Outside the Beltway

The words “mother” and “father” will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology.

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

Andrew Sullivan makes a rather bizarre charge offhandedly: “Who among the neocons would have thought that one of George W. Bush’s final legacies would be bringing pogroms, bombings and genocide to Christians in his new zone of freedom?”

Are American diplomats lying to reporters because they figure our citizens can’t handle the truth?

NYT columnist Nick Kristoff says America’s income inequality makes us a banana republic.

Honors go to YahooNews and/or AP for “Levi Johnston wants to be mayor; has no platform.”

The Veterans of Foreign Wars has endorsed Ron Klein, who never served a day in uniform, over retired LTC Allen West, a decorated veteran of several foreign wars. Is this an outrage?

Should black people quit using the N-word to set an example for white folk?

The FBI is mad that Wikipedia has published a copy of its seal on their site.

Daniel Schorr’s journalism career ended far too early, lasting a mere eighty-one years.

While people keep flocking to Facebook in droves, the site has the lowest satisfaction rating of any e-business site.

Is Google manipulating its search results to keep competitors down? And does its market dominance mean the government should step in?

Thanks to JaMarcus Russell, I have learned a new term.

America may be the land of opportunity but it helps to have a head start in the rat race.