[ Posted Monday, October 28th, 2013 – 15:58 UTC ]
Even though it took a long time to get to this point, it was an effort worth making. Which is why the nations of the world should now start a new conversation in some internationally-neutral city, with the expressed purpose of defining what is and what is not allowable for the future of warfare (and spying). Three major topics of such an agreement should be: passive cyberwar (spying on communications), active cyberwar (virus and other attacks), and robot warfare (drones and other automated weaponry).
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[ Posted Friday, March 8th, 2013 – 18:12 UTC ]
Our column's subtitle this week is a silent homage to guitarist Alvin Lee of the band Ten Years After, who sadly died this past week. Anyone who has seen the movie Woodstock knows of Lee's incredible talent on the electric guitar, and we just wanted to begin by noting that Alvin Lee is "Goin' Home" for the last time. Requiescat In Pace.
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[ Posted Monday, October 22nd, 2012 – 21:29 UTC ]
To paraphrase an oldie but a goodie: "What if they had a debate and nobody read the agenda?" Tonight's debate was, ostensibly, supposed to be on foreign policy. However, both Mitt Romney and Barack Obama decided fairly early on that the differences between the two policy-wise were pretty small, so they both decided to hijack the foreign policy debate and instead just continue the debates on the economy, instead.
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[ Posted Friday, October 12th, 2012 – 16:36 UTC ]
We come to you live from the arena, the day after the vice-presidential debate. The lights are being removed, the podiums are gone, and the cleanup crew is sweeping up the tiny, tiny pieces of Paul Ryan which were left all over the stage last night.
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[ Posted Friday, September 14th, 2012 – 15:22 UTC ]
The second item of note is that today marks the fifth "birthday" of this column series. September 14, 2007 saw the very first Friday Talking Points column ever (although the name and the column format wouldn't solidify for a few months). Since then, almost every Friday, we've been attempting to provide Democratic talking points for politicians to use to get their point across in a snappy and memorable fashion. How much success we've had doing so is open to interpretation, but we're still here doing it, which tends to indicate that Democrats still have a ways to go to match the Republican ability to keep "on script" during interviews. To put this another way, it's the old Democratic "herding cats" problem.
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[ Posted Friday, May 4th, 2012 – 16:36 UTC ]
If you've been hiding under a rock somewhere all week, you may have missed the fact that an anniversary just happened. One year ago this past Wednesday, special operations forces killed America's "Enemy Number One," Osama Bin Laden. When it happened, it was a time for some sober reflection -- and some unsober and spontaneous celebration on the streets. Whether such was a good thing or not, it is what happened.
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[ Posted Tuesday, January 24th, 2012 – 22:43 UTC ]
I haven't written one of these snap-judgment reactions to a speech in a while, so forgive me if this is a bit choppy and disorganized. As always, I am writing this before looking at other opinions of President Obama's just-completed State Of The Union speech. I feel this keeps my opinion unsullied by any sort of "groupthink" effect. Sometimes I read other speech reviews the next day and find I agree with them, sometimes not, but this way at least you know I'm not just regurgitating others' thoughts.
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[ Posted Wednesday, January 4th, 2012 – 16:07 UTC ]
President Obama had a pretty good month last month in the job approval polls, bettering his standing in both approval and disapproval by roughly three-fourths of percentage point. This may not sound like that big a deal, but it was the second straight month of solid gains for the president in both categories.
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[ Posted Friday, December 16th, 2011 – 18:36 UTC ]
As always, if you disagree with any (or all) of my picks, feel free to make your own in the comments. The categories are completely open to interpretation, and don't forget that there will be a "Part 2" column next week, so I can likely squeeze things I forgot in there.
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[ Posted Wednesday, June 22nd, 2011 – 12:54 UTC ]
Later today, President Obama is going to address the nation on the subject of the Afghanistan war. Specifically, he's going to make good on a promise made a year-and-a-half ago: to begin the withdrawal of American troops from Afghanistan next month. The big question everyone's been speculating about in the run-up to this announcement has been how big a reduction the president will announce.
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