The NY Times about the technology that will be ending affirmative action. Alan Moldawer’s adopted twins, Matt and Andrew, had always thought of themselves as white. But when it came time for them to apply to college last year, Mr. Moldawer thought it might be worth investigating the origins of their slightly tan-tinted skin, with […]

Wow, suddenly those demanding the impeachment of President Bush don’t sound too crazy anymore. Political power sometimes is such an elusive thing. So President Bush admitted to declassifying the NIE report so it could be used by his political operatived for political and PR reasons. Yesterday, he claimed to have done it so the American […]

Last week, in an interview with the BBC, Condoleeza Rice was still adamant, insisting on geographical facts, making it clear that “Iran is not Iraq.” On the other hand, reality based arguments have too often been denied their factual power by the Bush administration to simply believe her in this case. Seymour Hersh, for one, […]

Imagine you’re in charge of the department of agriculture in an country whose farming industry as well as dietary habits depend heavily on cattle farming and you have just discovered the third case of mad cow disease – what do you do? It’s easy. You just look away and hope you’ll find something to help […]

Will America ever be able to have a grown up discourse about abortion? It’s a serious and difficult issue involving a lot of complicated aspects, it is, just as the South Dakota representative interviewed by Time.com’s Nancy Gibbs states, a question of “balancing rights”. Quite right – but then again, why did he and his […]

Now look at this, David Ignatius, writing in the Washington Post – a paper characterised by some as the upscale PR office of this American administration (just look at how the arrogance claim comes coupled with “the most righteous politians”) – invokes An Arrogance of Power to explain the Dick Cheney’s silence after the shooting […]

Seriously, I’m starting to think that the US Vice President Cheney might have to step down because of the shooting accident… just look at the quote from Yahoo! News – WASHINGTON – Vice President Dick Cheney apparently broke the No. 1 rule of hunting: be sure of what you’re shooting at. … Hunting safety experts […]

Gentle readers, I know I’ve been neglecting this lovely little kind-of diary recently, so, first off, welcome to the 2006 edition of almost a diary. And just in case you were wondering what to avoid this year – here’s my advice: don’t go hunting with Dick Cheney. Cheney Shoots Fellow Hunter in Texas Accident “The […]

It’s hard to write something original with respect to Richard Clarke’s testimony before the 9-11 commission. There are simply too many fish in the pond analysing it. But since I did watch a significant part of his testimony on CNN last night, I would nonetheless like to share my principal impression:

Imagine you’re a Presidential Candidate who has a war chest full of dollars but cannot call even one foreign leader by his full name. What do you do? Quite right. You do what every leader of the free world would do in this situation: turn to ebay and get your very own imaginary endorsement…. (via […]

Oh, the Summer of 1998. One of the best times of my life. One of the worst times in the life of Bill Clinton… having to figure out in front of the entire world that truth depends to an enormous amount on “what the definition of “is” is. Ah, the beauty of a public epistemological […]