Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 313

Towards a conservative foreign policy

We have gone from one foreign policy extreme (waging wars to impose democracy on people who don’t want it and who have no cultural or religious foundation for it) to the other (projecting a weakness that has given us Islamic radicals taking over Iraq, Russian aggression in eastern Europe,  Chinese aggression in Asia, a war [Read More...]

Why blow up Jonah’s tomb?

The radical Iraqi Muslims that call themselves the Islamic State, a.k.a. ISIS, blew up a site that has been venerated for centuries as the tomb of Jonah.  This was in Mosul, the site of what used to be the Biblical city of Nineveh.  Some characterized this act of vandalism as an attack on Christians, but [Read More...]

Cat places vs. dog places

Some people, it is said, are cat people and others are dog people.  The same can be said of states and countries.  Some have more cats and some have more dogs.  After the jump, a discussion of the phenomenon and a link to some maps that show the cat places and the dog places.  What [Read More...]

Russia’s economic & political clout

Anne Applebaum points out that Russia has a smaller population than Nigeria or Pakistan, with an economy about the size of Italy’s.  But it has a lot of economic and political clout–possibly enough to thwart the recently-imposed sanctions for what Vladimir Putin is doing to the Ukraine and other of his neighbors–thanks to an intentional [Read More...]

We are all Nazarenes

The Nazis painted a yellow Star of David on the homes of Jews to mark them for persecution.  Today the Islamic State in Iraq is painting an Arabic “n”–for Nazarene–on the homes of Christians for the same reason.  In a show of solidarity, Christians all across the world are adapting that letter, using it as [Read More...]

Dodging a solar bullet

Two years ago, the sun blasted out two clouds of plasma.  If this had happened one week earlier, they would have hit the earth, knocking out our power grid and doing so much damage that we would still be trying to repair it. From How a solar storm two years ago nearly caused a catastrophe [Read More...]

USA and Europe agree on sanctions against Russia

President Obama announced an agreement with the European Union that would slap what could be some serious sanctions on Russia, an attempt to punish Vladimir Putin for his aggression in the Ukraine.  Europe had resisted imposing sanctions, but the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner has changed its collective mind. Details of the sanctions after [Read More...]

Mollie Hemingway: Washington’s coolest scourge

We’ve linked quite a bit to the work of my friend and friend-of-my-daughters Mollie Hemingway, a confessional Lutheran journalist who is now a senior editor at The Federalist (a lively site of wit and intellectual firepower that you will want to bookmark).  Well, she is having quite a bit of impact in our nation’s capital [Read More...]

Stoned federalism

The United States Constitution sets up a system of federalism, a union of states, each of which can have separate laws.  We are seeing some quirks of federalism today, as certain states legalize and commercialize what neighboring states treat as a serious crime. Colorado is turning marijuana into a major industry and tourist attraction, while [Read More...]

Meriam Ishag is safe

The Sudanese woman who had been sentenced to death for refusing to recant her Christianity was released last week after another detention.  She made her way to Italy with her family, where she had an audience with the Pope.  She is reportedly headed to the United States. From Meriam Yahia Ibrahim Ishag’s release and safe [Read More...]