Cheers, personal jabs, off-the-cuff responses, cries, boos, murmerings... the word "awesome" comes to mind when I watch videos of the UK House of Commons meetings. Although I know very little about the nuances of British politics, I do know that, judging from these videos, it strikes me as more real, gritty, transparent and plain fun.

Perhaps it is simply because the British put more stock in ebullient personality and affluent social discourse than Americans, but I think US politicians should start drinking whatever is in UK water.

A tangible benefit I have noticed is that the Prime Minister is brought in for intense, direct, pointed questioning, and responds in verbose and direct ways--an orientation of vulnerability and honesty that seems to be lacking in the US Presidency.

I would love to hear any speculations on the social differences between US and UK politics.

In my Creative Writing class, we peer read each others' papers. In one of the pieces I had to read, there was one word that was used several times. This word stood out, and rightfully so. It's a hefty seven syllable word, hyphenated, with two proper nouns. It's also racially charged. It stands out like a

good joke in a sentence with a simile.

No, the word we're looking isn't cryptozoological- as far as I can tell, it only has six syllables. Would you like to buy a vowel? Oh, you can solve it? That's right, it's African-American.

What's so significant about this, you might ask? It's simple. When I was reading my classmate's paper, this phrase was sporadically placed throughout the paper. It wasn't a one-time use. It happened every time a certain unnamed character was described. Clearly the author thought about using African-American every single time. And it's not her fault- it was an entertaining story. It's just that this word is so entangled with politics that I just couldn't get it out of my head.

Have we really reached the point where we can't use the word "black?"

Of course, that's just a silly rhetorical question. No one would ever be reprimanded for using the word "black." But just for fun, let's play a game. Let's say someone in the public eye... like maybe, an MSNBC talking head--- ah forget the joke, let's get to the clip. This is old news anyway, isn't it?

Mind boggling. Gov. Rick Perry used the word "black", not in the context of race or anything of the sort, but instead he was just using a figure of speech! But, as if it were a George Carlin-flavored forbidden phrase, he gets called out for using a word that is commonly used. In fact, it's generally used without reaching the news rooms. I can just imagine an (unpaid) intern running into Ed Schultz's office with a piece of paper, exclaiming "just wait till you see what I've got, boss!"

Luckily, I highly doubt too many people took this clip too seriously. In the end, watching this little 30 second piece has provided a great way for me to spend my free time. My favorite part is when they clearly cut off Perry for a second while Schultz starts talking, so it's clear that the governor is still talking. Of course, the viewer doesn't know, and probably would forget after hearing Ed mercilessly speak truth to power. Hey, I should pull a LeBron and ditch this whole right-winger thing and get a job on MSNBC. Couldn't be that hard. "This fall... this fall imma take my talents to 30 Rock."

At the end of my Creative Writing class, it was time to go over this student's piece. I raised my hand, face redder than the Sociology class next door, and politely asked if there was a "politically correct synonym for African-American" (my words, not a Nickelodeon character's). My teacher said that the word "black" was okay. Phew. Maybe there really is hope and change after all.

So, for homework: Do you use politically correct words? Do you ever intentionally avoid using them? Do you think it's just a small, easily criticized thing that someone like me uses to write about? Or is it possible that political correctness is a good symbol of other statist planks?

Finally.

After nearly two weeks, Comcast came by and installed my Internet, along with my cable. During that time, I became reliant on staying at coffee shops until they closed, setting up camp at the student union, and trying to guess the password for networks that I picked up in my apartment building. My productivity was limited, both by time and geography.

On its surface, this isn’t a new topic. We’ve all made the observation before that we’re incredibly dependent on technology nowadays. If you haven’t, ask a friend to keep your cell phone for a weekend and you’ll see.

Interestingly, new technologies usually made things easier, faster, and/or better; a tractor, for example, was a much more productive tool than an ox pulling a plow. The difference between what I’ll call “old technology” and “today’s technology” is that if the tractor break, you could always immediately turn to your ox and still get done what you need to get done. With something like the Internet or cell phone though, if you don’t have that, then you’re stuck since the alternatives are either nonexistent, been phased out, or unpractical. Old technology served as an upgrade or improvement over what we were currently using; today’s technology is almost an island of equipment that has completely separated itself from what previously stood.

Another example that comes to mind is Netflix: it was great that we could just set up a queue online and wait for our movies to come in the mail. It was so successful that places like Blockbusters were forced to file for bankruptcy. Suddenly, what happened when I wanted a movie tonight to watch with friends and there was no store down the street to drive to? Well, we were stuck either not renting a movie or huddling around a laptop.

