In terms of foreign policy, Teddy Roosevelt is often misunderstood. Some see him as a progressive idealist; others as a cold-eyed realist. After all, the same Teddy Roosevelt who sent the Marines to Cuba also won the Nobel Peace Prize for helping to end a war between Russia and Japan. The same Teddy Roosevelt who built the Panama Canal by any means necessary also used American power to eradicate yellow fever and support public health in the Philippines and in parts of the Americas. And the same Teddy Roosevelt who spoke softly to our enemies never hesitated to carry a big stick.

This was realism, to be sure, but it was something greater, something nobler, a disposition that perhaps we should call the uniquely American Realism. It is this idea that I'd like to spend a few minutes talking about tonight.

Condi Loves Teddy's Big Stick

George Orwell warned about Big Brother, but some who glide through Bay Area toll booths to the "beepbeep" of FasTrak risk an even more haunting specter: Big Angry Soon-to-be-Ex Spouse.

As the number of cash-free bridge commuters rises, so do the ranks of divorce lawyers and other civil attorneys who have subpoenaed, and received, personal driving records from the agency that oversees the regional e-toll system.

"You just kind of wonder if people would as happily use this system if there was a big red thing on the transponder saying, 'All data collected by this device could be used in any court for anything,' " said Lauren Weinstein.

Lawyers dig into FasTrak data

A supporter once called out, “Governor Stevenson, all thinking people are for you!” And Adlai Stevenson answered, “That’s not enough. I need a majority.”

The central idea of this book is that voters are worse than ignorant; they are, in a word, irrational—and vote accordingly.

This book has three conjoined themes. The first: Doubts about the rationality of voters are empirically justified. The second: Voter irrationality is precisely what economic theory implies once we adopt introspectively plausible assumptions about human motivation. The third: Voter irrationality is the key to a realistic picture of democracy.

The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies

This op-ed could also be titled, Yet Another Display of Public Indifference.

This scandal is too important for the public or Congress to move on. This story should not end until Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is gone.

The degree of partisanship in the department is shocking.

It is hard not to see the fingerprints of Karl Rove.

In his upcoming HBO special, Bill Maher explains (I'm paraphrasing), "What angers me the most is how few people are angry."

Why This Scandal Matters

“I think it’s sad that President Carter’s reckless and personal criticism is out there,” Mr. Fratto said. “I think it’s unfortunate, and I think he is proving to be increasingly irrelevant with these kinds of comments.”

What's the saddest thing in the world? That the White House didn't say, "we disagree."

White House Says Carter Criticism of Bush Is 'Sad'

Privacy is a growing concern in the United States and around the world. The spread of the Internet and the seemingly boundaryless options for collecting, saving, sharing, and comparing information trigger consumer worries. Online practices of business and government agencies may present new ways to compromise privacy, and e-commerce and technologies that make a wide range of personal information available to anyone with a Web browser only begin to hint at the possibilities for inappropriate or unwarranted intrusion into our personal lives.

Engaging Privacy and Information Technology in a Digital Age presents a comprehensive and multidisciplinary examination of privacy in the information age. It explores such important concepts as how the threats to privacy evolving, how can privacy be protected and how society can balance the interests of individuals, businesses and government in ways that promote privacy reasonably and effectively?

This book seeks to raise awareness of the web of connectedness among the actions one takes and the privacy policies that are enacted, and provides a variety of tools and concepts with which debates over privacy can be more fruitfully engaged. Engaging Privacy and Information Technology in a Digital Age focuses on three major components affecting notions, perceptions, and expectations of privacy: technological change, societal shifts, and circumstantial discontinuities.

This book will be of special interest to anyone interested in understanding why privacy issues are often so intractable.

Engaging Privacy and Information Technology in a Digital Age

All governments deny their crimes, and most are understanding of each other's lies about them. Bush and Blair, with still more blood [than Putin] on their hands –– in all probability, that of over half a million Iraqis –– observe these precepts as automatically as Putin.

But there is a difference that sets Putin apart from his fellow rulers in the G8, indeed from virtually any government in the world.

On the evidence of comparative opinion polls, he is the most popular national leader alive today.

Since he came to power six years ago, he has enjoyed the continuous support of over 70 per cent of his people, a record no other contemporary politician begins to approach. For comparison, Chirac now has an approval rating of 38 per cent, Bush of 36 per cent, Blair of 30 per cent.

Russia’s Managed Democracy | LRB | Perry Anderson

Like Social Security in the United States, the autobahn is the third rail of German politics.

Wanna trade?

Call for Speed Limit Has German Blood at 178 mph Boil

A few hours after meeting a former KGB general outside a spy museum here, an outspoken critic of the Kremlin became engulfed in the kind of intrigue he studies when he was shot Thursday outside his suburban Maryland home.

The shooting occurred four days after the critic, Paul M. Joyal, warned on “Dateline NBC,” the television news magazine, that a “message has been communicated to anyone who wants to speak out against the Kremlin: ‘If you do, no matter who you are, where you are, we will find you and we will silence you in the most horrible way possible.”

Critic of the KGB Is Shot Outside His Home -- In Maryland

Mr. Kasparov had handed the bullhorn to Sergey V. Gulayev, a member of an opposition faction in the local legislature in St. Petersburg.

“The government is afraid of the slightest wind,” Mr. Gulayev he told the crowd. “The government is fragile, and afraid, and will collapse with one push.”

As he spoke, riot police shoved through the crowd and grabbed the bullhorn from his hands, smashing it against the wall of a building. A policeman put Mr. Gulayev, grimacing, in a headlock and dragged him into a police vehicle as members of the crowd yelled “Shame! Shame!”

Police and Protesters Clash in St. Petersburg