Why We Are Better

This is, in part, why we are better off nationally and internationally with a president like Barack Obama than a bellicose one like Dick Cheney—I mean George W. Bush... I mean both.

Archangel Mikhail Gorbachev

In this interesting interview in The Nation, Gorbachev is not parsimonious in self-praise, though one should give the man credit where it's due. We often forget that the fall of the Soviet Union and the other Eastern European 'Communist' régimes was due to the efforts of people there—both those in power and those who took the streets. Reagan was just one side of a dialogue that would not have been if the other party had turned a deaf ear like they had done for decades.

Советский Антиамериканскую Пропаганду

This website that I found through Boing Boing has compiled a number of anti-American and anti-imperialist propaganda from the Soviet Union. Some of them are funny and clever, some not so much... as is the case with all propaganda, of course.

It is especially interesting if you speak Russian and understand the slogans. This one is particularly poignant and somehow still relevant. The 'map' is the Middle East.

Worsts of Healthcare Reform

Foreign Policy magazine enlightens us with a list of four of the worst healthcare reforms attempted around the world. Not surprisingly, the United States makes the list, alongside Russia, Turkmenistan, and China.