Recently though, Redbox machines, which are essentially vending machines for DVDs, have emerged. Now, on a moment’s notice, I can head down to the local pharmacy and peruse the choices, a cost-efficient rethinking of your local video store.

Being the free-market, capitalist thinkers that we are, do we think there are other instances where our innovation has skipped a step in between the last product and the new one? Can anyone think of any other examples of a convenience that had previously vanished because its enhanced version was so popular, but then another version to bridge the gap between the two has also entered the marketplace?

To me, it's the beauty of capitalism: it finds a way to correct itself, even if it means slowing down a bit.

Eric Ames began a discussion recently asking the question, "Do Voters Care About God?" I'd wager that they do, and for many people they do in a non-superficial way. Of course, this intersection of religion and politics is an interesting, and often contentious one which has at times in recent political history dominated the political scene.

Russell Moore, a Southern Baptist preacher, discusses  a similar question to Ames' (how should the Christian approach electoral politics?) although he approaches it as a religious figure looking into politics, rather than a political observer observing religion. I'd definitely read through the blog post, if you have time, but here are a few key points:

I would gladly vote for someone to be my president who disagrees with me on whether or not infants can be baptized. I wouldn’t want that same person to be my pastor, because we will have to decide together who and how to baptize. The Kuyperian principle of “sphere sovereignty” is helpful here.

and

Unfortunately, American evangelicals have too often longed for a secular authority to serve as a spiritual leader, and political professionals have been all too willing to exploit this by teaching candidates to parrot evangelical-sounding phrases and “testimonies.” In such cases, political leaders become totem-like for evangelicals. An attack on a candidate who identifies with “us” is an attack on “us” or, worse, on Jesus. That’s unhealthy, regardless of whether the politician is male or female.

What are y'all's thoughts?

I was in the fifth grade on September 11th, 2001. I remember that I was in gym class when our principal brought us together in the auditorium and calmly told us that a plane had struck the World Trade Center. She explained to us that the facts were unclear, but there appeared to be some sort of major malfunction with the airline.

By the time my mother picked me up from school, another plane had been flown into the South Tower.

One of my favorite quotes tied to the tragedy is from GWB's speech to Congress on September 20th:

I also want to speak tonight directly to Muslims throughout the world. We respect your faith. It's practiced freely by many millions of Americans and by millions more in countries that America counts as friends. Its teachings are good and peaceful, and those who commit evil in the name of Allah blaspheme the name of Allah. The terrorists are traitors to their own faith, trying, in effect, to hijack Islam itself. The enemy of America is not our many Muslim friends; it is not our many Arab friends. Our enemy is a radical network of terrorists and every government that supports them.

I was watching TV, and I saw the moment when the South Tower collapsed. Or rather I was told the tower had collapsed--it didn't seem any different through the haze of smoke and dust. We drove to school, and I grasped the magnitude of what had happened, really for the first time, when we couldn't get away from it on the radio. I walked into first period wondering if it was something we were going to talk about in class. 

I was struck by the differences in the way different teachers dealt with the situation and looking back, how much adults reveal of themselves when they try to introduce or explain tragedy to children. One discussed the emotional parallel to JFK's death and mentioned the need to understand the motive at the beginning of class; one simply turned on the radio and told us it was important for us to "understand what is going on in (our) country." In history, we held an obsessive discussion about the now-imaginary "third plane" which sliced through the two towers after both were "weakened" by the first two impacts. Talk about information compulsion. In science, we were told we were living terrible history--a tragedy that would dwarf Pearl Harbor. 

I remember coming home and hearing about how actionable intelligence linking the attack to specific al-Qaeda and Afghan terrorists had already been established. To the grown-ups in the house, it was just another excuse to be cynical--those links were found too late. But to me, it was a sense of pride that we could get on their trails so quickly and a sense that, like in any good video game, the big bad boss would be beaten. Misplaced, maybe. But what are great countries built on, if not sometimes misplaced but always tender pride? 

Much has been made of the effect of the attacks on the "children of 9/11." The Millenial generation--kids when the attacks changed our world--grew up to fight in the wars, go to college, and live their lives. Those of us who were still children entered adolescence that day. And when, nearly ten years later, my neighbor in college told me on a Sunday evening about bin Laden's death, his opinion that the decade of 9/11 had come to its psychic end was mine also. 

I visited the sacred graveyard for the first time this summer, with some relatives. It was dusty, hot, noisy, and buzzing with construction. It was so bright that the light reflecting off the partially-completed Freedom Tower was nearly blinding. And for some reason that made me happy. To see that much light and sound in a place of darkness and silence was pure glory. 

