Copyright 2009 Jeff Jacoby Fri, 03 Jul 2009 11:20:01 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Jeff Jacoby :: Writings http://www.jeffjacoby.com jacoby@globe.com (Jeff Jacoby) webmaster@pundicity.com en-us http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5782/no-climate-debate-yes-there-is Wed, 1 Jul 2009 09:00:00 EST IN HIS weekly address on Saturday, President Obama saluted the House of Representatives for passing Waxman-Markey, the gargantuan energy-rationing bill that would amount to the largest tax increase in the nation's history. It would do so by making... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5766/the-democracy-president-not Wed, 24 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EST THE CHOICE PRESENTED by the democracy protests in Iran could hardly have been clearer. On one side: a brutal theocratic regime that jails and tortures its critics at home and is a deadly sponsor of terrorism abroad; that loudly proclaims its enmity for... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5754/1984-60 Sun, 21 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EST NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR OPENS with one of the most famous first lines in modern English literature -- the vaguely unnerving "It was a bright cold day in April, and the clocks were striking thirteen." The line it ends with is even more famous, and... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5739/obama-iran-and-the-tiananmen-playbook Wed, 17 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EST IS BARACK OBAMA channeling George H. W. Bush? Twenty years ago this month, the first President Bush refused to condemn China's communist rulers when they unleashed a violent assault on pro-democracy demonstrators in the streets of Beijing. For weeks Bush... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5722/the-bay-states-low-standards Sat, 13 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EST THAT MASSACHUSETTS LAWMAKERS are a scurvy lot is not exactly breaking news. In his notes on the Constitutional Convention of 1787, James Madison records the comments of Elbridge Gerry, a Massachusetts delegate and future governor, on the caliber of Bay... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5702/the-racist-brand Wed, 10 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EST ONE DAY after President Obama nominated federal judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich labeled her a racist. "Imagine a judicial nominee said 'my experience as a white man makes me better than a Latina woman' new... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5693/in-cairo-the-president-pandered Sun, 7 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EST PRESIDENT OBAMA went to the Middle East, he said, to speak frankly and forthrightly about the issues that bedevil America's relations with the Muslim world. "Part of being a good friend is being honest," he had said in an interview just before his trip.... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5670/chinas-socialist-road-to-misery Wed, 3 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EST IT IS 20 years since the Tiananmen Square massacre, and China's communist regime hasn't budged an inch. The government has no reason to regret its murderous crackdown during "the political storm at the end of the 1980s," a foreign-ministry spokesman in... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5668/democracy-and-the-arab-world Tue, 2 Jun 2009 09:00:00 EST Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian sociologist and the founder of the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies in Cairo, is one of the Arab world's foremost democratic dissidents. He was imprisoned from 2000 to 2003 on charges of "defaming Egypt" and... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5631/called-to-marriage-called-to-god Sun, 24 May 2009 09:00:00 EST "I WOULD LIKE to have a family and at the same time serve God." By all accounts, the man who recently spoke those words is more than capable of doing both. The Rev. Alberto Cutié, a 40-year-old Roman Catholic priest, built a devoted international... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5603/a-two-state-peace-isnt-the-arab-goal Wed, 20 May 2009 09:00:00 EST WHO FAVORS a two-state solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict? President Obama does, of course, as he made clear in welcoming Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to the White House on Monday. So does former President George W. Bush, who began... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5589/arent-all-violent-crimes-hate-crimes Sun, 17 May 2009 09:00:00 EST LEGISLATION PENDING before Congress would dramatically expand the federal hate-crimes law, and a number of critics are concerned that the bill goes too far. Perhaps the real problem is that it doesn't go far enough. Under current law, crimes motivated by... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5575/the-party-of-colin-powell Wed, 13 May 2009 09:00:00 EST A PROMINENT SUPPORTER of Barack Obama told a Washington audience last week that "the Republican Party is in deep trouble" and "getting smaller and smaller" because its views are not in sync with those of mainstream Americans. Republicans would do better... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5568/lady-justices-blindfold Sun, 10 May 2009 09:00:00 EST JUDICIAL DISPASSION -- the ability to decide cases without being influenced by personal feelings or political preferences -- is indispensable to the rule of law. So indispensable, in fact, that the one-sentence judicial oath required of every federal... http://www.jeffjacoby.com/5563/little-pink-house Fri, 8 May 2009 09:00:00 EST On June 23, 2005, the US Supreme Court handed down one of the most reviled decisions in its history. By a vote of 5 to 4, the court ruled in Kelo v. City of New London that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses through eminent domain...