Dear Mitch Daniels: I’ve learned from recent news reports that thanks to your efforts as governor to ban Howard Zinn’s book, A People’s History of the United States, from Indiana classrooms, interest in and sales of the book have soared. Although you are no longer the governor of Indiana, but instead the president of Purdue […] … learn more→

World Net Daily is a news service for people who think that National Review and American Statesman are too moderate. So I was very surprised when WND distributed the following poster to mark the anniversary of the 9-11 attacks. I understand that for many conservative Christians repentance is not necessarily linked to a specific sin […] … learn more→

Here’s my quick and dirty run-down of Putin’s op-ed published in yesterday’s New York Times. In some places, I assess whether his statements are accurate in terms of what political science research has said. In other places, I just look at it from a logic perspective. His statements are in quotes, and my responses are […] … learn more→

The other week I got a chance to just sit and chat with a group of new ANU PhD candidates. The subject was problems. As you can imagine, I totally loved it because as the students talked I wrote about 20 blog posts in my head. Amongst the many topics we discussed that night was […] … learn more→

President Obama has set the higher education agenda for the remainder of his term by linking consumer fears with politics. There is substance in the president’s arguments about sticker price, the squeezing of the American middle class, and the failure to provide access to a higher education degree for those who seek it. The fundamental […] … learn more→

Genetically modified food has had a rough year in what has been a fairly miserable decade. In August, 400 farmers in the Philippines stormed a government-owned GM (as it is known) research field. The protesters destroyed 1,000 square meters of Golden Rice, a variety genetically engineered to cut down on vitamin A deficiency. A 2013 […] … learn more→

Nuclear power generation in the United States is falling. After increasing rapidly since the 1970s, electricity generation at U.S. nuclear plants began to grow more slowly in the early 2000s. It then plateaued between 2007 and 2010—before falling more than 4 percent over the last two years. Projections for 2013 show a further 1 percent […] … learn more→

As a result of continuing pressure from regional accrediting associations, state legislatures, and coordinating boards for greater \”accountability,\” increasing numbers of colleges are using some form of outcomes assessment. In many cases those assessments involve objective or standardized testing. Much of the impetus for the increasing use of standardized testing in higher education and for […] … learn more→

The policies and realities of monitoring correspondence may vary, but the ethical implications are always significant … learn more→

With Obama’s request for Congressional approval for any action in Syria, the war powers debate is once again front page news. Some at the Monkey Cage, Forbes , the Nation, and Huffington Post have suggested that Obama should seek an explicit declaration of war; elsewise he is ignoring the constitutional role of Congress in foreign […] … learn more→