A couple days later than perhaps would have made a decent show, Congress managed to slap together a stop-gap and avert the economic catastrophe that the CBO projected would have resulted from the fiscal cliff. So let’s get to business–what does the cliff deal do, and where does this leave us going forward?
Continue reading “The Fiscal Cliff: Stepping Back From the Abyss”
Recently the film Zero Dark Thirty has been getting a lot of press both in the United States and abroad. It is interesting how the reviews differ–in the United States, the film is regarded as a patriotic thriller celebrating the vanquishing of an enemy, and has received mostly positive reviews. In Europe, however, it is seen to glorify torture and celebrate the various ethically dubious practises of the United States over the last decade in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would like to venture forth into this discussion of torture and whether or not it ought to be permissible.
I happened upon an old article by the sage of Brooklyn himself, Nate Silver, about what Silver calls the hidden costs of airport security. Silver references a study out of Cornell University that indicates that the there were significant consequences to the increase in airport security post-9/11 that went unreported and unnoticed. These consequences were not merely financial–people died.
Late last night in Benghazi, US ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens was killed by a mob angered by a film called Innocence of Muslims, promoted by the famous American pastor Terry Jones, notorious for his burning of the Quran, the Muslim holy book. The film mocks Islam and Muhammad. Having viewed the trailer, it is clear that the film is not only quite intellectually vacuous, but the acting and production values are all very poor. It is the sort of piece that reflects more poorly on its creators than it does on those it cricitises. Yet, for all this, an embassy was stormed and an American ambassador killed, and on the anniversary of the September 11th attacks, of all days. There is a lesson in all of this–proportionality. That is today’s topic.
Continue reading “9/11, Chris Stevens, and Proportionate Response”
Benjamin Studebaker 