olympic challenge. On the one hand, China's leaders must ensure the safety of 80 visiting heads of states, some 16,000 athletes and hundreds of thousands of Olympic spectators. On...

The Real Che Guevara

by Guy Sorman 1881 downloads
PARIS - Hollywood history is often nonsensical, but filmmakers usually have the good sense not to whitewash killers and sadists. Steven Soderbergh's new film about Che Guevara, however, does that, and more. Che the revolutionary romantic, as...

Stendhal at his best : a “worthless” historian

by Micael Johnson 1878 downloads
When I was young and the world was different, I used to hide Stendhal's classic novel "The Red and the Black" in the dust jacket of a Bible and read it on Sunday mornings in church. Parishioners peered over my shoulder to try to see what was so...

Israel’s Mission

by Shlomo Ben-Ami 1871 downloads
JERUSALEM - Israel is one of the biggest success stories of modern times. A nation was reborn out of Holocaust survivors and uprooted Jewish communities who, mostly through the quality of their human capital, built a booming economy, created one...

Bob Woodward: The reason for the decrease in violence in Iraq is not the surge, but "highly classified techniques"

by Olli Raade 1868 downloads
The surge in Iraq is not the reason for the decrease in violence. Instead the reason is "highly classified techniques". This is what Bob Woodward claimed in an interview with Bill Maher. Woodward refused to specify what he meant with the term...

The case for climate change optimism

by Angus McCrone 1856 downloads
Finding grounds for optimism in the global warming debate isn't easy. But Angus McCrone points out that investment in clean renewable energy sources is rising much more quickly than human CO2 emissions. And game theory suggests that nations will...

Why Barack Obama picked Joe Biden as VP candidate

by Michael Johnson 1831 downloads
U.S. presidential candidate Barack Obama strengthened his hand in several important ways by choosing Senator Joseph Biden as his Democratic vice presidential running mate. Most of all, Biden will help move the Obama strategy away from the soft...

The US Terrorist Threat Is Overblown

by John Mueller 1826 downloads
Washington - In a recent interview, Homeland Security czar Michael Chertoff thundered that the "struggle" against terrorism is a "significant existential" one-carefully differentiating it, apparently, from all those insignificant existential...
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Britain trades free speech for security

by Michael Johnson
4.5 stars 905 reviews
Britain's decision to ban outspoken Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders from entering the United Kingdom last week dramatizes the religious tensions that once again loom over humankind. Specifically, it is a sign that intolerant Muslim faithful...

Behind the scenes at piano competitions

by Michael Johnson
3.5 stars 97 reviews
Has the time come to rethink the concept of piano competitions? Many participants and leading musicians believe so. The proliferation of international competitions - now numbering more than 750 - is producing hundreds of annual laureates who...

The Real Threat to Israel’s National Security

by Alon Ben-Meir
3.5 stars 5 reviews
It is time for the Israeli government to be realistic with the changing political conditions in the Middle East. The national security paranoia that has defined its policy toward the Arab world is dated, and no longer helps Israel in dealing...

'Empathic Civilization': When Money No Longer Buys Happiness

by Richard Layard
3.5 stars 6 reviews
Competition is lonely. It is good to have it between organisations. Within organisations, though, it may or may not increase productivity, but it does not increase happiness. To extol it is to make a fundamental misjudgment about human nature....

An Hour's Drive From Pakistan

by Dhiraj Singh
3.5 stars 70 reviews
This local koan begins to make sense as you prepare to enter the ICT or the Islamabad Capital Territory. It is a bit like entering the First World from a Third World country by road. The check-posts, the armed guards, the four-lane highway that...

The Tea Party Movement Frightens Me

by James J. Zogby
3.5 stars 16 reviews
Last weekend, when Washington was being hit by its worst-ever snow storm, the Tea Party Movement was holding its first national meeting in Nashville, Tennessee. With nothing else to do, and unable to travel, I watched parts of their convention...

Can Fresh Interpretations of Islamic Text Prevent a Possible "Clash of Civilizations?"

by Tawfik Hamid
3.5 stars 59 reviews
Since 9/11, the possibility of a clash of civilizations has become an unavoidable area of discussion among intellectuals as well as the general public. The inaction of Islamic scholars around the world to those who incorrectly interpret the...

