Recent ZBloggers
Recent Sustainer Blogs
By David Peterson at Mar 13, 2005
Recalling the long career of the late evolutionary biologist Ernst Mayr, who died in early February at the age of 100, after spending more than six decades as an intellectual leader in his field, a former colleague of Mayr's writes (March 13): Way ba... (More) Comments (62)
Social Contracts, American-Style III
By David Peterson at Mar 12, 2005
Right-wing attacks on the Federal Old-Age and Survivors Insurance and Disability Insurance Trust Funds (a.k.a. Social Security) I can live with. They fool nobody. Nobody who's honest, anyway. (Not a trivial qualification.) Ultimately, they are nothing... (More) Comments (3)
Social Contracts, American Style II
By David Peterson at Mar 12, 2005
Man. Is the class-warfare dragon in the States fanning its wings these days. Or what? Not only does it feed off the Bunko Artist-in-Chief's proposal to “reform” the Social Security system---potentially the single greatest financial scam in American his... (More) Comments (9)
Social Contracts, American-Style I
By David Peterson at Mar 11, 2005
The last time I looked at the phenomenon of bankruptcy in the States---and, yes, it appears that Americans lead the world in this category too, inasmuch as comparitive date are available---as they do in public indebtedness, private indebetedness, military... (More) Comments (3)
By David Peterson at Mar 10, 2005
The "Arab World" keeps turning up lately. So much so, in fact, that it sometimes seems as if the English-language media have caught an "Arab World" cold, and can't stop blowing their collective nose. Of course, I won't speak for you. But I for one can'... (More) Comments (3)
By David Peterson at Mar 07, 2005
Last July, the highly respected Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland reported that slightly more than one-in-two Americans (56%) believed that “genocide” either had or was in the process of occurring in the Darfur states... (More) Comments (49)
By David Peterson at Mar 06, 2005
Anyone care to take a stab at the reasons why the "international community" would expect Iran to permanently forgo all uranium-enrichment activities, and why this morning's New York Times expressed shock over the fact that "Iran says it won't"? Sure. A ... (More) Comments (30)
By David Peterson at Mar 05, 2005
According to the CIA World Factbook 2004, among the slightly more than 11 million people who live on the island of Cuba (exclusive of the Guantanamo Bay population, that is), "nominally 85% [of them were] Roman Catholic prior to Castro assuming power"---t... (More) Comments (3)
By David Peterson at Mar 04, 2005
The March 2005 issue of the Washington Monthly has just published a lengthy article titled, "The Case for the Draft." Co-authored by Phillip Carter and Paul Glastris, the article's revealing subtitle reads: America can remain the world's superpower. ... (More) Comments (16)
By David Peterson at Mar 03, 2005
"We find ourselves in an era of monumental advancement for human rights and democracy," Paula Dobriansky, the American Under Secretary of State for Global Affairs, said on Monday. She was releasing the State Department's annual Country Reports on Human R... (More) Comments (2)
By David Peterson at Mar 02, 2005
An "alarming number of unresolved questions about Iran's nuclear program," Jackie Sanders, the American ambassador to the International Atomic Energy Agency, warned at the IAEA's Board meeting in Vienna today. The Agence France Presse report from which I... (More) Comments (3)
By David Peterson at Mar 01, 2005
A U.S. District Court in New York City today heard the opening arguments in a class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of 27 Vietnamese victims of one category of chemical weapons stemming from the American war over their country four decades ago: Operation R... (More) Comments (31)
By David Peterson at Feb 28, 2005
Judging by official statements to have come from the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei, so far this year, the most important steps the parties to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty can take to reduce the risks associated ... (More) Comments (0)
By David Peterson at Feb 26, 2005
Nearly one month ago, The Chronicle of Higher Education examined the reasons why the number of Iraqis killed at the hands of their American liberators has failed to make a dent in the English-language media's coverage of the war and occupation. And this ... (More) Comments (16)
By David Peterson at Feb 26, 2005
See also Iran I. [Continued from Iran I. The capacity this blog will hold forced me to paste the second-half here.] The same challenge still applies, however. You take a look at the material I've archived in these two blogs. Then, you tell me... (More) Comments (0)