As Peggy Noonan wrote last Friday, you've "got to be loyal to the pain to be loyal to the glory that came out of it." For me, raw memory brings back both. Please feel free to share yours. 

2,997 flags for 2,997 lives lost. The tribute is located on the campus of Indiana University.

Paul Krugman posted today a pretty revolting blog post. This issue isn't Krugman's view of the Bush years, it is his choice of timing. Many pundits on the left, despite spending 364 days of the year bewailing the nature of our political discourse, have taken this day as one to revive their polemics against the Bush administration and related parties.

Today is a day of shared sorrow. Shared patriotism. Shared values. It is a day of prayer and somber reflection - removed from the political debates that otherwise consume our national dialogue. 

Krugman seeks here not to be profound nor to change minds - he wants to be noticed. He wants to be talked about. The timing of this blog post has no substantive value, but is a shallow manifestation of his overwhelming narcissism. It's vile.

To anyone out there who is currently germ-aware or afraid of getting the slightest bit sick when you hear someone sneeze, this movie IS NOT for you.  Matt Damon is out of his mind politically speaking, but despite his flaws I thought the cast and crew did a great job of portraying a massive flu epidemic. 

I don't want to release any spoilers, but do want to let people know that the way you perceive food and human contact in general will be tarnished.  What the movie really did was make me think about the most likely ways that the world could end.  For the last few years I have always felt the EMP threat is legitimate in regards to doomsday scenarios.  Certainly seems more likely than falsified science claiming our undoing will be getting too tan. 

In short, the movie made me think twice about life, enough to inspire a blog post at least.  So, in many ways, it accomplished the goal of cinema.  Who else has seen the movie? I am curious to know if other people were similarly affected.

I opened up my email tonight to find my composition class has a new assignment:

Being in-the-know is all the rage. What/Who (CNN, BBC, FOX, TMZ, NYT, PBS, etc.) are your reliable news sources? What outlets (internet, TV, Facebook, radio, newspapers, magazines, etc.) do you rely on to get your news? Give me reasons why you find your news sources reliable. What makes a news source/outlet reliable? As you can see, the key word here is reliable. You can also interchange that keyword with trustworthy. How do we know the news we receive is trustworthy?

I wonder... by FOX, does my teacher mean "FOX News"? By the way, by TMZ, does my teacher mean that paparazzi show? And by NYT, does she mean Paul Krugman's intellectual hideout? Wait a second.... if FOX News isn't what she meant... all the examples are... mainstream media!!!

Do you guys think I should put NRO? (Sorry Ricochet but it has to be a three-letter initialism) Or is that not as reliable as Paul Krugman and Thomas Friedman?

I recently sent out my first column of the year for one of the campus papers here. This particular iteration is one that I wrote mostly because I get irritated by the way religion gets thrown around in presidential campaigns, and more significantly, that many get upset when candidates such as Perry and Bachmann demonstrate more than superficial religious faith.

We want to know that the President goes to the 11:00 service on Sunday, drops a couple of bucks into the collection plate, sings Great is Thy Faithfulness, and knows a few choice verses about how “the greatest of these is love,” and “blessed are the meek.” Voters expect what amounts to a watered-down Victorian Anglicanism in which our religion is public, but our faith is private.

Am I alone in thinking that a substantial body of the voting public really doesn't want candidates to have firm religious beliefs? Certainly the Religious Right cares, but the discomfort people have with the fact that some GOP candidates actually take their faith seriously bothers me. If you want your president to got to church, then fine. Don't be surprised when you find out he believes in things. You can't be a Christian on Sunday, but a secularist when you show up for work in the Oval Office, as so many seem to think. What? You mean Michele Bachmann's faith has guided her in making key life decisions? All I can say is that I wish I could say the same.

This week from TheBlaze.com:

A Philadelphia college student put his firearm carry permit to good use Monday, as he shot it out with a would-be robber, hitting him twice.

Robert Eells, 21-year-old Temple University student, was in front of his off-campus house smoking a cigarette at 1:30 a.m. Monday when a group of teenagers approached him and asked for money. The main suspect -who is 15-years old- allegedly then attempted to rob Eells, who refused the demand for cash.

At that point, police say the suspect started shooting, and hit Eels in the stomach.

But Eels was able to fight back. He drew his own legal pistol and fired, hitting the attacker in the chest and leg.

The whole story and a video from a local Philadelphia news broadcast can be found here.

Americans have the right and advantage of being armed – unlike the citizens of other countries whose governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.

 –James Madison, The Federalist Papers #46 at 243-244.

