Do we have a "Deep State?"

Powerful, unaccountable, and secret--the Minotaur Veiled!  Usually the term appears in discussing Turkey or Egypt.  I don't buy everything in this piece--the idea is compelling but unfalsifiable--but it is worth reading and thinking about. 

http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/

At least the author Lofgren was a Hill staffer who had some opportunity to view this from the inside. 

They Got Shorty

 Here's a good account of the Mexican and US police work involved in capturing Joaquin "el Chapo" (Shorty) Guzman last week.  This is a big victory for the rule of law in Mexico.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/safe-houses-key-to-drug-king-capture/2014/02/23/ab218a9a-9cc3-11e3-8112-52fdf646027b_story.html

So many times I've heard the Mexican government had a "deal" going with Guzman at the expense of other traffickers.   It took 13 years to capture him, about the same length of time it took us to get Whitey Bolger and Osama Bin Laden. 

The Problem of Consensus

Fred Singer, professor emeritus from the University of Virginia, blasts the oft-repeated claim that scientists are nearly-unanimous on climate change.  See his piece in American Thinker here:

http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/02/climate_consensus_con_game.html

Krauthammer also chimes in with a good piece today, saying essentially the same thing:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/charles-krauthammer-the-myth-of-settled-science/2014/02/20/c1f8d994-9a75-11e3-b931-0204122c514b_story.html

Will Obama approve the Keystone pipeline?  Election year politics says yes, but he's a true believer on climate change. 

Is Atheism Irrational?

Frank Sheed said famously that belief in God was "sanity."   Atheists see the material world as the only reality, but this too is a belief system.  See this interesting exchange with the philosopher Alvin Plantinga: 

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/02/09/is-atheism-irrational/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0

Americana:  Champlain's Dream

One of "America's" great founders.  A review by the important historian David Hackett Fischer.  I was pleased that UB published my review on this one. 

http://www.kirkcenter.org/index.php/bookman/article/new-world-man/

Going to Pot

The movement to legalize cannabis in various states represents a step backwards for our national health and wellbeing.  In 1997 I wrote this lengthy piece, "The Kingpins of Drug Legalization" to analyze the forces behind this wrongheaded campaign. 

http://www.culturewars.com/CultureWars/Archives/cw_recent/legalization.html

Sticking it to us on climate change

Michael Mann, the Penn State climatologist and inventor of the "hockey stick" model, is suing Mark Steyn for libel.  Note this post by Steyn, quoting at length from Michael Crichton's State of Fear: 

 http://www.steynonline.com/6082/stick-of-fear

Also worth reading is the excellent and funny James Delingpole of the Spectator on the Steyn case.  Note his apt reference to Paul Johnson's Modern Times.

http://www.spectator.co.uk/columnists/james-delingpole/9136061/the-martyrdom-of-mark-steyn/