The wave of criticism of Russia by western governments and the western press has become a tsunami after the Georgian affair. Yet this criticism ignores two fundamental realities.

The first is the role of the Russian people and its leaders in the liquidation of one of the most oppressive tyrannies of human history - the Soviet communist state. While there were many reasons and causes behind the

The press and air waves are full of comments about the Russian occupation of two ethnic enclaves -Abkhazia and South Ossetia - within the former Soviet republic of Georgia, now an independent state. The vast majority of opinions expressed are virulently anti-Russian. Regardless of where "right" and "wrong" lie here - and it is best to let history decide that issue - the Georgian imbroglio offers

Both Obama and McCain have tax cuts in store for America; Obama will shift the tax burden so the vast majority of Americans will pay less and the rich closer to their fair share.Obama will let the Bush tax cuts expire (which is not the equivalent of a tax increase unless you live in Bizarro world and reason with Bizarro logic), while McCain wants to continue wasting resouces on handouts for the

What criteria should we use to judge the welfare state; the institution, whose most prominent features in the U.S. are public education, Social Security, income support, poverty relief, Medicare and Medicaid?

To meet its overarching goal of advancing the common good through the provision of positive freedom and second generation rights, the welfare state aims to reduce and prevent social suffering

Many people beleive that there had to be a trade-off between social justice and efficiency; that the persuit of the former will inevitably have to come at the expense of the latter. Yet, social justice and efficiency tend to correlate highly. Welfare efficiency and social justice are both perpetuated by redistribution. Those of you who have been reading me blog, already know that I am quite

 

There is a middle school teacher in a small rural community in Ohio who has been ordered by his principal to remove his Bible from the top of his classroom desk.  As a result of this incident and the public's reaction to it, the Superintendent has assigned a monitor or observer to watch the teacher's every move in the classroom, ostentatiously to "protect" the children and to see to it that the

We need to stop talking about Iraq. It's not really an issue in this presidential campaign. We need to talk about everything but Iraq. Why? Because Republicans know that they have to take that issue off the table if they have prayer in hell of winning this fall.

But I'd like to talk about someone who took unilateral military action with virtually no strategic planning, using way too few troops

This is absolutely incredible to me. George Bush's top advisors - Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice - not only approved torture but choreographed exactly what could be done to whom, how often. They decided who should be physically hurt, who should be waterboarded, who should be attacked by trained dogs.

But that's not the worst.

George Bush told ABC News that he personally approved of the

Last week heavy fighting broke out in Basra, the main city of southern Iraq. The instigator was not some shadowy rebel or terrorist organization, but the Iraqi government: for reasons unclear Mr. Nouri al Maliki, the Prime Minister, had decided to challenge Muqtada al Sadr, another Iraqi leader, whose militia controls the town.

The Iraqi army was sent in, and Mr. Maliki moved south to personally

The recent unrest in Tibet raises a simple question: Why did the Tibetans, after half a century of Chinese military occupation and several failed uprisings, once more challenge the full might of Communist China?

The conventional explanation is that they saw a last chance to bring attention to their plight and put pressure on the Chinese government, just as it tries to showcase the "new China"