Very, but not always as much as it might seem. Most of the faculty I've encountered tend to be at the left wing of the political spectrum, but I haven't really noticed it affect the way they teach course content. There is, however, a tendency among college-age conservatives to develop a sort of bunker mentality in which everything that challenges their values or their way of thinking is part of a grand conspiracy by the left wing education establishment. This is perhaps warranted on some campuses, but I haven't found it to be consistently the case in Williamsburg. I thought I would defend my characterization of the atmosphere among both the student body and the faculty as being "liberal, but too busy to care."

In my experience here, there hasn't really been much in the way of left-wing hackery on the part of the faculty. I do remember having one professor who insisted that Obamacare wasn't  at all radical, but he at least seemed to enjoy engaging with the conservative students rather than calling them ill-informed idiots. He seems to have been the exception rather than the rule. Any left-wing bias there is appears in the form not too far removed from the bias that naturally slips in due to anyone's personal inclination, and I have sensed no attempts at deliberate distortion of the facts. As a demonstration, here are a few of the things taught here.

French Colonial History: The Indians (yes, they use the term) were killing each other long before the arrival of Europeans.

Mining in the Western Hemisphere: The supposedly egalitarian American labor movement worked hard to exclude ethnic minorities from jobs.

American History - 1763-1787: The American colonies had the freest political systems of any societies in the western world, except for arguably the Dutch Republic and the Swiss Confederation.

Southern Politics: Jim Crow was installed and defended by Democrats. Southern realignment began before the Southern Strategy, and was strongly influenced by social and economic influences apart from the Civil Rights movement.

Intro to Modern Political Theory: Rousseau's philosophy is necessarily totalitarian.

Now, W&M is hardly a hotbed of right wing academics by any stretch of the imagination. I merely wish to demonstrate that dissent, while perhaps not considered "the highest form of patriotism," is not openly suppressed in the classroom. I have heard some horror stories, and have been personally subjected to Ray Raphael's People's History of the American Revolution, which has been sanctified by Howard Zinn himself. (Zinn’s book itself, as far as I know, is not assigned here.) I am only trying to show that the faculty here, even if they happen to be knee-jerk leftists, are not hell-bent on expounding on The World According to Liberals 101. Sure, you encounter references to “patriarchy” and social constructivist theories of this, that and the other, but the professors I have encountered generally care more that there are students interested in the subjects they teach than about quashing opposing viewpoints. I, of course, can only speak of my own experience. I know not what lies outside Virginia’s colonial capital.

I'm not the kind of person that's good when it comes to talking about tragedies like 9/11, so I'm just going to let ESPN do the talking. Added bonus: stuff about Soldier Field, where there will be a game on Sunday, which is a memorial for fallen heroes.

Per ESPN: 

Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs intends to wear gloves and cleats in the colors of the United States flag on Sept. 11 against the Atlanta Falcons, and he won't be fined for violating uniform policy.

"Reebok great job on these gloves and shoes..looks like I'm getting fined this week. Lol!" Briggs tweeted Thursday. "By far the best fine I will ever have to pay. Thanks"

But the NFL told team equipment managers on Friday morning that players may wear special shoes and gloves made by NFL licensees -- including Reebok -- for Week 1 games.

Kansas City Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles also said on Twitter he plans to wear Reebok-issued gloves and cleats.

All NFL players Sunday will have a patch on their jerseys featuring a ribbon with stars and stripes along with the dates "9/11/01" and "9/11/11." Coaches, personnel and staff will have pins featuring a similar ribbon.

The NFL is believed to have the most extensive dress-code rules among the four major sports and does not take uniform violations lightly.

Very cool. I'm a giant Bears fan, and- not to brag- go to Soldier Field quite often. Whenever I walk up to the opening gate to get my tickets checked for authenticity, I'm standing next to a giant fountain/memorial dedicated to all of America's armed forces. It's a giant slab of some material, whatever it's called, with the symbols of the Army, Navy, Marines, etc. extruding out from it. It's really, really cool. This was the best picture I could find of it: this is just the Marines, but they have it for all flavors. Instead, here's something similar, found at the very front of the stadium: a sweet JFK quote. And then there's this.

One year during halftime, at a game where the Bears were getting blown out, I saw this Purple Heart being awarded. Crazy. And every game, after the 3rd quarter ends, everybody gets up and cheers as a soldier walks on to the field after recently returning from duty. Or, they once had a WWII veteran. These people are usually from the Chicago area.

If you are a male college student and attend an American university that receives federal funding, which you probably do, your due process rights took a significant hit this summer.

Why?

Because a recent "Dear Colleague" letter from the Office of Civil Rights within the Department of Education has mandated that all universities adopt the "preponderance of evidence" standard when adjudicating sexual assault cases on campus -the lowest standard of proof.

