By Isaac Yetiv, Ph.D. LA JOLLA, California — In the last few weeks, two enormous scandals shook a usually nonchalant and numb populace and even the politicians Right and Left. We will call them “The GSA extravagance in Las Vegas” and “The Secret Service debauchery in Cartagena.” The GSA, whose very existence was hitherto known [...]
By David Brin ENCINITAS, California — In a brief return to political matters… What won’t the candidates be discussing during this election season? Campaign finance, surveillance, patent reform…are among a few issues that candidates are sure to avoid. What else….? This mini-slide show shows just a few. In fact, the matters discussed at sciencedebate.org are [...]
By Daniel Halper WASHINGTON, D.C. –The Middle East has undergone systemic and radical change since the beginning of the so-called Arab Spring over a year ago. The leaders in Egypt and elsewhere are different-and in their place, well, there is not overwhelming evidence to suggest that the new guys are any friendlier to [...]
By Peter Huessy WASHINGTON, D.C. — Today, missile defense is under attack. This is not a new thing, however. Opponents tried to eliminate funding for ballistic missile defense when Ronald Reagan was President, sneeringly calling it “Star Wars” to denote how foolish they thought the idea to be. Under President Bill Clinton, defenses against [...]
By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Reading news reports can be like reading tea leaves. The combination of different items may mean more than any one of them says explicitly. Yet it is more art than craft. Conclusions may be sounder than received from a seer, but are less than certain. Currently my computer screen is [...]
By James Colbert WASHINGTON, D.C. –Providing the Egyptian military with unrestricted military assistance no longer serves American goals. While conditional aid is a relatively weak diplomatic tool, it is the only approach left to the United States to alter meaningfully Egypt’s negative trajectory that is propelled by an economy nearing collapse, ongoing human rights abuses, [...]
By Ira Sharkansky JERUSALEM — Israel and the United States are at another hiccup, or maybe something more. Catherine Ashton, serving as the European Union’s foreign minister and the chair of a meeting in Istanbul between Iran and representatives of Britain, France, Germany, Russia, the United States and China, is upbeat after the first [...]
Dear Chancellor Reed, Over two months ago, 1,800 members and supporters of the California Jewish community — including hundreds of CSU students, parents, alumni, and donors — signed a letter to you expressing their outrage over the University-hosted web pages of CSU Northridge Mathematics professor David Klein, which include anti-Semitic material promoting the economic, cultural and academic boycott of the Jewish [...]
By Shoshana Bryen WASHINGTON, D.C. — A lick of historicism would serve the Obama administration well in its much-too-friendly relationship with Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood (MB) and other manifestations of the Arab uprising. There is a political space between going to war with countries that do not share our democratic norms and principles, and embracing them [...]
By Isaac Yetiv LA JOLLA, California–Years ago we were regaled with a “wardrobe incident” on TV : a female performer “inadvertently” uncovered her breast. Days ago, a similar kind of incident occurred. It was a “mike incident” (microphone kept on while speakers thought it was off) , showing the president of the United States whispering to the president [...]
