Dogs and Cats, Living Together!

Climate Change Is Not A National Security Threat, Newsday, May 31, 2015. "Earlier this month, the Obama administration released its latest blast on climate change: a cut-and-paste job from its own reports proclaiming that climate change has serious national security implications. This is embarrassingly shoddy stuff. But it's shoddy for a reason."

More Evidence of PoA Failure

Declines in National Reporting Reveal Failure of U.N.’s Programme of Action on Small Arms, Heritage Foundation Issue Brief #4412, May 28, 2015. "The decline of PoA reporting implies that while many U.N. nations were eager to win political kudos by participating initially in the PoA or by signing the ATT, they are unwilling, or unable, to live up to their commitments under it. This points to a fundamental problem with institutions like the ATT: What is lacking in this world is not commitments and rules, but nations with competent and honest governments. If nations cannot do the simple job of making even an inaccurate or dishonest PoA report, there is no reason to believe they can or will do the much harder jobs mandated by the ATT."

Against TTIP, Contra Mundum, Part II

TTIP: Small Upside, Big Downside, CapX, May 17, 2015. "One of the best things about the debate between believers in the free market over the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the so-called US-EU free trade area, is that it cuts to the heart of a larger question: how do we advance freedom in practice? A lot of opponents of TTIP on the left (and some on the right) reject it either because they hate free trade and the free market, or because they are old-fashioned protectionists. That’s not true of any of the participants in this debate. We’re all free marketeers: we just disagree on how to get there."

In Praise of Colin Dueck

, Newsday, May 16, 2015. "On Tuesday, President Barack Obama lost a vote on trade policy in the Senate. The strange thing is why he lost. For years, conservatives have voiced impatience with Obama's foreign policy. But this time, all but one Republican voted for him, and all but one Democrat voted against him."

I Guess I'm the Smart Money

They Said It Couldn’t Be Done, Weekly Standard, May 15, 2015. "The smart money said there was no way the Conservatives could win a majority in last Thursday’s general election in Britain. On the left, the New Statesman’s widely followed May2015 blog offered a cogent argument that there would be a blocking majority even against any repeat of the Conservative-led coalition government. On the right, columnist Matthew Parris echoed many Tories in fearing that the British people were about to make a terrible mistake. But it turns out that you hold elections because you don’t know the result in advance. On May 7, the British people returned a majority Conservative government. The smart money was wrong."

The Possible Populist Future in British Politics

A Very British Shock Result and What It May Mean, Yorkshire Post, May 12, 2015. "I’VE studied Britain for 20 years, but this last week gave me an appreciation for its politics I’ve never had before. Over the last seven days, I followed Conservative candidates in Darlington, Bradford West and Brent Central as they canvassed and addressed the public. All worked hard; all were worthy, and all were in tough constituencies. In the end, none won. Like every other commentator, I failed to predict accurately the outcome of the election. I thought the Tories would win 280 seats. But fortunately, learning isn’t all about making bad predictions."

Why Galloway Went Down

Bradford West, Tower Hamlets, and George Galloway, Weekly Standard, May 7, 2015. "It’s possible that George Galloway, the Member of Parliament for Bradford West in the United Kingdom, will lose his seat in the general election today. It would be nice if this reflected a revolt by his constituents against his habit of blaming “Zionists,” the U.S., and Britain for all the world’s ills. In practice, it’ll be because he’s done nothing of substance for his constituents since he was elected in a notorious 2012 by-election. But you take your wins where you can get them."

The UK Election, Featuring An Entirely Wrong Prediction

The UK’s General Election Will Be Either a Mess or a Disaster, National Review, May 7, 2015. "The recurring theme of election coverage in Britain this year has been that no one cares about the campaign. The satirical magazine Private Eye’s cover this week shows a sleeping David Cameron, with the caption “Passionate Cameron catches national mood.” Funny stuff, but wrong: The campaign has failed to move voters not because it’s been dull, but because Britain is balanced on an ideological knife edge, caught between a fading belief in a limited state and a pudgy love affair with banning, restricting, taxing, and spending. That knife-edge balance will find its reflection in today’s results."

The Election, Viewed from Brent Central

Why Britain’s Conservatives are Facing Defeat: They’re Short-Sighted, National Review, May 6, 2015. "The constituency of Brent Central, in northwest London, is a strange place. It’s new, for one thing: It was created by amalgamating and splitting several other constituencies in 2010. If the incumbent member of Parliament, Sarah Teather, had not decided to stand down, it might have stayed Liberal Democrat, which — in this election, when the Liberal Democrats are forecast to lose about half their seats — would have been an achievement for that party."

The Election, Viewed from West Bradford

A Conservative Takes on Britain’s Israel-Hating Windbag Par Excellence, National Review, May 6, 2015. "Bradford in Yorkshire doesn’t look like you’d expect it to. It’s notorious as the home of several of Britain’s worst race riots, and, since 2012, as the parliamentary constituency of George Galloway, the Soviet apologist and anti-Israel demagogue whose 1994 salute to Saddam Hussein’s “courage” marked the start of a new and more vicious phase of his career as a hater of the West. So you’d expect Bradford to be a post-industrial wasteland. Instead, it’s a city with a heart of broad, strong, Yorkshire stone and beautiful vistas over the dales. Rarely does a place look so much better than its reputation. But you know what they say about appearances."

The Election, Viewed from Darlington

In Northern England, the Tories Look to Regain a Little Lost Ground, National Review, May 5, 2015. "Darlington, a market town in County Durham in England’s northeast, is the kind of constituency that the Conservative party needs to win if it wants to form a government after the British general election this Thursday, May 7."

Strategy Without Prediction

U.S. Ignores Lesson Of NFL Draft at Its Own Peril, Newsday, May 3, 2015. "The NFL draft offers a few college football players the opportunity to fulfill their dreams. It offers us fans the opportunity to speculate, to cheer and to condemn. But it offers everyone something more: a lesson in American grand strategy."