Archives for May 2011

Marshall Thompson

When President Obama announced the death of Osama bin Laden, one of the most surprising things to me was that U.S. military forces had entered into Pakistan without permission. It probably shouldn’t have surprised me, since Obama stated early on in the 2008 elections that, if needed, he would do precisely that.

“If we have Osama bin Laden in our sights, and the Pakistani government is unwilling or unable to take [him] out, then I think that we have to act,” Obama said in a 2008 town hall debate against John McCain. In rebuttal, McCain then chastised Obama for being so ignorant of foreign policy to think that you could violate another country’s sovereignty without blowback.

[Read more…] about Adolf Eichmann and Osama bin Laden

Yevgeny Shrago

While America was understandably caught up in the news about Osama bin Laden this week, two of America’s closest allies held elections. Canadians went to the polls for the fourth time in seven years to select a new Parliament, and Britons voted on a new method for choosing theirs. The outcome in both countries proved a setback for the non-traditional election methods and a victory for the incumbent conservative party.

Yesterday, Britons voted against instituting the alternative vote (AV), also known as instant runoff voting, the baby of the notoriously underrepresented Liberal Democratic party. Although the Lib Dems receive 20% or more of the vote in every election, their support is sufficiently spread out that they have less than 10% of the seats in Parliament. With the AV, Lib Dems could have gone from irrelevance to holding the balance of power in electoral districts (called “ridings” in Canada and Britain) where neither of the two larger parties can grab a majority. Instead, the referendum’s defeat ensures continued underrepresentation of Lib Dem voters.

[Read more…] about Getting Alternative

Jessica Jackson

Although I’ve been active in the Democratic party since the tender age of ten, when I stood outside of the Mill Valley Safeway handing out Clinton flyers,  I’d never been to a Democratic Convention until last weekend.  As an alternate delegate, I went to the convention primarily to assist with a campaign called “CUT THIS: The Death Penalty.”  The goal for the weekend was to pass a resolution calling on Governor Jerry Brown to convert the sentences of all the death row inmates to permanent incarceration and thereby save tax payers a billion dollars in the next five years.  With the convention starting on the heels of the Governor’s statement last Thursday that it would be “unconscionable” to allocate $395 million to a new death row facility in the midst of the State’s budget crisis, I had high hopes that CUT THIS would succeed.

[Read more…] about It isn’t 1986 anymore…It’s time to CUT THIS!

Anthony Kammer 

I should be clear: I am delighted to be graduating with my degree. But in commemoration of my final week of law school, I’d like to use this opportunity to consider the macroeconomic implications of the increasingly hard-to-deny bubble in American higher education. Pointing out this bubble’s existence has become a kindof de rigeur exercise among online commenters. The basic point is this: the cost of higher eduction continues to rise rapidly while the real risk-weighted value of a degree declines.

Nevertheless, American families, banks, and even the U.S. government continue pouring more money into this depreciating asset. There are speculative aspects to the higher education industry (like online for-profit degree mills), but what’s driving this bubble is a Hobson’s choice: even if higher education is a scam, not having a degree looks like an even worse fate. Like housing, education is almost an economic necessity in our society. That is precisely why the housing crisis has been so virulent, and it’s why an education bubble is so troubling. What many commenters have found particularly ironic about this whole situation is the complicity of our most esteemed educational institutions in translating that necessity into massive profits and ballooning endowments.

[Read more…] about The Ivory Bubble

 Marshall Thompson 

It appears that Charles Cooper, lead counsel for the Prop 8 defendants, is getting desperate.  Last week, he filed a motion to vacate the judgment of the federal district court that ruled against him because the judge was gay.

Judge Vaughn Walker announced earlier in April, after retiring from the bench, that he was in a ten-year committed relationship with man.  Cooper’s brief for the motion to vacate the judgment lists three main reasons why Walker crossed the line:

1.       He was in a committed same-sex relationship.
2.       He didn’t tell anyone about it.
3.       He never stated clearly that he did not want to get married in California.

[Read more…] about Judge Walker’s Sexual Orientation

HLPR Online editorial stuff

It’s been (kinda) all Wikileaks of late on the HLPR Blog.  Our bloggers have each covered the topic from varying angles, but all with interesting and relevant pieces.

Check them out!

[Read more…] about HLPR Blog Roundup: Wikileaks