A blog by Nicholas Solter about politics and everything else
Posted in Iraq War on Feb 29th, 2008
In his recent Newsweek column, Fareed Zakaria rebuts Bush’s argument that democracy is the antidote to terrorism, and shows that Bush, in his support for Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan, doesn’t even follow his own rhetoric. Some choice quotes from the article:
“Pakistan took Bush’s advice last week… The results returned to power civilian parties that had […]
Posted in Separation of Church and State on Feb 28th, 2008
A Jewish high school in Denver, the Herzl/Rocky Mountain Hebrew Academy, is two wins away from the basketball championship game. However, even if they make it to the final game, they won’t be able to play because it’s supposed to take place on Saturday, the Jewish Sabbath.
Thus far, the Colorado High School Activities Association (CHSAA) […]
Posted in Security on Feb 22nd, 2008
Security expert Bruce Schneier wrote a great article rebutting the conventional wisdom that we must sacrifice privacy in order to obtain security. He writes,
“Security and privacy are not opposite ends of a seesaw; you don’t have to accept less of one to get more of the other. Think of a door lock, a burglar […]
Posted in Barack Obama, Election 2008, Politics on Feb 21st, 2008
Barack Obama is not a Muslim. Nope; if you believe what you can read on the National Review Online, it turns out he’s actually a Jewish Communist. These rumors are really becoming comical. All I can say is that Republicans must be feeling pretty desperate.
Posted in Education on Feb 20th, 2008
I’m pleased that my alma mater, Stanford University, has significantly enhanced its undergraduate financial aid program. Specifically, families making less than $100,000 per year will not be charged tuition, and families making less than $60,000 per year will not be charged room and board. Stanford of course will continue its need-blind admission policy, in which […]
Posted in Separation of Church and State on Feb 18th, 2008
In honor of Presidents’ Day, here’s what our first four presidents had to say about church-state separation:
George Washington
“…we ought to ascribe the absence of any regulation, respecting religion, from the Magna Charta [Constitution] of our country.”
-From a letter to the New Hampshire-Massachusetts Presbytery, November 2, 1789.
“It shall still be my endeavor to manifest by overt […]
Posted in Education on Feb 14th, 2008
Republican state representative Larry Liston apparently believes that he has an innovative method to prevent teen pregnancy. During a recent meeting, he said,
“In my parents’ day and age, they were sent away, they were shunned, they [young, unwed parents] were called what they are. There was at least a sense of shame… There’s no sense […]
Posted in Education on Feb 12th, 2008
The Air Force Academy recently featured three speakers who claimed to be former terrorists who saw the error of their ways only after converting to Christianity. One of the speakers, Walid Shoebat, said, “There is no radical Islam; there is Islam itself.”
Many people have rightly spoken out against this event. However, their complaints have been […]
Posted in Feminism on Feb 11th, 2008
Here’s another excellent column by Leonard Pitts, in which he laments the refusal of most people to call themselves “feminist” even when they agree with, and benefit from, the goals of feminism. He compares this phenomenon to a similar one with the word, “liberal,”
“Feminist,” it seems, has ended up in the same syntactical purgatory as […]
Posted in Election 2008, Politics on Feb 8th, 2008
Although I still think the format is discriminatory, I enjoyed the novel experience of participating in a caucus last Tuesday evening. Sonja and I recruited her parents to baby-sit so that we could both attend our caucus at a local middle-school. Not knowing how many people would show up, we were pleasantly surprised to find […]