In Praise of France

Last week France (finally) announced that it is ready to help stablize Iraq. The childish attitude of the French over the past couple years about Iraq — the “they got themselves into this mess, let them get it out” attitude at the expense of a people who desparately need all the help they can [...]

It’s time to Slim Down the Competition

Currently in the Democratic and Republican Presidential races there are too many people running for President and wasting people’s time. I categorize the candidates into three groups: 1. Candidates who have relatively legitimate shot at the nomination, 2. Candidates who are in the race based on principle and have a message to get out [...]

Mitt’s Ames Bump

Coming out of the Ames straw poll last week, it seemed that Mitt had earned the sort of victory that was sufficient, but would have a minimal effect. It looked as though Huckabee was the big winner of all the candidates. After a week of analysis and watching the polls, however, it seems that the [...]

Hamas, Democracy, and U.S. Hypocricy

Since the end of WWII the United States has had a foreign policy centered around spreading democracy across the world.  The general belief is that democracy, though imperfect, provides the best mechanism for providing peace, building a market economy,  and cordial foreign relations - (not to mention keeping more countries in the good graces of the [...]

Ames: Called It! … Huckabee, Romney the Big Winners

Before diving into analysis, let’s review how I did on may Ames Straw Poll predictions:
Prediction: 1. Romney (by 13), 2. Huckabee 3. Giuliani 4. Brownback 5. Paul
Results: 1. Romney (by 13) 2. Huckabee 3. Brownback 4. Tancredo 5. Paul
Nailed it! Well, I was way off on Giuliani and think I (unofficially) had Tancredo in [...]