TCS Daily August 21, 2006 Reason magazine science correspondent and TCS Daily contributor Ron Bailey argues that our fear of terrorist attacks is irrational, because you’re more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder. He concludes that, “with risks this low there is no reason for us not to continue to live our […]
Author: James Joyner
YouTube Politics
TCS Daily August 16, 2006 The Washington Post ignited a firestorm Tuesday with a front-page report that Virginia Senator George Allen, a highly touted 2008 presidential hopeful, twice called a cameraman for Democrat James Webb, who was of Indian descent, “Macaca” while ribbing him. Apparently, “macaca” is a type of monkey and is used as a slur for dark-skinned […]
Reason August 16, 2006 Just hours after the cease-fire with Lebanon took effect Monday, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert gave a speech to the Knesset acknowledging “deficiencies” in the way the war was conducted. Buffeted by critics on the left and right, he added that, “We will have to review ourselves in all the battles” and pledged, […]
Why Israel Lost
TCS Daily August 14, 2006 A front-page story in Monday’s Washington Post declared Hezbollah “The Best Guerrilla Force in the World” and noted that, “As the declared U.N. cease-fire went into effect Monday morning, many Lebanese—particularly among the Shiites who make up an estimated 40 percent of the population—had already assessed Hezbollah’s endurance as a military success […]
Killing Us Softly
TCS Daily August 11, 2006 The news that Scotland Yard managed to foil a terrorist attack that would have conceivably dwarfed the 9/11 attacks is not quite as good it might first appear. Certainly, the prevention of “mass murder on an unimaginable scale” is something for which we can be tremendously thankful. Still, our reaction […]
Two Parties, Like it or Not
TCS Daily August 10, 2006 Every so often I read that the Democrats are about to implode, how various rifts will tear the Republicans asunder, that the Libertarians will emerge as a competitive party, or about the emerging Independent majority. These are all fascinating as ways of examining current events but they fly in the face of historical reality. […]
Closing the Book on NovakGate
Human Events July 13, 2006 Robert Novak’s column yesterday revealed that, before publishing his now-controversial column in which he “outed” Valerie Plame, he get confirmation of her role from Bill Harlow, the CIA public information officer. That makes it pretty clear that Plame/Wilson’s status with the CIA was far less “covert” than we’d been led […]
Panoptic War
TCS Daily June 8, 2006 Editor’s Note: Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has been killed. Images of Zarqawi’s face are making the rounds as you read this, reinforcing many of Dr. Joyner’s assertions below. The war in Iraq has had powerful images from the beginning and public perceptions of the war have shifted along with the prevailing images. The […]
Human Events June 7, 2006 To those who have been paying attention to such things for a while, this morning’s announcement of a U.S. offer to give Iran nuclear technology in exchange for a promise to stop enriching uranium sounds eerily similar to the Agreed Framework the Clinton administration negotiated with North Korea in 1994 under similar circumstances. It […]
Organic Matter
TCS Daily June 6, 2006 University of California at Berkeley journalism professor Michael Pollan argues in the New York Times Sunday Magazine that, by attempting to make organic foods — now derided by many as an elitist luxury — cheap enough for the masses to afford, Wal-Mart may be undermining the very things that make organics desirable in the […]