In Praise of Slow Thinking

by Carl Honoré
3.5 stars 40 reviews
Google seems like the last employer on earth that would promote slowness at work. After all, this is a company that went from a twinkle in its founders' eyes to global supremacy in a just a few years. It pumps out new products at a dizzying...

Why Bipartisanship is Good Politics

by Chris Patten
3 stars 199 reviews
LONDON - Bipartisanship seems to have taken a drubbing in Washington since President Barack Obama got to the White House. Like most recent American presidents, Obama campaigned on a promise to work with his political opponents for the greater...

Fighting a War by Objective

by Alon Ben-Meir
3 stars 51 reviews
The ongoing deliberations among President Obama's national security team and congressional leaders are necessary to determine the best possible means of successfully conducting the war in Afghanistan. But what must guide these discussions and...

Telecom reforms drive French workers to suicide

by Michael Johnson
3 stars 57 reviews
French workers have never been known for their flexibility. But the impact of globalization has meant a gradual erosion of the cocoon inside which they have traditionally found comfort. The backlash against more rigorous management standards has...

Haiti Gets Worse Before It Gets Better

by Evelyn Leopold
3 stars 26 reviews
UNITED NATIONS - Roads are jammed with the homeless sleeping under open skies. The promised food, water and medicine are slow in reaching them. The dead litter byways, some scooped up in dump trucks and unloaded into mass graves. And tens of...

Two Key Election Contests in 2009

by James J. Zogby
3 stars 47 reviews
The last time Democrats won the White House in 1992, they quickly lost ground in the 1993 and 1994 elections. The results were debilitating for President Clinton. With Republicans winning Governorships in Virginia and New Jersey (the only two...

Fear, Anger, Hope and Inspiration will Decide Health Care Battle

by Robert Creamer
3 stars 58 reviews
The details of policy will not decide the outcome of the health care reform battle. In fact, the policy outcome itself will be decided largely by the interplay of four emotions that will drive the outcome of this essentially political battle:...

Freeze the Settlement Freeze

by Daoud Kuttab
3 stars 64 reviews
RAMALLAH - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's decision to approve new Jewish settlements on the eve of a possible settlement freeze is the latest round in a cycle that has been repeated so many times over the past 40 years that it would...

No evidence for man made global warming

by Andrew Kenny
3 stars 62 reviews
In the next two months you will see hysterical stories about melting ice caps, rising seas and other catastrophes to be caused by man made global warming. They are all nonsense. The reason for them is the Copenhagen Conference in December, which...

The Hypocrisy of David Letterman

by Jane Shure
3 stars 53 reviews
Here we are once again confronted with yet another public figure who postures one way and acts another. Thursday night, after becoming the target of an extortion plot, David Letterman confessed, "Sure enough, contained in the package was stuff...

The Unemployment Paradox and Commodity Taxes

by David Eichler
3 stars 315 reviews
The recent slowdown, it is suggested here, was not caused so much by the collapse of a housing bubble or mortgage delinquency, as is frequently claimed, but rather by losses of capital due to high costs for energy and operation of the financial...

Obama, Progressives and Afghanistan

by Robert Creamer
3 stars 51 reviews
Like many Progressives, I disagreed with President Obama's decision to increase the number of American troops deployed to Afghanistan. But Progressives must not lose sight of the fact, that though we may disagree with this particular decision,...

Who's to Blame for Stalling Key Parts of the Obama Agenda?

by Robert Creamer
3 stars 13 reviews
Those who don't live in the nation's capital may so far have been spared the columnist-generated imbroglio over who is "to blame" for the fact that many of President Obama's flagship initiatives have yet to pass into law. Many candidates have...

Remembering the Nazi-Soviet Pact After Seventy Years

by Robert Gellately
3 stars 46 reviews
The first annual European-wide commemoration of the "the victims of Stalinism and Nazism" took place on August 23. The resolution to hold this event was passed recently by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and...

The End of Palin

by Dylan Loewe
3 stars 55 reviews
Well, she didn't quit to run for president. Nobody would do that, could possibly do that, could at any point be told by any person that an idea that crazy might actually work out. It's not just that it's irrational; it's that it's insane. There...