If a university decides not to use this standard, it risks losing all its federal funding.

The dangers of lowering the evidentiary standard are obvious: lowering the evidentiary standard will result in more false convictions. As I point out in a recent op-ed for my school newspaper: 

By forgoing the “clear and convincing” evidentiary standard that most top colleges usually applied to allegations of sexual assault, the OCR has also forgone fundamental fairness and committed its own acts of metaphorical violence against student rights, against due process and against the founding principles of our nation.

Feminist groups and the government contend that the new standard is fine because university judicial bodies are not criminal courts, and nobody is being threatened with jail. However, as we have seen already, many have had their lives and educational careers ruined or put on hold as a result of false convictions stemming from this new standard. Not to mention that universities are ill equipped to prosecute such sensitive cases in the first place.

Philadelphia Magazine published a great article last month about the new evidentiary standard. It highlighted many of the individuals responsible for pushing for the new standard. According to these individuals, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, the organization leading the fight against the new standard, is merely "sticking up for penises everywhere.”

I happen to agree with that assessment, but in addition might add that FIRE is also sticking up for due process, the law, and fundamental fairness.

As I again stated in my op-ed, "Trading one set of victims for another does service to no one, especially when one of those victims is the Constitution of the United States."

UPDATE:

If you haven't seen it already, Peter Berkowitz with the WSJ took on the new OCR standard in an Aug. 20 opinion piece for the paper. He asks: 

Where are the professors of history, political science and law who will insist clearly and in public that due process is a fundamental component of American political institutions and culture, a cornerstone of our legal system, and indispensable in a free society to the fair administration of justice?

A Chinese newspaper editorial largely viewed as a mouthpiece for senior Communist Party officials has suggested that the United States is "playing with fire" in a congressional proposal to sell jet fighters to Taiwan, which relies on American weapon sales as a bulwark against its giant neighbor. While this deal has bipartisan opponents and may eventually be scrapped in favor of an upgrade to Taiwan's existing fleet, it is worthwhile to consider the Chinese response.

While China has never been hesitant about meddling in U.S. policymakers' decisions surrounding its frustratingly prosperous, democratic island neighbor, the tone suggests a move away from the norm. Typically, such pronouncements use language no doubt thought to be subtle, but reflecting a kind of incompetent menace. China now seems more comfortable about pushing the line, no doubt sensing an ascendancy that U.S. policymakers would do well not to ignore. In the past, "improved relations" were a goal to achieve--so long as we were making decisions that aided China's rise. Now they are a carrot to dangle in front of us, to be taken away at will--even if our economic interdependence would turn that into a self-inflicted wound. It seems breathtakingly obvious that our relationship with China will prove alternately more dangerous and perplexing than anything the Middle East could possibly throw at us. But also that China, still, needs us more than we need them. 

Though I am not enthusiastic about weapons deals in general, it seems an appropriate response to approve the full jet fighter sale. Aside from any jobs that would be "saved or created," aside from the security of a democratic ally, and aside from any geopolitical consideration, America would do well to remind China that our friendships and choices are not contingent on Chinese approval. What are they going to do? Dump our currency and run to that precious euro? I'd like to see them try. 

There are "Student Senate" elections going on here right now. So people are putting up posters and signs saying "vote for me!" Most of them don't even bother to say why my vote should go their direction, and that's okay, because I'm not going to vote anyway.

This Student Senate thing reminds of me years before in school where the kids would go up on stage and say things like "vote for me and I'll put Mountain Dew in the water fountains- forever!," or "vote for me and you won't have any homework- ever!" or "pass this bill and I'll update America's infrastructure, and get America back to work- with no negative consequences whatsoever, and guaranteed success!"

Wait a second- that last one was just me pretending to be President Obama.

Of course... the funniest thing about the overly ambitious, clearly ridiculous, and unobtainable goals is that it's the same thing every year. There's always the candidate making promises that really don't... you know, work in that whole "reality" thing. Which is always a disappointing technicality.

But when kids vote for the demagogue, it's cute. After all, the demagogue is just a cute little kid too! Or he could be the bully on your bus that won't let you play Mario on his Game Bo- never mind, excuse me.

When adults vote for the demagogue, it's just sad. It really is. The strange thing is that I want to believe that liberals believe what they say- if you follow me. I don't like to attempt to go inside of someone's mind and find out what they truly believe. I want to believe that Obama really feels this plan will work. But anyway, just because one person is being irrational doesn't mean the entire nation gets a "Get-Out-of-Tyranny-Free-Card".

I really, really believe that Americans will realize how much of a farce Obama's jobs speech was, and how fallacious the plan is. I hope that a lot of Americans that voted for Obama before will now have the same attitude towards 2012 that I have towards this "Student Senate" election- who cares?

