HOT5 Daily 5/6/2009

1. "The President hasn't apologized enough" More things Obama could apologize for.

Representative Sample: President Obama should apologize to the Germans as well. They would never have declared war on us if FDR had acquiesced in the Nazi need for lebensraum in other parts of Europe. Also, to his eternal shame, President Roosevelt never engaged Adolf Hitler in dialogue. Aren't all problems solvable if you negotiate about them long enough and hard enough?

2. "Call Off the Drones?" Is the drone assassination campaign in Pakistan actually counterproductive?

Representative Sample:The concerns Kilcullen raises are legitimate. In a better world I too would favor calling off the drones. As I have argued repeatedly, long-range precision strikes are not a very effective tool for counterinsurgency. If we can put a lot of boots on the ground, that’s a strategy much more likely to succeed.

3. "Extremely Disturbing" That would be the ideas of the new "regulatory czar."

Representative Sample: Sunstein has proposed that web sites be required to link to opposing opinions. He has argued that the Internet is anti-democratic because users can choose to view only those opinions that they want to see

4. "Obama Untested" Interesting speculation on possible crises.

Representative Sample: He has yet to be tested, and coming possible incidents could show us what type of decision-maker the president truly is. Consider that at about this point in his presidency, George W. Bush had just won the release of the crew of a U.S. plane from China, leading the world media elite to declare Bush a pragmatic president in foreign affairs

5. "A disproof of God" A clever bit of reasoning.

Representative Sample: A common argument in the service of deism is that a miracle-performing God actually works against himself. After all, God is responsible for the Laws of Nature that miracles violate. Wouldn't it be a more impressive God, a greater God, who accomplishes his purposes for humans without having to tinker with the natural order?

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