I hope at least my Texas readers will be interested in an update on the efforts by many of us to advance standards and accountability based reforms in Texas K-12 education. We made good progress on our objectives during the 82nd Texas Legislature this spring and are hard at work in assisting with the implementation […]
Archives for 2009
More Nobel Thoughts
A number of additional thoughts have come to mind since the early October announcement of the Nobel Peace Prize for 2009 and my brief October posting on it (The Nobel: Are They Serious?). First, it seems obvious that the award was entirely predicated on President Obama’s disavowal of American exceptionalism, a view that he has […]
Big Time Systemic Misunderstanding
Tom Friedman’s notion of what he calls “systemic misunderstanding” is a condition of debate or conflict between or among parties in disagreement wherein the conflict cannot be resolved with more facts or information. With Thomas Sowell, among my favorite essayists, such a condition is even more deeply seated in what he has named “a conflict […]
The Nobel: Are They Serious?
The Nobel Peace Prize was announced shortly after the October edition of The Texas Pilgrim went to press, and a response simply could not wait until the next edition. The Nobel Prize has now reached a new level of irrelevance in selecting Barack Obama, someone who has accomplished absolutely nothing to advance world peace, except, […]
Gems from the Iron Lady
Since she has retired from the world stage, I occasionally enjoy digging up some of my favorite nuggets from Margaret Thatcher, one of my heroes. This is from a 1981 speech: For me, pragmatism is not enough. Nor is that fashionable word “consensus”. To me, consensus seems to be the process of abandoning all beliefs, […]
Irving Kristol
A number of years ago I had the privilege of introducing Irving Kristol at a conference and spending some time with him discussing the issues of the day. He was one of my favorite essayists and intellectuals and I was a subscriber to his The Public Interest magazine until it ceased publication several years ago. […]
Neverland
It’s pretty hard to grasp the massive cultural chasm between the Hollywood elites of the left and normal Americans as manifest in their respective reactions to the recent arrest and possible extradition of Roman Polanski to finally face his punishment for rape, sodomy, and other sexual abuse of a 13-year old in 1977. First, it’s […]
Another Bailout
This bailout was of a different kind, and potentially much more serious. In meeting with Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s representatives in Geneva, the U. S. and other major powers allowed his regime a legitimacy and rehabilitation that no amount of imagination could have perceived following the fraudulent June elections. President Obama characterized the talks as […]
The War of Necessity
“This is not a war of choice; this is a war of necessity. Those who attacked America on 9-11 are plotting to do so again…………..So this is not only a war worth fighting; this is fundamental to the defense of our people.”–President Barack Obama, speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, August 17, 2009. Well, […]
Dollar Watch
I have been harping on the misguided weak dollar policy of both the Bush and Obama administrations for well over a year, but I was struck by a recent article by David Malpass with this stunning revelation: “Measured in Euros, U. S. real per capita GDP is down 25% since 2000, while Germany’s is up […]
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