Before there was the "empire of bases" there was classical imperialism with its empire of colonies. Some of the US elite (political, cultural, and financial), from the Mugwumps to Mark Twain to billionaire (in current dollars) Andrew Carnegie, energetically lobbied...

The rise of the movable type printing press – "the tyrant's foe and the people's friend" – curiously coincided with the fall of slavery, and technological progress continues to change politics, from Antiwar.com to Move On's national video parties. The cutting edge now...

The first panacea for a mismanaged nation is inflation of the currency; the second is war. Both bring a temporary prosperity; both bring a permanent ruin. But both are the refuge of political and economic opportunists. ~ Ernest Hemingway

Thanks to Matt for bringing the Select Smart 2004 Presidential Candidate Selector to our attention. It's true that looking down the preference hierarchy list creates absurdities, like my own Sharptonite Libertarianism. But in defense of the candidate selector I have...

"Observe good faith and justice towards all Nations; cultivate peace and harmony with all. Religion and Morality enjoin this conduct; and can it be, that good policy does not equally enjoin it? ... Who can doubt, that, in the course of time and things, the fruits of...

The current issue of U.S. News & World Report features an informative article, "The Saudi Connection: How billions in oil money spawned a global terror network," based on five months of research, "a review of thousands of pages of court records, U.S. and foreign...

So maybe al Qaeda exploited US jihad support prior to Sept 11, 2001, but since then the government has been kicking the terrorists' butts. Right? Maybe not. According to a new Syracuse University study, in the 2 years after the Sept 11 attacks the Justice Department...

FOB Antony S. comments on "Why There's No Left Left": Point taken, but do these people really own all this stuff, or are they just renting it from banks and loan companies?

To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the assassination of our last Yankee president The Wall Street Journal published an article by Christopher Hitchens, “Where's the Aura?”. Hitchens is glad that the Kennedy cult is dying, and, having grown up in Massachusetts, I...

A long time ago, pants were mended, not replaced. Books were borrowed, not bought. And people realized that cash was king and crap was crap. Try talking to your grandparents; get a sense of their Depression-era expectations. … Our expectations have become so inflated,...