Study: College Students Not Learning Much

Many college students seem more interested in an ebullient social environment than academic rigor. Being a student has become an extension of pubescent experimentation and entitlement rather than a mature, responsible choice to treat academics like a vocation--to be a professional student. American students don’t take ownership of their education or vocation until the end of college or until it is over.

The linked article describes the lack of development of critical thinking skills in college students.

Does anyone else have the intuition that attending college is becoming less about higher education and professional development and more about finding a social network that encourages perpetual youth? Maybe it is a product of hovering parents, of inflation of college attendance... why else might this be?

Heading down to your local watering hole just got more informative.

 Lee Doren of "How The World Works" does a great job of equating our tax structure and its misconceptions to a group of friends grabbing a few pints. Maybe you've heard of "Bar Stool Economics" before, but it's worth revisiting and the visual component of the video helps too. Cheers!

If you're in the mainstream, you either think Romney or Perry won the debate last night.

Michael Gerson in WaPo writes, 

Perry often seemed awkward, nervous and programmed. On several questions, he left an impression of policy shallowness. He showed hints of brittleness, snapping that Karl Rove is “over the top.” The frontrunner has considerable room for improvement.

Easily the most presidential of the lot was Mitt Romney, who has progressed dramatically as a candidate compared to four years ago. Romney was fluent and comfortable on economic issues. He appealed to the Tea Party without obvious pandering. And he produced the evening’s most refreshing grace note by conceding Perry’s good intentions on the HPV vaccine issue.

Jonathan S. Tobin writes for Commentary, 

The question for the GOP was whether the Texas governor who vaulted to a huge lead after entering the race last month could sustain that margin in the heat of the battle. The answer was that by the end of the evening nothing had changed. Despite constant attacks from his opponents, Perry is still way ahead and set up to win the nomination easily.

In my view, Perry seemed underwhelming in every aspect of performance, especially considering the height difference between him and Romney eliminating his "bigness" style of charisma. However, there is no doubt that clear challengers to the two-man Perry/Romney battle are lacking. Newt looked smart as usual, Hunstman was more aggressive than his last performance, and Michele Bachmann was consistent. Cain received the laugh lines and Paul's followers who understand and appreciate his philosophy will find his words resonating regardless of what he says or how he says it.

I walked into the Stanford Bookstore yesterday and immediately saw Dick Cheney standing on a red carpet with eerie lighting, dressed in black and glowering at me. I began to wonder if In My Time's sales and promotional teams recognized the importance of creepy Darth Vader-like imagery in marketing Mr. Cheney's personal brand. Or if Cheney himself was just poking fun at his popular caricature in the media.

Whatever it was, it certainly worked as a draw, and I started skim-reading. Mr. Cheney's memoir, of course, is like its author, terse, un-weepy, and sure of itself. Amidst some genuinely moving passages and clear-headed defense of Bush-era pronouncements (the much maligned "we will be greeted as liberators" line actually turned out to be somewhat true), Cheney's memoir is remarkable in that it is weirdly anachronistic. Cheney almost never mentions the fiscal and economic issues that occupy most of our political discourse today. As a rule, he is partisan but not ideological on such concerns. To read his book is to be transported back to a long-ago time(it was only five years ago!) when America spent most of its time looking outward to its foes, to Iraq, and to the larger issues of the war on terror. Renditions, interrogations, wiretapping, geopolitics, weapons negotiations, pre-emptive strikes, Niger, yellowcake, and other phrases from that era are jarring to see in print again.

The world has changed. We live, now, in a time, where the majority of declared conflicts in the world are internal. Nations around the world are looking inward. European nations enact austerity programs, grapple with internal debt, and combat internal riots. The U.S. is still reeling from internal collapse and continues to re-evaluate itself and to re-orient its pulse towards a more equitable future. Israel and India deal with massive protests against democratically elected governments. In the Middle East, nations have turned from attacking each other to attacking themselves and their own uprisings. And the world notices the Arab Spring and attempts to aid democratic movements, but in a distracted, confused way. 

But it is worthwhile to remember that looking outward, always, is essential in America, and the importance of this cannot be exaggerated. The great issues of national security, weapons control, rogue states, terrorism, and geopolitical rivalries never go away. And while we blink, the one large nation that doesn't seem to have had this inward shift is looking outward. To Africa, the Middle East, and the Pacific, and outward. China is not waiting for us to reestablish ourselves. Whether you agree with his arguments or not, Mr. Cheney's memoir is a timely reminder that America's security, America's international presence, and America's standing in the world are constantly evolving external concerns that cannot be put on pause. My sense is that we, as a nation, are attempting to do so, and that we will reap an awful reward. Thoughts?

