Outside the Beltway

The lines between our public and professional identities and our private and social ones continue to blur.

Mitt Romney starts his 2012 run as the frontrunner for the Republican nomination. But, in reinventing himself yet again, the “authenticity” issue that troubled many of us in 2008 looms again.

Mike Huckabee apologized for saying Barack Obama grew up in Kenya, explaining only that he meant that the president isn’t a Real American.

The United States Army is radically redesigning its physical fitness test.

Americans had it so much better in the 1950s, right?

Labor and management are not simply adversaries at the negotiating table; they represent two very different cultures, if not social classes.

Players have taken control of the NBA from the owners. That’s bad for fans. But probably a good thing.

A former Democratic state attorney general thinks Wisconsin’s Republican governor may have violated state ethics laws while on a prank phone call.

Wisconsin’s taxpayers are paying 100 percent of the cost of the benefits programs for state employees. But the benefits amount to a payment in kind.

A new site will identify news articles based on press releases rather than journalism.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker did not campaign on the union-busting package he’s proposing now.

Four U.S. citizens on a yacht hijacked by Somali pirates last week are dead. American military have killed the pirates.

We can’t rely on private companies, the stock market, or the taxpayers to maintain our lifestyle in our golden years.

Tweeting feels like IM’ing but it’s more like blogging.

Here are some cooking tips from a master chef.

Ezra Klein dubs the Federal government “an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army.”

Microsoft Internet Explorer 9 could be a Google killer. It could also kill the Web as we know it.

JCPenney used black hat SEO to game Google. But Google’s penalties are arguably just as bad. And what about HuffPo?

Do conservatives believe in evolution and global warming?

The Obama administration’s investigation into Toyota safety problems has found no electronic flaws to account for reports of sudden, unintentional acceleration and other safety problems.

Yet another study finds conservatives wildly underrepresented in higher education.

Why on earth are we still using coin operated parking meters when our highest value coin in actual use can only buy you seven and a half minutes of parking?

An interpretation of the events in Egypt.

How do the DC suburbs of Maryland and Virginia compare?

AOL has bought the Huffington Post. But, really, it’s the other way around: HuffPo has taken over AOL.

Revolutions don’t happen over a weekend.

Was the 2011 SOTU a blatant rip-off of past speeches? Or simply banal?

Does Russia really spend more on roads than we do?

More on the attack at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport.

What happened to the 15 million jobs that were supposed to be created in the past 10 years but weren’t?

Now that Republicans have the House, wouldn’t they be better off playing nice?

Martin Luther King’s historic “I Have a Dream” speech was, like a political stump speech, crafted and polished over months and years of delivery.

Factions on the right and left continue to charge one another with trying to politicize the Tucson murders. They’re now nitpicking the memorial service.

Despite anecdotal evidence debunking global warming, 2010 was another record year for warm temperatures.

What happens if Southern Sudan’s independence referendum succeeds?

Wondering why CATO doesn’t rail against big business is like demanding to know why NARAL doesn’t spend more time advocating for the plight of stray cats or why PETA doesn’t seem to care about the homeless.

Are we in the year twenty eleven or the year two thousand eleven.

While our politics are seldom violent, our violence is often politicized.

While I support a college playoff, there’s an argument to be made for the integrity of the regular season.

We’re producing more PhDs and JDs than there are full time openings for professors and lawyers.

House Republicans want to do away with the increasing number of “czars” in the White House.

New research shows that “across the world the main social groups which practice polygyny do not consume alcohol” and, conversely, “a positive correlation between monogamy and alcohol consumption (and especially between monogamy and drunkenness) across societies.”

Why is the press gushing over routine movement in White House team?

President Obama is likely to issue a signing statement in order to keep his Gitmo options open.

Getting an American passport will set you back around $230. Is that reasonable?

Will the Tea Party Movement grow up?

Does NATO membership serve a strategic purpose?

Iraq’s PM re-affirms Iraq’s commitment to the U. S. withdrawal date in the Status of Forces Agreement.