Featured Articles — July 1, 2009

July 1, 2009 by Jonathan Movroydis | Filed Under Featured Articles 

Interesting Takes From Home And Abroad:

Learn from France — and consider banning the burka By Christopher Hitchens, Daily News
Last week French President Nicolas Sarkozy announced his support for legislation to ban the burka, the dark, heavy and not-too-comfortable garment worn by many Muslim women. The question arises: Is this forcible French secularism run amok, or a prohibition that Americans, who often believe we have struck a better balance between church and state, might entertain?

Just Do It By Thomas Friedman, New York Times
There is much in the House cap-and-trade energy bill that just passed that I absolutely hate. It is too weak in key areas and way too complicated in others. A simple, straightforward carbon tax would have made much more sense than this Rube Goldberg contraption.

“Better” Health Care?, By John Stossel, RealClearPolitics
President Obama says government will make health care cheaper and better. But there’s no free lunch. In England, health care is “free” — as long as you don’t mind waiting. People wait so long for dentist appointments that some pull their own teeth.

Obama’s Statist Ambitions By Gene Healy, CATO Institute
“I am a firm believer in the power of the free market,” President Obama told the Wall Street Journal recently. The “irony” surrounding his public image as a collectivist, the president insisted, was that “I actually would like to see a relatively light touch when it comes to the government.”

What’s the Chance of Stability? By Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami Herald
The United States, the OAS, the European Union, Hugo Chávez, Fidel Castro — most of all, Chávez and Castro — want Manuel Zelaya immediately restored to the presidency of Honduras. He was expelled from the country on the morning of June 28.

Iran talks must be delayed By Trudy Rubin, Philadelpha Inquirer
Now that Iran has officially confirmed its tainted election outcome, President Obama must reconsider how to deal with the regime. The big question is whether Obama should junk his plans for direct engagement with Iran’s leaders after their brutal crackdown on civil protest. “There’s no doubt that any direct dialogue or diplomacy with Iran is going to be affected by the events of the last several weeks,” the president said last week.

What will happen to Iraqi reconstruction when all the marines are gone? By Gaeme Wood, Foreign Policy
Last week I listened to Maj. Ashley Burch, a Marine civil affairs officer in Ramadi, explain a raft of ambitious reconstruction aimed to smother the town of Karmah — a persistent center of insurgent activity — in American largess. I was duly impressed. Then, as I walked out of the office, I glanced at a wall map of eastern Anbar province. A bright stripe of yellow Post-its ran across the 104 km highway that connects Ramadi to Baghdad, each with the words “No-Go Zone” written across the top and a date, with the more recent dates closer to Baghdad.

From Gdansk to Tehran By Andrew Nagorski, Newsweek
Iran’s Twitter-fueled protests may be using modern technology, but they’re drawing from an older playbook: Poland’s Solidarity movement of the 1980s.

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