For a lot of kids that I'm friends with, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution are synonymous with one another. I'll admit that I couldn't tell you which article was for which branch until I started my Government class in high school. That class is required to graduate- but I imagine for a lot of kids, it goes in one ear and out the other.

Point is, the Bill of Rights is common knowledge. Everyone knows the freedoms "given" to us by the 1st amendment (I know, I know). Everyone knows about the right to "bear arms". Everyone knows- because of the Patriot Act- about the 4th amendment. Everyone knows about pleading the fifth... and so on and so forth.

But then there's that pesky 10th amendment. I suppose even without the 10th amendment, powers not enumerated to the federal government would go to the states. The Bill of Rights always confuses me. Anyway, the amendment clearly and unambiguously says that when we talk about states' rights, it's not an academic pursuit- it's the law.

Of course, states' rights pose an existential threat to the centralized welfare state. Similarly, a citizenry with the ability to defend itself with arms poses a threat to the leftist's paradise. With the 2nd amendment, the intent of the framers is just as explicit as the tenth. However, it is possible for liberals to do what they do best- they can twist the language to make it look like there's a debate where there isn't one. But with the 10th amendment, a different course of action must be taken.

Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D, IL) recently broke ground on the CBC world tour. In an attempt to call a piece of long-standing legislation radical, he released a statement titled "Governor Rick Perry and the Slave Amendment." Here's a sample:

[Gov. Rick Perry] thinks that when the Preamble to the Constitution was written and it said one of the nation's purposes was to "promote the general Welfare," it didn't mean programs like Social Security - which he believes is unconstitutional. He apparently believes, as Ronald Reagan did, that the federal government is not the solution. The federal government is the problem.

Truer words or more faithful ideas could not have been attributed to Confederate President Jefferson Davis or his Vice President Alexander Hamilton Stevens [sic.]. After-all, it was the Tenth Amendment and states' rights that protected the institution of slavery. The words "slave" or "slavery" did not appear in the Constitution. The institution of slavery, the Tenth Amendment and states' rights are joined at the hip.

First of all, in a world where "promote" (as in "promote the general Welfare") means "provide," what in the word does "provide for the common defense" mean? If the two are synonymous, why is it worded the way it is now, with the two clearly separated?

As for the second paragraph, why does the Representative assume that, at the point of the Constitution's conception, an amendment ending slavery in all of the Union was a viable option? A quick survey of the events up to the Civil War will demonstrate the polarizing nature of the issue. Furthermore, the Congressman goes on to claim that the Bill of Rights does in fact make a "pro-slavery argument" (his words). I am saddened to see that such an egregious error can be spewed by a representative of my state in Washington DC.

It goes on...

But from 1870 to the present the Tenth Amendment has been used primarily to keep the Federal Government from bringing equality within and between the 50 states on such critical issues as ending unemployment, providing high quality health care (remember many states filed suit against Obamacare citing the Tenth Amendment) and education, justice, business, voting, environmental protection, housing and more.

Clearly the Representative finds the Tenth Amendment to be an obstacle in the way of the liberal agenda, and is using the issue of race- hope you're sitting down- to demagogue his way into the hearts of his constituents. It's not about race. It's about health care, Fannie and Freddie, the EPA, and the Department of Education.

The Congressional Black Caucus has spent the last week or so attempting to push conservative thought outside of the debate at this time in our nation's history. All across the country, legislators have gone in front of large, flammable crowds, and have taken the opportunity to define the term "TEA Party" as a racially motivated and malicious group. And what disgusts me is that the reason that these men and women are able to do this- virtually without consequence- is simply due to something determined before birth, completely out of their control...

I missed most of the debate tonight (class, bummer) but came in just in time to hear some expert question-dodging by Gov. Perry: When asked about his views on American Adventurism, he refused to say anything about Bush's foreign policy (as I recall), instead praising Obama for keeping Gitmo open and the Navy Seals for getting Osama. 

Then he insisted that his adventurism comment was purely philosophical, and that was that. 

Huh?

I only got a B+ in Philosophy 101, but I'm pretty sure that if you're talking about how you decide when to invade which countries, you're a far cry from the realm of pure philosophy. Philosophical beliefs will naturally inform foreign policy decisions –– in the same way that they inform all our decisions –– but there's a huge difference between choosing where and when to drop bombs and arguing about whether or not existence precedes essence.

And if Perry's comments on adventurism had no bearing on the real world, then how are we supposed to know what he believes about foreign policy? I'm sincerely curious about how he feels about Iraq (Has he said anything specific? If anyone knows, please post a link.) 

