HOT5 Daily 3/28/2011

1. "Developing a New American Foreign Policy" Some excellent points.

Representative Sample: What Obama is doing, frankly, is pushing for the appearance of short-term economic recovery that’s brought on by dumping huge sums of government money (borrowed from our international creditors) into the economy.

2. "Keep It Clean" Good article on the CIA and how it has been emasculated.

Representative Sample: over the last three decades, the CIA has come under a lot of criticism for not being able to do their job. That has often been true, and the main reason is the climate of fear (of prosecution for something later declared politically incorrect). As a result, intelligence operatives and their bosses see survival as a matter of not taking chances.

3. "Republicans are more scientifically literate than Democrats or independents are" Although some of the poll questions reveal overall frightening levels of scientific illiteracy. More than a quarter of the population thinks astrology is scientific?

Representative Sample: It is often insinuated by major media sources that Republicans are less scientifically literate than Democrats are, primarily because of the former's skepticism over evolution and opposition to taxpayer funding of embryonic stem cell research. Jason Malloy dispelled this notion several years ago, but I wanted to present the GSS data on the topic in a more concrete and packaged form.

4. "The Morality Test for God" God fails.

Representative Sample: God is, by most accounts, good. So here’s the problem. There are countless instances where, if a human acted with regard to some instance of suffering or tragedy the way God apparently acts, then we would readily and without doubt condemn that person as morally wicked. That is, if a person acts like God acts, there would be no doubt in our minds that that person was morally evil.

5. "B-2s, Libya, and the Economics of Deterrence" What are B-2s for?

Representative Sample: The B-2 has now been used in four different conflicts: the Balkans, Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. I can understand why people might think this makes the aircraft an expensive white elephant, but when you start to try to understand what it's for the picture is rather more complex.

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