Republican candidate Charles Djou won the HI-01 special election with 39.5% of the vote because two Democrats, Colleen Hanabusa with 30.8% and Ed Case with 27.6%, split the Democratic vote almost down the middle. This is a great example of how the design of our election laws can greatly affect our government; a poorly-designed electoral system like Hawaii’s can result in winners that don’t best represent the will of the electorate.

For all the frustration and chest thumping, when you boil it down, the only non-crazy “new” idea is that authorities gather a bunch of smart people and see if they have an idea how to stop this thing that hasn’ beent/isn’t being tried.

[Welcome Malcolm Nance, and Host Matt Duss] [As a courtesy to our guests, please keep comments to the book.  Please take other conversations to a previous thread.  - bev] An End to Al-Qaeda: Destroying Bin Laden’s Jihad and Restoring America’s Honor Few Americans can claim the knowledge of radical terrorist ideologies that Malcolm Nance can. [...]

I was going to go clean the house and forget about the BP disaster for a few hours. But then I saw the EPA files on William Reilly, the Republican Obama appointed to co-chair his BP Disaster “Looking Forward” Commission.

Last night’s loss to Republican Charles Djou breaks a long string of Democratic wins in special elections, and does flip a seat to the Republicans, at least temporarily. But Rep. Djou would basically have to switch parties in order to win in November.

Let’s stop pretending Randy’s “extreme libertarianism” is any different from the views of practically every Republican in Congress, shall we?

Angela Merkel thinks speculators are the adversary, and she plans to win. Banning naked short sales is just the first move in the struggle.

The history of the ancient trade routes now known as “The Silk Road” is a tale of profound cross-cultural influence among peoples – Chinese, Turks, Persians, Indians, Koreans, Japanese, Europeans, Malays, Tibetans, Egyptians, East Africans. It was multicultural before there was anything labeled multicultural. Of course, it was a silk road long before it was [...]

If I could sit and stew a while longer on this and not elevate my blood pressure, I could come up with a much longer action item list for the White House with regards to the BP oil disaster. But I’m sure you have more ideas of your own. What do you want to tell this White House to do about the spill?

And this is what kills me, because it’s so apt a diagnosis and so foreign from what Obama’s presidency is actually pursuing.