Maggie's Farm

Nudemen Clock. Clever

Fran Lebowitz: on learning about ballet and choreography from Jerome Robbins

Mead: The Education Change is Coming Faster Than You Think:

Nationwide, an estimated 250,000 students are enrolled in full-time virtual schools, up 40% in the last three years, according to Evergreen Education Group, a consulting firm that works with online schools. More than two million pupils take at least one class online, according to the International Association for K-12 Online Learning, a trade group.

The Old Urbanist visits Zuccotti Park

Congressional Inside Traders Are Above the Law

REVEALED: Nancy Pelosi Blocked Credit Card Reform While Investing Millions in Exclusive Visa Stock Offering

Disgraced ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff "confirms" Congressional insider trading

Just Like the Tea Party… 3 #Occupy Portland Protesters Arrested With Homemade Grenades

Want a glimpse of America’s future? Then cast your eyes on . . . Italy.

Regime Change in Europe: Do Greece and Italy Amount to a Bankers' Coup?

The EU: They never meant it to be a democracy

Is "Totalitarian Leftist" Redundant?

PG&E’s “ClimateSmart” Offsets Are Anything But

 Obama campaign adviser wanted Steven Chu out

Media Promote Myth of Clinton Golden Years, Hype His New Economic Book

Pipeline denied

Canadian PM eyes China after US pipeline delay

For Israel, a tough call on attacking Iran

Defense Spending Debate Misses The Point

Brave New Transnational Progressive World:

Transnationals are not so much anti-democratic as post-democratic. They believe that in the 21st century, democracy should be updated to include the enforcement of "universal principles of human rights" that they, of course, will enumerate and define. They talk not of surrendering sovereignty but of "sharing" it "collectively." The result, they assert, will be a new age of "global authority" that will produce "global justice" under a "global rule of law."

Indeed, since the end of the Cold War, transnational progressives have been establishing international laws — really supranational laws — that no voters can repeal or even amend. One way this is accomplished is to draft a treaty and apply international pressure to get the U.S. president's signature and the U.S. Senate's ratification. Judges — often from undemocratic countries — in transnational courts then interpret the treaty to mean whatever they want it to mean. There are no courts of appeal.

And if the U.S. rejects the treaty or agrees to only parts of it by issuing "reservations," the transnationals declare that the U.S. is bound nonetheless — under what they call "customary international law" to which, they further insist, even the U.S. Constitution is "subordinate."