Crashing the Gates of the Status Quo

by Robert Creamer
3 stars 50 reviews
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's announcement that he will send health insurance reform to the floor of the Senate this week signals that the long march to change America, that began with Barack Obama's announcement for President three years...

Blunt Instrument of the Dark Side: Alexander Haig

by Binoy Kampmark
3 stars 15 reviews
The bluff and bluster of history stills itself from time to time, leaving in its wake the busy activity of revisionism and more sympathetic readings of its figures. A figure who is unlikely to deserve such treatment is the late Alexander Haig, a...

Israel's Fictional Undivided Jerusalem

by James J. Zogby
3 stars 53 reviews
Israel's near hysterical reaction to a Swedish proposal to recognize East Jerusalem as the capital of a future Palestinian state, their stubborn refusal to include East Jerusalem in their questionable "settlement freeze" and their defense of...

Owning Up to Israel’s Bomb

by Shlomo Ben-Ami
3 stars 53 reviews
TEL AVIV - President Barack Obama's vision of a world without nuclear weapons, and the recent agreement he signed with Russia aimed at cutting back the nuclear stockpiles of both countries, enhances his moral and political leadership. But how...

A Debate Worth Noting

by James J. Zogby
3 stars 54 reviews
A story universally missed last week was the extraordinary debate that occurred in Congress in advance of a vote on a resolution against the Goldstone Report. It may have been that this story not seen as newsworthy as others playing out at the...

The Moral Ferocity of Eating Animals

by Andrew Weil
3 stars 47 reviews
It is a rare human act that is utterly reprehensible. Some glimmer of grace, some hope for redemption shines through nearly all of our efforts. And then, Jonathan Safran Foer reminds us in his new book, Eating Animals there is factory farming of...

BlackLight Power, Inc. Announces Independent Validation of Breakthrough New Energy Source Based on a New Form of Hydrogen

by BlackLight Power Press Release
3 stars 57 reviews
Cranbury, NJ (August 12, 2009)-BlackLight Power, Inc. (BLP) today announces that scientists at Rowan University have for the first time independently formulated and tested fuels that on demand generated energy greater than that of combustion at...

The Kremlin’s Failing Monopoly

by Alexander Etkind
3 stars 256 reviews
CAMBRIDGE - Ever since Vladimir Putin came to power a decade ago, the Kremlin regime has relied on two pillars: the security forces and energy exports. By suppressing internal rivals and absorbing their assets, the regime created a dual...

Lessons from the Massachusetts Defeat

by Robert Creamer
3 stars 25 reviews
The Massachusetts Senate race is a watershed event that has enormous implications for this political year. The media is intent on making it a referendum on President Obama and his health care reform plan. But that interpretation of the results...

Danger on the Right

by James J. Zogby
3 stars 54 reviews
There is a social movement stirring on the far right of American politics and it bodes ill for our future. It is, in the classic sense, a movement, not an organization, with no coherent structure, no creed or litmus test for membership. Rather,...

Emma Thompson, Helen Bamber: Finding the Silent Scream

by Evelyn Leopold
3 stars 64 reviews
Torture victims often lose their voice twice: first during the torture itself and then when no one listens to their ordeal, Actress Emma Thompson says. Thompson, an Academy Award winner, and Helen Bamber, who heads a foundation dedicated to...

Time to Just Say No to Giant Corporate “Parasites”—and Recognize Them for What They Are

by Robert Creamer
3 stars 46 reviews
Sounds like a movie script. Giant parasites stalk the American landscape disguised as benign upstanding participants in the "free market." The dictionary defines parasite as: "An organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known...

Global Macroeconomic Cooperation

by Jeffrey D. Sachs
3 stars 194 reviews
NEW YORK - The world has yet to achieve the macroeconomic policy coordination that will be needed to restore economic growth following the Great Crash of 2008. In much of the world, consumers are now cutting their spending in response to a fall...

Three Reasons Why a Strong Public Option is Likely to be Part of Health Insurance Reform

by Robert Creamer
3 stars 31 reviews
Hasty headlines to the contrary, it is very likely that a strong public option will be part of a final health insurance reform bill when it finally passes Congress this fall. There are three reasons: 1). A Public Option is the most elegant and...

