No, really: Obama is what you might call a roundabout Jeffersonian. Jeffersonians, to borrow Walter Russell Mead’s phrase, believe that preserving America’s economic and political solvency requires reining in American empire. Presidents usually become Jeffersonian in times of economic crisis, public exhaustion, and unpopular war. The problem is that Jeffersonianism—which in different ways both Richard Nixon and Jimmy Carter embraced as a result of Vietnam—is perilous politics. Retrenchment can look

FREEDOM! The Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamic group once banned by Egypt, has become a force as the country undergoes a change in government, observers said. Because of its organization and network, the Muslim Brotherhood was expected to have an advantage while the post-Hosni Mubarak government takes shape, The New York Times reported Friday. What is surprising to some are the ties the organization has with its adversary, the military. “There

Q: When is a war not a “war”? A: When we call it something else, silly! Really. Why so dense?

It ain’t Ric Caric-level pseudo-intellectual foppery. But it’s getting close: From dancehall to raving, club cultures to sound systems, disco to techno, breakbeat to psytrance, hip hop to dubstep, IDM to noisecore, nortec to bloghouse, global EDMCs are a shifting spectrum of scenes, genres, and aesthetics. What is the role of ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, religion and spirituality in these formations? How does existing critical theory enable understanding of EDMCs,

Noted this yesterday in the comments, but I figure I should probably give it a place of prominence. By the way, anyone remember how the useful idiots on the left — and more than a few of “intellectuals” on the right — used to scoff at the notion that we have, in our country, people who are actively engaged in trying to destroy sovereignty and impose transnational progressivism on us

Origami. If only because it gives you an excuse to sit around buck naked under a nice silk kimono. Plus, swans! Doumo Arigatou Gozaimasu!

Misleading rhetoric seems to be all the rage these days, I must say. ALG: According to AAA, the average price of a gallon of gas in America reached $3.55 last week. That’s up 43 cents from a month ago – the second-fastest spike on record. All told, gas prices have increased by 67 percent since Mr. Obama took office – and as the global economy grapples with a nuclear crisis

The “Constitutional Protection Act of 2011.” Here’s hoping Boehner and Cantor aren’t able to find some procedural reason to strangle it in its crib. Or trade it for a another handful of scraps tossed their way by the Democrats.