Eric Martin

by Eric Martin I'm pretty sure that opposition to this community center is out of sensitivity to the non-Mulism victims of 9/11: My God is better than your God. That's the dispute at the heart of recent hearings in a lawsuit aimed at derailing the new Islamic Center of Murfreesboro. What started as a zoning issue has … Read more

by Eric Martin Sadly, I know the feeling:  

by Eric Martin Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger gave a speech yesterday defending a recently passed California law setting emissions standards/targets that, in many ways, shocked me deeply.  The reason for my surprise (pleasant at that) is that Schwarzenegger spoke some truths that are rarely uttered by mainstream politicians – and even less frequently by politicians on the … Read more

by Eric Martin Conor Friedersdorf's expresses his frustration with the Republican Party's rhetorical reverence of freedom and liberty (in the context of domestic safety net policies) while actively working to undermine actual freedom and liberty in tangible ways at home.  After citing an alarming list of ways in which civil liberties have eroded in recent years, … Read more

by Eric Martin Bernard Finel, riffing on the wrongheaded suggestion from the otherwise intelligent David Axe that the US involve itself militarily in the Congo (because, hey, our military is getting lazy just sitting around doing nothing, and our budget surpluses need to be spent somewhere, and winning other nations' civil wars is something of a … Read more

by Eric Martin Gulliver, reacting to reports that the US is mulling over a $1.2 billion arms/training package to Yemen as part of a burgeoning whack-a-mole counterterrorism effort in that country, sums it up quite concisely: A dude tried to get on an airplane in the U.S. with a bomb in his pants, and this … Read more

by Eric Martin [UPDATE: I see that Gary already posted this here diagram below.  Apologies for the oversight on my part.] The magic of venn diagrams: As created by Mark Shea. The accompanying post is worth a read too. (via Steve Hynd on Twitter)

by Eric Martin Joshua Foust sounds a somewhat pessimistic note on the eve of Parliamentary elections in Afghanistan.  In addition to the increased marginalization of women politicians (through intimidation and vioelence, no less), there is evidence of backsliding: In comparison to the 2009 election, nearly 600 additional voting stations will be closed this year. These … Read more

by Eric Martin And if it weren't for those meddling kids, it would have worked: Consider what the Limbaugh/Morano crowd is saying about climate: not only that that the world's scientists and scientific institutions are systematically wrong, but that they are purposefully perpetrating a deception. Virtually all the world's governments, scientific academies, and media are either … Read more

by Eric Martin Some months back, it was quite popular for pundits and foreign policy commentators to rue the fact that Obama was actually considering – gulp – engaging less-than-democratic regimes in North Korea and Iran (though the latter is, really, quite more democratic than the former). Notably, James Traub couched Obama's tepid, insignificant outreach … Read more

by Eric Martin The fact that there was a Muslim prayer room or, if you will, a mosque in one of the twin towers was very insensitive to the victims' families, especially the Muslims who prayed there and died: Sometime in 1999, a construction electrician received a new work assignment from his union. The man, … Read more

by Eric Martin Matt Yglesias takes note of the recent scuttlebutt regarding Iraq's inability to form a government: Apparently we’re trying to diminish the powers of the prime minister’s office as a way of greasing the skids of coalition: American officials said that the approach, which aims to bring Mr. Maliki’s State of Law party, … Read more

by Eric Martin John Quiggin, in musing on the relatively short lived era of the "hyperpower" (as measured by Thomas Friedman's arc of enthusiasm), distills what is the essential moral: A central lesson of this experience (of course, not one that Friedman or Joffe is ever likely to learn) is that the whole idea of a military hyperpower is a … Read more

by Eric Martin Sarah Posner makes a good point about the controversey surrounding the suddenly high profile planned burning of the Koran – the problem of anti-Muslim animus is far more pervasive than this one episode would suggest, and many of the same voices that are rising to speak out on this one issue are silent on numerous other similar incidents of … Read more

by Eric Martin Annie Lowery, arguing for additional tax brackets at the top, is making sense: For the past 20 years, the top income tax bracket has started around $370,000, and top marginal tax rate has stayed between 35 and 39.6 percent. But since the mid-1990s, the richest have gotten richer, earning a higher and higher … Read more

by Eric Martin This is an utterly shocking display of anti-Semitism, especially coming from a major media figure: But, frankly, Jewish life is cheap, most notably to Jews. And among those Jews, there is hardly one who has raised a fuss about the routine and random bloodshed that defines their brotherhood. So, yes, I wonder whether I … Read more

by Eric Martin A reminder to those that advocate for war with Iran of what war entails: In a pastel-colored room at the Baghdad morgue known simply as the Missing, where faces of the thousands of unidentified dead of this war are projected onto four screens, Hamid Jassem came on a Sunday searching for answers. In … Read more

by Eric Martin 1.  I have, at last, succumbed to the world of Twitter – because, yeah, blog posts are too long and detailed for the modern man.  That, and apparently, I don't waste enough time with Facebook, email and a gazillion blogs.  You can find me here.  If you, too, Tweet, feel free to reach out and … Read more

by Eric Martin Megan McArdle, to her credit, makes a go at an updated mea culpa for her position on the Iraq war.  One of the reasons cited for her, admittedly, flawed decision to support the war seems a bit odd, however: I erroneously believed that I could interpret the actions of Saddam Hussein.  He seemed to be acting … Read more

by Eric Martin Edward E. Curtis IV has a useful summary of facts/myths surrounding mosques in the United States (via).  In one portion, he comments on Sharia law (a topic of some concern on this site in recent weeks): In Islam, sharia ("the Way" to God) theoretically governs every human act. But Muslims do not … Read more

by Eric Martin Yet another post-mortem of the housing bubble and subsequent bank meltdown that debunks the conservative theory that loans to poor minorities/Fannie and Freddie was the culprit in any meaningful way: The wave of housing price increases was kicked off by changes in private label securitization. These changes left Fannie and Freddie with a … Read more

by Eric Martin The New York Times has a piece highlighting one aspect of the pointlessness of our ongoing slog in Afghanistan: The aide to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan at the center of a politically sensitive corruption investigation is being paid by the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Afghan and American officials. Mohammed Zia … Read more

by Eric Martin Now that the dust has settled regarding Jeffrey Goldberg's much anticipated, and much discussed, article on Israel's plans to launch a war with Iran (or, better yet, have the United States do the favor), I must say that despite the charges leveled against Goldberg – even from myself on occasion (propagandist, likudnik, … Read more

by Eric Martin This should come as no surprise, despite the heated rhetoric: the stimulus bill…stimulated the economy!  Alas, though it was not big enough, it was better than the alternative (as offered by the GOP, which was no stimulus, or a much smaller package consisting entirely of tax cuts): The oft-criticized stimulus plan boosted the … Read more

by Eric Martin A few weeks back, Bret Stephens took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to issue the latest iteration of what is a recurring hawkish argument in favor of continuing the war du jour (in the present example, Stephens is arguing for prolonging the longest war in US history - the war in Afghanistan): The U.S. … Read more

by Eric Martin Nicholas Kristof is very good on the Park51 project, and the strategic, historical and cultural significance of the wider controversey: Is there any doubt about Osama bin Laden’s position on the not-at-ground-zero mosque? Osama abhors the vision of interfaith harmony that the proposed Islamic center represents. He fears Muslim clerics who can … Read more