Cesspool of Corruption?
Bill O’Reilly makes Amsterdam out to be the worst place on Earth.
Nick Ottens
Nick Ottens is a public affairs officer for the Dutch Animal Coalition and a board member for Liberal Green, the sustainability network of the Dutch liberal party VVD. He is a former political risk consultant and a former research manager for XPRIZE, where he designed prize competitions to incentivize breakthrough innovation in agriculture, food and health care. He has also worked as a journalist in Amsterdam, Barcelona and New York for EUobserver, NRC, Trouw, World Politics Review and Wynia’s Week, among others.
GOP Taking Cues from Wall Street?
President Barack Obama was unusually defiant in his weekly televised address this Saturday, attacking special interests and “their allies in Washington” for resisting financial reform. The recession, according to the president, was caused by the financial industry. Indeed, it could have been avoided “if Wall Street firms were more accountable, if financial dealings were more […]
Those Racist Tea Parties!
Note to the left: not everything is about race.
Time for Realpolitik in the Near East
The Obama Administration’s Middle East policy appears to have swung from the slightly idealistic to the definitively realistic in recent weeks, with the opposition continuing to denounce the supposed naiveté of the president’s intentions. Barack Obama began his offensive in Cairo, Egypt last year where he called upon the Muslim world to end “the cycle […]
British Party Leaders Debate
Tonight ITV hosted the first televised debate between the leaders of Britain’s three major parties in the run-up to next month’s parliamentary elections. Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his foremost contender, Conservative foreman David Cameron attacked each other repeatedly while Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg tried to present himself as a fresh alternative to the traditional […]
Internationalizing Afghanistan
There was some troubling news coming out of Kabul last week. Afghan President Hamid Karzai not only invited his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to come visit; he supposedly told guests at the presidential palace recently that the Americans had invaded his country in order to dominate the region and that as such, they pose an […]
The Morality of Making Money
Ayn Rand described as the proudest distinction of Americans, “because it contains all the others,” she believed, the fact that they were the first to coin the phrase “to make money.” Men had always thought of wealth as a static quantity, she noted in “The Meaning of Money,” published in For the New Intellectual (1961), […]
George W. Bush’s Conservative Legacy
The president’s former speechwriter doesn’t tell the whole story when he tries to defend his old boss’ record.
Obama’s “Bizarre” Nuclear Policy Isn’t
The nuclear treaty with Russia is separate from America’s nuclear diplomacy with Iran and North Korea.
Chávez Destroying Venezuela’s Food Industry
Government monopolies cause food shortages and shopping frenzies in Venezuela.
America’s Future Nuclear Arsenal
In the wake of the release of the Defense Department’s 2010 Nuclear Posture Review and President Barack Obama’s signing of a new START treaty with Russia, what will the future American nuclear arsenal look like? Under the latest START agreement, the United States will maintain no more than 1,550 strategic warheads; seven hundred deployed intercontinental […]
Violence in Kyrgyzstan
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev flees the capital.
Cold Response
NATO forces exercise north of the Arctic Circle to test cold weather operations and interoperability.
Another Paul for Congress
The United States Congress may very well rank another pro-capitalist lawmaker among its numbers this fall as Rand Paul is leading in the polls to claim retiring Senator Jim Bunning’s Kentucky seat. Paul is a son of Texas Congressman Ron Paul’s who is known for his unwavering opposition to “big government.” He officially announced his […]
Perestroika 2.0
In spite of President Dmitri Medvedev’s great designs for Russia, his country is still in trouble, plagued by archaic power structures, aging military hardware and leadership and being the last of the BRICs to move out of recession. Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has some advice to offer. Writing for The New York Times, he […]