Let Finance Skeptics Take Over

by Dani Rodrik
3 stars 53 reviews
CAMBRIDGE - The race is on to fill the most important economic policy position in the world. United States Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke's term ends in January, and President Barack Obama must decide before then: either re-appoint...

What Was He Thinking?

by James J. Zogby
3 stars 53 reviews
I do not make a practice of using this space to express my disagreements with other columnists, but a piece last week by Abdul Rahman al Rashid, was so off the mark that I cannot let it pass without comment. Writing in al Sharq al Awsat, al...

Iran: I was the guest of the reformers

by Amitai Etzioni
3 stars 64 reviews
The Western media projects on the demonstrators in Iran our best hopes and wishes. It sees another "color" revolution, in the wake of which the people will overthrow the regime, and a new democracy will arise. I say, very unlikely. The color...

The Palestinian Jews

by David Eichler
3 stars 54 reviews
Evenhandedness in the Mideast? It sounds fair if it means equal rules for Arabs and Jews. For example, forbidding natural growth of Jewish settlements inside the West Bank and the Gaza strip, on the assumption that it is future sovereign...

Goldstone: Discussed, but Not Read

by James J. Zogby
3 stars 44 reviews
The Goldstone Report is back, taking center stage in a raging international debate. What is most troubling, is not the circuitous route the Report took on its way to the United Nations Security Council. Rather, it is the fact that those making...

Memo to Congress: On Health Care Vote You Must Choose Between Insurance Companies and Average Americans

by Robert Creamer
3 stars 57 reviews
To: Democratic Members of Congress Re: Your Vote on Health Insurance Reform When you cast your vote this weekend on the historic health care reform bill, you will be faced with a simple, clear choice: cast a vote for average Americans, or for...

Now or Never

by Dylan Loewe
3 stars 12 reviews
If Barack Obama signs a health care reform bill later this year, today will have been its turning point. For a White House that admitted after Scott Brown's victory that it was facing a new political calculus without a contingency plan, today's...

Syria Must Be a Top Priority

by Alon Ben-Meir
3 stars 12 reviews
Recently Israel's Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman caused yet another blunder for Israel's foreign image in a series of hawkish comments and threats toward Syria. Following the diplomatic breech with Turkey by Deputy Foreign Minister Danny...

Does “Curing” Cancer Kill Patients?

by Robert A. Gatenby
3 stars 55 reviews
TAMPA - Patients and politicians increasingly demand a "cure" for cancer. But controlling the disease may prove to be a better strategy than striving to cure it. A century ago, the German Nobel laureate Paul Ehrlich introduced the concept of...

The Cruelty of Sharia Law is Not a Western Perception but an Islamic Reality

by Tawfik Hamid
3 stars 56 reviews
President Barack Obama's adviser on Muslim affairs, Dalia Mogahed, has provoked controversy by appearing on a British television show hosted by a member of an extremist group to talk about Sharia law, the Daily Telegraph reported on October 8,...

The Great Recession: A Spiritual Crisis

by Jim Wallis
3 stars 14 reviews
The Great Recession is not just an economic crisis, it is the result of a loss of values, a moral crisis. And to say that it is a moral crisis is also to say that it is a spiritual crisis. At the center of most religions is the question of who...

Iran Was an Easier Enemy Before We Saw Their Faces

by David Bromwich
3 stars 57 reviews
If you want to kill with a clean conscience, the faces of the enemy had better be blank. Start to see them as human beings and it becomes harder to blockade and bomb them, to mine, and pollute, and "destabilize." President Clinton had no...

Islam Should Prove It is a Religion of Peace - Muslims can start with better Quranic scholarship.

by Tawfik Hamid
3 stars 188 reviews
The film "Fitna" by Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders has created an uproar around the world because it links violence committed by Islamists to Islam. Many commentators and politicians -- including the British government, which denied him...

Memo to Members of Congress: Don’t Be on the Wrong Side of History

by Robert Creamer
3 stars 45 reviews
Today it would be hard to find one member of Congress who openly advocates the abolition of Medicare or Social Security. It's true that during the Bush Presidency right-wing Republicans tried to weaken, dilute and privatize both. But their...
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