http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204778604577243640137724400.html Pentagon Plans New Sea, Land Measures to Counter Any Attempt to Close Persian Gulf Oil Gateway By ADAM ENTOUS and JULIAN E. BARNES The Pentagon is beefing up U.S. sea- and land-based defenses in the Persian Gulf to counter any attempt by Iran to close the Strait of Hormuz. The U.S. military has notified […]
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/NA31Dj01.html
Now we know that computers don’t help children learn and that drugs don’t help them concentrate, because the establishment mandarins who sold us the computers and drugs have conceded failure. In the January 29 New York Times, [1] a prominent professor of child development shows that attention-deficit-disorder drugs only harm the three million children who take them. One out of 10 American children have been diagnosed with so-called Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder and most of them have been medicated. [2]
Some months ago, the Times reported that test scores lagged in school districts that invested massively in digital education. [3] It does not seem to have occurred to the mandarins that computers cause attention deficit disorder. The brain is a machine, in the enlightened secular model, and so-called brain science teaches us to tweak its functioning with pharmaceuticals, or stimulate its development through digital approximations of intelligence. The grand result of a generation’s worth of brain-science application is a generation of schoolchildren who are disproportionately illiterate, innumerate, anxious, angry, and unhappy.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203391104577124480046463576.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories
Deepening Crisis Over Euro Pits Leader Against Leader
By MARCUS WALKER in Berlin, CHARLES FORELLE in Brussels and STACY MEICHTRY in Rome
BERLIN—On a chilly October evening in her austere chancellery, Angela Merkel placed a confidential call to Rome to help save the euro.
Two years after the European debt crisis erupted in little Greece, the unthinkable had happened: Investors were fleeing the government debt of Italy—one of the world’s biggest economies. If the selloff couldn’t be stopped, Italy would go down, taking with it Europe’s shared currency.
Her phone call that night to the 16th-century Quirinale Palace, once a residence of popes, now home to Italy’s octogenarian head of state, President Giorgio Napolitano, trod on delicate ground for a German chancellor. Europe’s leaders have an unwritten rule not to intervene in one another’s domestic politics. But Ms. Merkel was gently prodding Italy to change its prime minister, if the incumbent—Silvio Berlusconi—couldn’t change Italy.
Details of Ms. Merkel’s diplomatic channel to Rome haven’t previously been reported.
Her impatience shows the extent to which Italy’s woes undid Europe’s strategy to fight the crisis. Until then, Europe had followed a simple formula to preserve the euro: The financially strong would save the weak. But Italy, with nearly €2 trillion, or about $2.6 trillion, in national debt, was simply too big to save.
This Wall Street Journal reconstruction, based on interviews with more than two dozen policy makers, including many leading actors, as well as examinations of key documents, reveals how Germany responded to the dangers in Italy by imposing its power on a divided euro zone. Ms. Merkel, widely criticized for not dealing forcefully with the crisis in its early phase, was at the center of the action, grappling with personal tensions and Byzantine politics among the 17 euro nations.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204879004577108552536673724.html?mod=opinion_newsreel
By JOHN BOLTON
North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il’s death opens a period of intense danger and risk, but also potentially enormous opportunity for America and its allies. Kim’s health had obviously been poor for some time, and his regime has worked to ensure an orderly transition to his son, Kim Jong Eun. The Kim family and its supporters, with everything obviously at stake, will work strenuously to convey stability and control. Indeed, the official North Korea news agency has already referred to Jong Eun as “the great successor to the revolutionary cause.”
But the loathsome Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) is not a constitutional monarchy like Britain. While DPRK founder Kim Il Sung was powerful enough to impose his son, no guarantees exist that the North’s military, the real power, will meekly accept rule by his utterly inexperienced grandson.
Under the surface in Pyongyang, the maneuvering has almost certainly already begun. There is no reason whatever to
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204485304576642963032597504.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop By JOHN YOO This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of Clarence Thomas’s appointment to the Supreme Court. In his first two decades on the bench, Justice Thomas has established himself as the original Constitution’s greatest defender against elite efforts at social engineering. His stances for limited government and individual freedom make him the left’s […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203388804576613293623346516.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion RUBIO AND KIRK ARE THE ENERGY IN THE NEW GOP…..THIS PAEAN TO THE LIBYAN REBELS IS SO WRONG….MORE “ARAB SPRING” WISHFUL THINKING…..RSK The Promise of a Pro-American Libya On the ground in Tripoli, we saw an opportunity to advance U.S. interests in a pivotal region. By JOHN MCCAIN, LINDSEY GRAHAM, MARK KIRK AND MARCO […]
Week in Review: Sept. 26-Oct. 1 This week on the trail: Gov. Perry spent the week meeting voters and fundraising in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Washington, D.C. and Atlanta, and also made stops throughout Tennessee, and in West Virginia and New Hampshire. He spoke at the Georgia Public Policy Foundation luncheon in Atlanta and held a […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903927204576572511137736904.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
By RICK PERRY
The historic friendship between the United States and Israel stretches from the founding of the Jewish state in 1948 to the present day. Our nations have developed vital economic and security relationships in an alliance based on shared democratic principles, deep cultural ties, and common strategic interests. Historian T.R. Fehrenbach once observed that my home state of Texas and Israel share the experience of “civilized men and women thrown into new and harsh conditions, beset by enemies.”
Surrounded by unfriendly neighbors and terror organizations that aim to destroy her, the Jewish state has never had an easy life. Today, the challenges are mounting. Israel faces growing hostility from Turkey. Its three-decades-old peace with Egypt hangs by a thread. Iran pursues nuclear weapons its leaders vow to use to annihilate Israel. Terrorist attacks on Israeli civilians from Hezbollah and Hamas continue. And now, the Palestinian leadership is intent on destroying the possibility of a negotiated settlement of the conflict with Israel in favor of unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state by the United Nations.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904900904576555690461844986.html?mod=WSJ_hp_MIDDLETopStories By AMOL SHARMA, VIBHUTI AGARWAL and GEETA ANAND NEW DELHI—A bomb exploded outside New Delhi’s High Court on Wednesday, killing at least 11 people and injuring 66, in an act of suspected terrorism in the heart of India’s capital that further heightened concerns about the nation’s security vulnerabilities. The high-intensity blast occurred at 10:14 […]
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903480904576510701640477160.html?mod=opinion_newsreel Together We Can Beat the Deficit We did it in the 1990s and we can do it again today. By MAX BAUCUS AND JOHN KERRY AND PATTY MURRAYOur country has long been a beacon of light in the world because the American people always come together when times are tough. Over the past few […]
