Little pleases me more than a discussion with a modern-day evangelical conservative who has been told all their life by their conservative parents, teachers or mentors that America was ‘founded on God’ and who hold Thomas Jefferson as the embodiment of their values.
The fact is, as mentioned in this post about deism, that Thomas Jefferson’s […]

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The United States of America is not above reproach, and clearly not without fault either. But I’m sick and tired of hearing my fellow Europeans pontificate about American policy and culture in moralising lectures during which their countries are portrayed as leaders somehow trying to show America how to be ‘progressive’. (What they […]

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Crawley reports that the economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates the war in Iraq to have cost the United States three trillion dollars.
“America’s annual aid contribution to the continent of Africa costs as much as ten days fighting in Iraq. Stiglitz estimates the US could end illiteracy in the world for the price of two weeks of […]

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Jonathan Rauch writes:
“The eclectic McCain is a handyman, not an architect. His skills and positions are well suited to fixing the Bush-era mistakes and getting the country to listen to Republicans again. But he is not a man of ideas like Reagan, Barry Goldwater, or Newt Gingrich. He could lead the party out of the […]

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Are you sitting comfortably?
So the U.S. launches a spy satellite in 2006 incorporating some top-secret U.S. technology to be used in the international war on terror and national defense in general. But a technical issue with the satellite makes it almost immediately inoperable, uncontrollable, and on a slow path toward the earth’s atmosphere, where […]

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So, Mitt Romney is out. This is interesting, considering that many considered only him and John McCain to be the “serious” contenders for the nomination. Left in the race: John McCain (the inevitable?), Mike Huckabee (blah) and Ron Paul.
So why didn’t Ron Paul do better on Super Tuesday? James Ostrowski attempts […]

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Today I was having a discussion with a British acquaintance on the subject of the death penalty, and it quickly became clear to me that he was making a fundamental mistake in his thinking on America. When Europeans talk about America, I’ve noticed that they tend to misconstruct matters of law and policy because […]

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I get several forwards every day in my inbox. A ‘forward’ is of course one of those emails which has been sent to thousands of other people before you, and whose central purpose is to get you to pass it along to everyone on your own email list. They exist merely to multiply, […]

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I’ll be off to a cabin in the mountains tonight, and not back home until Sunday. Whether or not I get the chance to blog over the holiday remains to be seen; in the meantime, I’d like to say that I think this is an important holiday.
To those who live in America, Happy Thanksgiving. […]

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This is brilliant. The Manifesto Club is holding an event in London which celebrates Thanksgiving by provoking debate on America:
“We have invited a range of cultural commentators, journalists, politicos and Manifesto Club members to take part in a ‘balloon debate’. America, we say, is a great balloon that is slowly sinking to the earth. […]

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Dear Tim Dowling,
Perhaps you feel that the views of an America-bashing American will be more palatable for the snobby British liberal readers of the Guardian to read than the views of an America-bashing Brit. In this, sir, you have sold out - not because you lack the right to criticise - but because you […]

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As the fires in California finally come under the control of exhausted firefighters and over half a million people begin to make their way back into their San Diego area homes, some Europeans seem to have developed a hate for Americans such that preempts any thoughts of support or empathy for other human beings in […]

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