On the Health Care Debate

[read my previous post on this subject for more context]
Tea Party Rally (Again)
On Wednesday, I went on a 5 mile run to the Capitol and back to my apartment before my afternoon shift of work began.  On the west lawn of the Capitol was a fairly sizeable Tea Party rally that took up most of [...]

State of the Nation After 9/11/09

Oh man, where to begin.  I think I’ve been a little frustrated lately because I haven’t written in a while.  So let’s get it out there so I can move on.
National Tea Party, 9/12
This last Saturday was the National Tea Party Day in DC.  The Tea Party is a rallying cry for essentially Jeffersonian anti-big [...]

Surpluses and Shortages

I’m moving out of my Georgetown rowhouse and just started my job, so I’ve been a little busy and haven’t been able to write much.  That’s one reason Twitter is so great — I’ve been able to just send some quick tweets (the other reason it’s so great is its generativity (see Jonathan Zittrain) — [...]

We Want No Taxation, No Representation

Financial time bombs are no longer shocking to discover these days.  Collateralized debt obligations, the American auto industry, real estate, credit, struggling state government balance sheets, etc.
IRC Stupidity
Yesterday Obama gave a speech on how health care needs to be fixed immediately as costs are spiraling out of control.  The New Yorker just had a good [...]

Political Mismatch

I went to a cool meet-up/happy hour between students from my Georgetown MSFS program and Tufts’ Fletcher School last week.  I had a great conversation with one of their students about how potentially there’s now an intellectual mismatch between the Republicans and Democrats.
During the last election, it was interesting that so many hardcore Obama supporters [...]

Recruitment

I was having lunch with a couple buddies of mine, one of whom took Michael Scheuer’s “Al-Qaeda and the Global Jihad” class with me.  He reminded me of one of Professor Scheuer’s best points made during the semester.
I might have forgotten some of the details, so I apologize, but I hope to capture the main [...]

Inauguration Weekend

I’ve been waiting for this weekend for years now…  When I first entertained the thoughts of going to Georgetown for grad school, I recognized that the timing would be such that I’d be in DC for this.
It will be historic.  Everyone’s a little nervous, not sure what will happen.  Hopefully a lot of good stuff [...]

US Forces “Volunteer” to Leave Iraq

It’s interesting to live through the times of American occupation of Iraq.  What the Bush Administration sees as a necessary move, not without its faults, that has eventually led to a nascent democracy, is nothing short of tragically comic.  What we see as “giving peace in the Middle East a chance” will in future history [...]

Idea for a Georgetown MSFS Start-Up Fund

Hi.  I am currently a second-year student in the Masters of Science in Foreign Service program at Georgetown University.  The program is housed within the School of Foreign Service, one of the best international affairs programs and international development programs in the world.  A list of alumni is at Wikipedia.
I am considering an idea to [...]

My Tech Policy Memo to President-Elect Obama

For my excellent “What’s Shaping the Internet?” class with Professor Michael Nelson, we had to write a 6-page memorandum to either President-Elect Obama, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, or some other organization head, using three main policy points.
I chose to advocate for an innovation commons, a push for open-source government interfaces, and a national identity system.
I [...]