Politics

TAXING TIMES….Oregon voters have rejected an income tax increase designed to help balance their budget. Anti-tax sentiment is apparently still stronger than fear of losing services.

CHESS UPDATE….Garry Kasparov got snookered by Deep Junior in the second game of their match and had to settle for a draw after having a clear win in sight. Still, it was a pretty good game since he was playing black. Kasparov now leads 1.5 to .5. Game 3 is on Thursday.

THE FORTUNE 500 VS. THE REPUBLICANS….Sam Heldman points out today that a lot of big companies oppose President Bush’s stand on affirmative action because it reduces the pool of minority graduates they can recruit from. I’ve also read a number of articles lately saying that corporate America is rather shaky in its support of war […]

AT LEAST “D” WON’T BE COMING UP FOR A WHILE….The chairmanship of the UN’s Conference on Disarmament rotates alphabetically. Because of this, the chairman of the next session in May will be Iraq. Co-chair is Iran. Oh my.

STATE OF THE UNION….Marian and I watched the State of the Union address while slurping down Chinese food tonight, and then played Scrabble. I think the Scrabble was more entertaining. I don’t usually watch political speeches, even the SOTU, because they’re just too predictable and tedious. And sure enough, the domestic part of the speech […]

CAN CATHOLIC POLITICIANS DISAGREE WITH THE CHURCH?….Blue Streak has an interesting post today: according to the Sacramento Bee, the bishop of Sacramento has publicly told Governor Gray Davis that he should stop taking communion unless he changes his liberal stance on abortion. Just goes to show how much I know: I didn’t even realize Davis […]

HIDING THE EVIDENCE?….Over at RealClear Politics, Tom Bevan writes: ….the United States has announced it will release more evidence on Iraq’s WMD programs. This has all the markings of a set up by the Bush administration. They may not provide a “smoking gun,” but you get the sense they have conclusive proof of Iraqi violations […]

ADDRESS CHANGE….O’Toole File has moved to its own site and is no longer part of Political Professional. Update your bookmarks accordingly.

BUSH VS. THE UNITED NATIONS….Yesterday on CNN Bill Schneider reported on the latest poll results: We asked Americans, who do you trust more to make the right decisions regarding Iraq? The Bush administration or the United Nations? No contest. Right? Well, think again. It’s a tie. As many people say they trust the U.N. as […]

MAN VS. MACHINE….WHO CARES, ANYWAY?….Josh Chafetz wonders why so many people are interested in all these man vs. computer chess matches, and he makes a good point: what’s the big deal if a computer is better than a human at chess? After all, computers are already better at humans when it comes to, say, calculating […]