A Healthy Alternative to Work

The Problem of Pork

Published on 2009-01-30 15:27:00

During the leadup to the Nov. 4 election last year, both candidates promised to take a strong stand against earmarks and pork in Congress. Now that Obama's stimulus plan has made its way through the House, it's clear to see that pork isn't going to be swept out of the U.S. government quite as easily as the electorate might have hoped.The stimulus bill, which in its House of Representatives form constitutes $825 billion in spending, apparently is a mish-mash of some legitimate projects and a hell

A new holiday tradition

Published on 2008-12-21 12:04:00

I'm not certain about this, but I am ready to bet that the phrase "the War on Christmas" was coined by Fox News' enfant terrible Bill O'Reilly, who, along with his simpering, platinum-haired cohort John Gibson, have made a new Christmas tradition (as well as, in Gibson's case, a fair amount of money) out of complaining that Christmas is "under attack."By who? Well, liberals, of course. Liberals, one is led to believe, are taking over the country in what is ostensibly a renewed effort to force ho

What did we learn?

Published on 2008-12-15 11:21:00

Well, it appears (so far) that I've survived my first semester of graduate school. Now, I suppose, would be as good a time as any to look back and figure out exactly what it is that I've learned.The first thing I learned was what political science isn't -- it is not comparative history, it isn't advanced civics, and it isn't about rhetoric. This may come as a surprise to no one other than me, but apparently, political science is actually science -- sort of.Even practitioners of the "social scien