A hasty Google search turned up a snarky article from ForeignPolicy.com which provided an interesting quote from a recent speech:

"It's a dangerous world that we live in today. As the 10th anniversary of the attacks of 9/11 approach, we must renew our commitment to taking the fight to the enemy, wherever they are, before they strike at home."

Is this also merely a philosophical statement? Or is it an outright endorsement of neoconservative foreign policy?

Is there a difference between fighting the enemy before they attack us, wherever they are (n.b.: They're kind of all over) and adventurism?

I first became aware of the term RINO probably sometime when I was in middle or high school. At that time, it seemed to me that if you used the term RINO it was basically assumed that everyone knew whom you were talking about. You were probably complaining about John McCain, Lindsey Graham, Chuck Hagel, one of the Ladies from Maine, and so forth. What I find puzzling is that over the last three years or so, the use of the term has exploded to the point of uselessness.

The term, as I understand it, basically used to refer to relatively even-tempered moderate Republicans of a somewhat reddish hue who spent more time trashing the right than they did advancing a coherent agenda. Now it can be used to refer to any variety of Republican, such as anyone who isn't a Tea Partier, anyone who doesn't support Ron Paul, or anyone who doesn't match whatever litmus test I decided to use when I got up this morning. Does this term even mean anything anymore, or is just a device used to shut people up?

Ron Paul released an ad that attacks Rick Perry for being a cheerleader/yell leader and Al Gore supporter, and that simultaneously paints Paul as the second coming of Ronald Reagan.

There is no way that Rick Perry could have realized the errors of the Democratic party and become conservative, right?  Any politician who would do something like that simply cannot be trusted (except for the Gipper, who was a big government liberal before he went on to champion conservative principles.)

Who out there thinks we can trust Ron Paul like the video exhorts?  I certainly have heard him say some good things, but I find much of what he stands for to be at odds with Reagan's rhetoric and actions.

In light of Princeton professor Robert George helping moderate the GOP debate yesterday, I've been playing around with the idea that we could have several serious conservatives, from academia and the think tank world, grill potential GOP presidential candidates.

My first instinct would be go for the heavy hitters on all policy fronts, people like Charles Krauthammer, Bill Kristol, Victor Davis Hanson, and Michael Barone, and then move to more specialized persons, like Charles Murray, Yuval Levin, Richard Epstein, John  Bolton etc. But that is just a rough idea. I'm curious to hear what others think about this, whether the GOP would benefit from hearing from our intellectual heavyweights scrutinize our candidates, or whether this would just be an excessive in futility.

Who do you think would excel in this type of format and produce probing questions for our presidential hopefuls?

Yesterday, Congresswoman Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) announced her bid for the US Senate seat being vacated by Senator Herb Kohl (D-WI). In her announcement video Baldwin blames President Bush for the dismal state of the American economy. Even though I agree some of the big spending/government expanding policies of the Bush administration didn't help, why can't liberals own up to the mess they helped create? Does the left not have any other platform to run on or did they not learn a crucial lesson in campaigning during the 2010 election?

Reuters is running a story that says nearly 40% of European citizens suffer from mental illness, causing an economic burden in the hundreds of billions of Euros.

Does that statistic frighten anyone else?

Last night, the Phillies v. Marlins game erupted into controversy. In the sixth inning, Hunter Pence, with Ryan Howard on first, hit a ball into deep right field. The Marlins' Right Fielder, Bryan Petersen, jumped up to catch the ball, but his glove got hit by a fan reaching outward. Umpire Joe West gave Pence a ground rule double due to interference.

After Marlins Manager Jack McKeon came storming on the field, the umpires decided to review the call. Once having looked over a replay, West ruled that the ball would have been caught otherwise, and called Pence out. 

This all would seem run of the mill - baseball introduced the instant replay, right? Well, instant replay, by MLB rules, is only permitted when reviewing a home run call. West, on his own accord, expanded this power to the ground-rule double.

Joe West was probably following the intent of the replay rule - to insure a more accurate, better called game. But, the letter is clear. It's for home runs only. The game is currently under review after Phillies Manager Charlie Manuel filed a protest. Let's see if Bud Seelig is a Scalia or a Ginsberg... 

Check out this statement by Kevin Hassett of the American Enterprise Institute, concerning the Bureau of Labor Statistics' report on Jobs.

It's easy, and perhaps appropriate, to continue to pin most or all of the blame on President Obama. But what can local governments, and Republicans in the House and Senate, do to curb this trend towards recession? Where have all the Jobs gone? How do we, as it's so often put, "get America back to work?"