Vaclav Klaus, the president of the Czech Republic, is about to take the helm of the EU. He will serve as EU President for next six months, starting January 1, 2009. This is not necessarily good news for Europeans, Americans, or any one else, given that my encounters with his...

Not all infrastructure has been created equal. Some parts are yesterday, and should be relegated to the famous dust bins of history rather than cemented into our future. Their light is blinking red -- stop investing in them, as much as is politically possible. The best examples are those elements...

Among all the difficult choices and severe challenges President Obama will face on January 20th and in the months and years to follow, there is one very attractive change that is relatively easy to bring about. The major reason I am wildly optimistic about a US/Russia deal is that it...

A good debate has started as to the size of the stimulus package the economy badly needs, and above all regarding what it should include. I suggest that paying in part for the greening of all public facilities should be included. I urge focusing on public facilities because these are...

If fifty million Frenchmen can be dead wrong, as the saying goes, so can four very senior statesmen. Over the last two years, George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn--all veterans of the Cold War--have popularized the idea that the best way to protect the...

The welcome stimulus package President-elect Obama and Congress are putting together is way too small. The proposed stimulus, referred to as "extraordinarily large" by the New York Times, "ambitious" by NPR News, "massive" and "hefty" by the Washington Post, "aggressive" by the Wall Street Journal, and "sweeping" by the Financial...

My original timetable called for President Obama to retire Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (the highest ranking uniformed military commander) on Jan 20 at 12:01 pm -- as quickly as possible after the new president took his oath of office. I then considered that one must...

A powerful social science theory, much advanced by Robert Frank of Cornell, provides a strong rationale for setting a ceiling on the incomes of the executives of all corporations that receive public loans, capital injections, or some other favor from tax payers. (Surprisingly many, by the way, if you include...

Public voices that are often raised (frequently for very good reasons!) to criticize many of the policies of the Bush Administration (and Israeli policies in dealing with the Palestinians), are mum about atrocities committed by extremist Muslims. I wonder why we do not hear a peep from these voices when...

Bailing out GM, Ford, and Chrysler is anti-change. Many agree that the United States--and the world--need to shrink the auto industry and grow new industries that use renewable resources and are more environmentally (climate included) friendly. The current crisis provides an opportunity to let the obsolete sector of the economy...

There are those who dream that Obama can govern with the support of the millions of young people he inspired, and the many not-so-young who joined in, led by a modestly paid staff and numerous volunteers. The same untutored optimists believe that this dedicated and well-organized social movement, plus the...

Are social conservatives failing the most elementary test of ethics: to not discriminate? They seem to hand out boatloads of free passes to McCain and his political partner, while withholding the high marks due to Obama and kin.

For decades, social conservatives have extolled the value of marriage. However, we...

The following conversation between a white sociologist, an African American mother, and her 15 year-old-daughter was recorded a few years back. However, it still seems to provide a rather personal exchange about how the meaning of race in America is changing, long overdue and too slowly, but for the better.

Senator McCain claims that the U.S. is "winning" in Iraq and that a surge will lead to victory in Afghanistan. This, despite the fact the General Petraeus keeps stressing that the U.S. gains are "fragile," and that Brigadier Carleton-Smith, former commander of the British forces in Afghanistan, recently observed that...

Congress should instruct the U.S. Treasury to issue to each American household a mortgage reduction voucher worth $7,500. There are about 100 million households in the U.S.A., so the total cost would be roughly the same as the proposed bailout of Wall Street investors and banks. Because these vouchers could...

Anyone who believes that the United States can march into a country, topple its regime, and build a prosperous democracy, ought to read, study and read again Imperial Life in the Emerald City. The book is a very close-quarter account of the first year of the American administration of Iraq....

There are few scholars I respect nearly as much as Richard Thaler (University of Chicago) and Cass Sunstein (Harvard), and none more. Their new book, Nudge, is chock-full of new ideas, and they pulled off quite a feat by winning the favor of both the Tories in the UK and...

One of the clichés of Obama's presidential election campaign is that the invasion of Iraq was the wrong war but that the war in Afghanistan is the right one. After all, Afghanistan served as a haven for terrorists. Indeed, Obama and Biden call for a...

Bush is reported to be in the legacy building phase. Having ignored the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for most of his administration, the President wants a quickie peace deal as part of his legacy. It is not going to happen. Instead he has generated a new, major mess in Georgia that he...

The next president should include in his agenda the greening of all public facilities within 3 years. Such greening should be required of all federal facilities (from office buildings to prisons, from courts to military bases), and of all corporations that receive substantial amounts of federal funds in grants or...