Two events were cause for Americans to leave the house this past week: Sarah Palin and The Twilight Saga: New Moon. The mass, separate interest in each has left many who are fans of neither wondering: What the hell is wrong with these people? Sure, nobody ever went...

The Obama administration's move this week to slash the pay of top executives at 'too big to fail' firms under TARP should be applauded. And that ovation should last for about one second. The pay cuts are certainly just and good, given the current state of things, but ultimately it's...

To many observers, the recent New Jersey corruption sting, which resulted in the arrests of three mayors, two state assemblymen and five rabbis, seems rather surreal for the American social and political fabric. Most of the charges involve bribery or money laundering, but included on the docket are also more...

President Obama's self-imposed rule against lobbyists in his administration, and the method whereby he is now implementing his progressive agenda, hews toward a rather perverse irony, if not hypocrisy. He is admirably abiding by his anti-lobby diktat in most administrative nominations (with just a few small exceptions); and yet,...

As demonstrations continue in Iran despite a harsher government crackdown, the future of the opposition movement remains very much in question. And central to this question is the movement's de facto figurehead, presidential candidate Mir-Hussein Mousavi. With the Guardian Council refusing to annul the disputed June 12 election, and with...

Obama is rightly ignoring the calls from both the right as well as within his own administration to take a stronger stand on the situation in Iran. These pleas -- such as from Sen. John McCain, Rep. Mike Pence, Paul Wolfowitz, or Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden, as...

As mass demonstrations continued in Iran for a fifth day following what was viewed by many to be a rigged election last Friday, experts in the United States insist that the protests do not constitute a revolution. Nevertheless, the situation could incidentally end in prolific changes to the Islamic Republic...

In President Barack Obama's address to the Muslim world from Cairo, he spoke out against the subjugation of women and conveyed his belief that "a woman who is denied an education is denied equality." The speech comes two months after the Karzai government was forced by international obloquy to rescind...

Obama has more foreign policy luck. The first was a dramatic hostage situation on the high seas that ended with a Rainbow Six-style sniping of three Somali pirates. Now comes the reliably pugnacious Kim Jong-Il, using his signature saber-rattling (though admittedly somewhat heightened rhetoric, even for his standards) to shift...

In the international scheme of things, North Korea is undoubtedly the proverbial problem child lashing out to capture the parents' attention. And as with most miscreant children, the crux of the problem is not so much the child as it is the enabling parent -- which in this case is...

In the upcoming hearings to vet and confirm Supreme Court Justice David Souter's replacement, Senate conservatives are expected to center their focus on same-sex marriage, marking a departure from the past when abortion ruled the culture war divide. Their new strategy seems ill advised, unless of course there is...

General Motors bondholders are issuing a counteroffer in response to the debt-for-equity proposal issued on Monday of this week by the Obama administration's auto task force (under the supervision of Steven Rattner). The Monday proposal seeks to furnish the United Auto Workers union (UAW) with $10 billion and a 40...

The current swine flu epidemic, with all of its gravitas, actually almost makes light of another "epidemic" that has afflicted millions in the United States for years and which shows no sign of subsiding; namely, childhood obesity. On the one hand, we have a legitimate viral outbreak that raises the...

At Thursday's meeting this week with President Obama to discuss controversial credit card practices, one hopes that card-issuer CEOs will receive hospitality of the stiff-backed chair variety, rather than, say, plush leather. It will be a standoff similar to the hostage situation Obama dealt with in the Gulf of Aden...

The burgeoning conservative "teabagger" movement, and the "tea party" demonstrations set for Wednesday, has created opportunities aplenty for ridicule (as one would expect from a movement that shares its name with a frat boy prank involving a scrotum). However, beyond risibility, the "tea parties" are also an occasion for...

Markets this week expressed approval for the European Central Bank finally lowering interest rates a quarter point, down to 1.25 percent, with perhaps another quarter point to follow next month. But more importantly, there was celebration for the loosening of asset valuation rules by the Financial Accounting Standards Board,...

The administration's plan for the now-defunct American auto industry giants General Motors (GM) and Chrysler LLC is to enter a "surgical" structured bankruptcy, whereby the bad, fattening "cream" is skimmed off, leaving only the good, leaner remnants behind. In the case of GM, the hope is that a standalone "good"...

Responses to the AIG bonuses debacle have so far been aptly described with a "pitchforks and torches" motif. Hordes of disgruntled citizens are taking to the streets -- and AIG executives' driveways -- to direct their anger over a generational economic crisis towards a select few who have received bonuses...

President Obama's reversal of the Bush embryonic stem cell order has spurred an ethically chagrined cacophony from numerous op-eds, cable news commentators and politicians. The common thread in this slew has been a Pandora prophesy, of sorts, whereby it's believed that American society will be sundered to an unrecognizable...

At a time when President Obama has "returned science to its rightful place" and is now emphasizing the importance of education for securing America's future, the Washington Post chose to run a suspiciously laudatory front-page story today on creationist field trips to the Smithsonian Natural History Museum. The story...