It was aggravating enough when Justice Breyer, appearing on Good Morning America two weeks ago, made comments that many took to mean that Koran burning is equivalent to “shouting fire in a crowded theater.” After all, the Supreme Court doesn’t officially convene until Monday, but the scandals have already begun. Only a few days later, … Read more
It’s not unusual for the world community to talk about the Israel-Palestinian conflict in exceptional terms. Regional scholar William Quandt calls it “the world’s most difficult conflict,” a sentiment echoed in the disproportionate hours spent covering it in international media. Every event in the conflict and the peace process seems to take on existential meaning: … Read more
Thomas Friedman, yesterday, in this Times column, found his rhetorical flourish yet lost his practical sensibility. In a fairly particularly common theme for him, Friedman praises the autocratic, oppressive Chinese government as efficient and resourceful, while decrying “our poll-driven, toxically partisan, cable-TV-addicted, money-corrupted political class”. Friedman goes on further to suggest that politics today in … Read more
Harvard University is a private institution with a private set of needs, among them financial needs and the ever-present need to remain true to its institutional identity. If you’re interested in the question of whether the Social Studies Degree Committee should create a research grant in Marty Peretz’s honor, then that’s where you have to start, with … Read more
It was a little skirmish in a summer of big political battles. But the defeat of the DISCLOSE Act, a modest campaign finance reform measure pushed by President Obama and the Democrats, might have lasting importance. If Congress can’t even require transparency of the corporations that fund our elections, what hope is there of diminishing … Read more
I was disappointed to read The Crimson’s editorial this morning regarding Martin Peretz and the Harvard research fellowship that is apparently going to be endowed in his name. Peretz, the editor-in-chief of The New Republic, recently wrote on his personal blog that “Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims” and that he could not … Read more
The Harvard Political Review has joined with other college political publications to form the Alliance of Collegiate Editors (ACE), hoping to generate cross-campus dialogue on political issues. Rebiya Kadeer, a prominent Uighur rights activist currently living in exile in the U.S., agreed to answer some of our questions. You can read Ms. Kadeer’s biography in … Read more
Dylan Matthews* has a post up on his blog called “How Not To Write About Policy” — it’s a takedown of an essay by Mark Greif entitled Gut-Level Legislation, or, Redistribution, and a sort of mini-lecture on how to write like a wonk. It’s a pretty entertaining post. But it’s also, in my estimate, pretty far off the … Read more
In an op-ed this morning, Crimson columnist and HPRgument blogger Eli Martin argues that “wind energy is not as perfect as it might appear; a closer inspection reveals that it does not meaningfully reduce our reliance on non-renewable energy sources.” The gist of Eli’s argument is that the “unpredictability of wind power” requires about 80 … Read more
Here’s Bill Gates from a Wired magazine interview about the state of computer hacking: If he were a teenager today, he says, he’d be hacking biology. “Creating artificial life with DNA synthesis. That’s sort of the equivalent of machine-language programming,” says Gates, whose work for the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has led him to develop … Read more