Nancy’s War on Science – FRC Blog By the time Nancy Pelosi digs herself out of the hole her abortion comments have gotten her into, she’ll likely have reached some of the crude oil she’s keeping off the market. In defending her utterly baffling assertion that the “doctors of the Church” never were in agreement on when life begins she now cites some lesser… The American Spectator Every four years, pundits look forward to Labor Day as the launch of the “real” election season. This year, it’s especially appropriate, since …
DENVER — The Heritage Foundation is a conservative think tank. We are not experts on what the left wants. But after four full days spent listening to panels of progressive leaders describe what direction they want Barack Obama to take the country, we have to conclude that the left will, after careful reexamination, eventually be disappointed in Obama’s speech last night. Sure, the rhetoric was great, and the progressives here in Denver are genuinely excited about the Democratic ticket. But when it came to policy specifics on the issues progressives …
DENVER – The only consensus in the progressive community on energy is that the federal government needs to be spending a lot more money subsidizing alternative energy. Even the amount of money needed is in dispute. The far left Apollo Alliance is calling for $500 billion over ten years while Barack Obama is proposing a relatively modest $150 billion over ten years. The actual size of the spending only really matters if you care about the size of the debt we will pass on to our children. The more immediate …
Safe Search Tools & Portals for Kids: The List Keeps Growing – The Technology Liberation Front Over at Ars, Ben Kuchera has a review of Ask.com’s redesign of its web portal for kids, AskKids.com. It’s a great new addition to the growing list of safe seach tools and web portals geared toward younger surfers… The Internal Revenue Code Would Fit on Approx. 80 Rolls of Toilet Paper – The Tax Foundation After reading TaxProf Blog’s post about rolls of toilet paper with the Form 1040 imprinted on them, we wondered …
DENVER – Google CEO Eric Schmidt told an audience here at The Big Tent that the most common question he gets when he travels abroad is why Google insists on “supporting American hegemony.” Schmidt explained that “free speech is not a universal value” and that Google’s commitment to open accessible information is “seen as so obviously American worldwide.” Big Tent host Rachel Maddow earlier pressed Schmidt on Google’s cooperation with China, but Schmidt insisted that the way they worked with Chinese censors (by marking where each censored word or sentence …
The Democratic National Convention in Denver endeavored to be “the most environmentally sustainable political convention in modern American history,” according to the convention’s Director of Greening (really) Andrea Robinson. But how much green will all that green end up costing the rest of us? From recycled tote bags and name tags, to biodegradable balloons, to requirements for organic and locally grown menu items, to hotel key cards made from “sustainably harvested wood,” it was hard for delegates to go through each day without using numerous eco-friendly items. Most pervasive of …
Time magazine ran a story back in 2007 on “The Case for National Service.” The story described the positions of the candidates for president on expanding “public service” programs. Two of the Democrat candidates favored mandatory community service by all high school students. And two others — Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden — favored creation of a U.S. Public Service Academy for training civil servants. Barack Obama has centered speeches around this idea of public service. He waxes sentimental about what we can each do for our country. All in …
DENVER — The sponsors of The Big Tent are definitely taking good care of us bloggers at the Democratic National Convention this week. Bloggers are provided three free meals a day, free smoothies, and after around 1 p.m. free beer. This doesn’t even include all the purveyors of organic snack products roaming around offering samples. Organic chocolate is a little grainy, but still quite delicious. The only problem is that everything mentioned above comes in some sort of packaging. That’s when you run into the trash police. Whenever you want …
DENVER — One of Barack Obama’s only legislative accomplishments in the U.S. Senate is the Legislative Transparency and Accountability Act, which passed in September 2007. When he announced his candidacy in Springfield, Ill., Obama called the bill “the most sweeping ethics reform since Watergate.” Critics from left and right, however, have called it a chilling threat to free speech. This is something to boast about? Obama’s ethics bill sounds good on paper: “strict bans on receiving gifts and meals from lobbyists; new rules to slow the revolving door between public …
The Gang of 10 now rolls 16 deep. Six more Senators, three Democrats and three Republicans, joined the original gang of ten Senators seeking to expand offshore drilling, albeit the production expansion would be limited and taxes would be raised over $80 billion to promote renewable sources of energy. Repealing tax breaks for oil companies would be a part of the strategy to raise this money. President Bush did his part by repealing presidential restrictions on offshore drilling, an executive moratorium that was in place for nearly twenty years. And …
