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Posted by William A. Jacobson on December 08, 2008 1 Comment
The stimulus plan proposed by Barack Obama focuses on public infrastructure projects, which have a long history of cost overruns, corruption, and construction incompetence. Public infrastructure construction and maintenance is important, it’s just not an efficient use of funds if a quick economic stimulus is...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 29, 2008 0 Comments
I want to live: Captured terrorist Azam

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 29, 2008 0 Comments
The “alleged terrorist” attacks in Mumbai raise the issue of how to interrogate terrorists captured in the middle of an operation, when information may save innocent lives. In the longer term, the rules governing terrorist interrogation and detention may decide whether the terrorists live or...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 28, 2008 0 Comments
Reports from Mumbai, India, indicate that authorities have captured one or more of the terrorists responsible for attacks on hotels and other civilian locations. Although the attacks have been going on for over two days, as of this moment the situation is not completely under...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 28, 2008 11 Comments
The mainstream media, which swooned over Barack Obama, is going through a mild period of self-examination. Howard Kurtz‘ piece, A Giddy Sense of Boosterism, has sparked media self-examination over how the media debased itself through pro-Obama boosterism. Yet even in this self-examination, the pro-Obama bias...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 25, 2008 1 Comment
I am getting a little uncomfortable with the increasing tendency of the punditry to believe that Obama the President will be a centrist, unlike Obama the Candidate. The speculation among otherwise rational conservative commentators over how the left wingnuts must be going crazy is overdone....

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 11, 2008 0 Comments
Conservatives face a choice. Yield to “progressive” policies which, once implemented will take a generation to undo, or stand on principles of free enterprise, individual liberty, and capitalism? Giving in is much easier, but in the long run more costly. We can learn a lot...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 07, 2008 1 Comment
Barack Obama is one of the most aggressive politicians this nation has ever seen, but his aggression is masked by soothing talk and words of hope. Is it really surprising that Obama has named Rahm Emanuel, nicknamed Rahmbo for his aggressive partisan style, as White...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 06, 2008 0 Comments
In the video below, Obama supporters celebrating his victory unfurled the flag of the former Soviet Union. I assume these young revelers, just back from class on deconstructing everything that supposedly is wrong with the United States, have never read the works of Alexandr Solzhenitsyn,...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 03, 2008 0 Comments
Robert Shiller’s recent article, Challenging the Crowd in Whispers, Not Shouts, addresses the phenomenon of Groupthink in understanding speculative economic bubbles. Groupthink is a concept developed by Yale psychologist Irving L. Janis to understand why “experts” fail to speak out publicly to warn that the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on November 02, 2008 0 Comments
“One Person, One Vote, One Time” describes the phenomenon of democratic [with a small d] societies electing leaders who intend to change the institutions of government to ensure their own political survival. Examples in history are many, but most recently Hugo Chavez in Venezuela. Hugo...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 31, 2008 2 Comments
One of the nagging questions of this election is the emotional, almost violent, reaction of Obama supporters to Sarah Palin. The absurd and offensive verbal abuse hurled at Palin has been unprecedented, and the mainstream media has led the charge. But why? Many have speculated...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 30, 2008 0 Comments
Similar to my post Obama Is Door No. 2, Fouad Ajami in his great article in The Wall Street Journal, Obama and the Politics of Crowds, points out that the hysteria in favor of Barack Obama long ago passed the stage of irrationality: On the...

Posted by William A. Jacobson on October 13, 2008 0 Comments
I was a student of Russian and Soviet history in college, and spent a considerable amount of time in the Soviet Union. While a student in Moscow, I became close friends with the Yakir family (more on them in a later post), a family steeped...
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