Archive for November, 2009

The Political Value Of Lives In Israel And Palestine

As previously blogged by this Conversationalist (me), there is a deal in the works between Hamas and the Israeli government to swap Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit for over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held by the Israeli government.  Now, it appears that the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) may be...
November 30th, 2009 | The Conversationalist | Read More

The Filibuster Used To Be Used More Appropriately

Mark Schmitt, executive editor of The American Prospect magazine wrote a fascinating post about the history of the filibuster last week: Underlying that, of course, was the structural change that came with the realignment from a four-party system, in which each party had a liberal and conservative wing,...
November 30th, 2009 | The Conversationalist | Read More

Why The Wall Street Journal Has More To Gain From A Deal With Microsoft

I disagree with Daniel’s post about The Wall Street Journal possibly delisting from Google. He is right that for the Journal, this deal probably won’t have much of an effect on page views one way or another. Fine. The difference for them is that now they would have Bing paying them for doing...
November 24th, 2009 | The Conversationalist | Read More

How Helpful Would Exclusive Search Rights Be For The Wall Street Journal?

So there’s talk of Rupert Murdoch making The Wall Street Journal unavailable on Google search and only available on rival search engine Bing. The idea is that Microsoft (which owns rival search engine Bing) pays the Journal to take itself off of Google’s search engine. The Journal then earns...
November 24th, 2009 | The Conversationalist | Read More

Another Example The Palestinians And Israelis Aren’t Valued Equally

The New York Times reported today that a Hamas-held  Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, will most likely be traded for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners: JERUSALEM — Israel and the Islamist group Hamas appeared to be nearing a deal on Monday to exchange a captured Israeli soldier for hundreds of Palestinian...
November 23rd, 2009 | The Conversationalist | Read More

Rep. Kennedy Banned From Communion Over Abortion

The topic du jour today seems to be healthcare and with that comes, unsurprisingly, some bizarro stories that are more hysterics than actual substantive events. Take this one in The Hill which reports that Rep. Patrick Kennedy was banned from communion at a Catholic church because of his support for...
November 23rd, 2009 | The Conversationalist | Read More