I’m down visiting with the ARCA Foundation Board at Musgrove on St. Simon’s Island in Georgia after a couple of harsh travel days. Great ideas being bounced around here on how to help animate better public policy and policy activism. Very impressive people here.

Just after the election, the realization of Governor Palin’s privilege to fulfill Senate vacancies drew gasps from liberal circles. The scenario that played out in the left’s collective fear involved Sarah Palin, who had been banished back to Juneau after losing, appointing herself to Ted Stevens’ seat, should the convicted felon win reelection.

Last night, I took this picture at the grand plaza at Concorde in Paris. I’m now flying to Chicago, and then to Jacksonville, and then to. . . Soon, it will end. On the trip, I’ve been thinking about how undefined and blunt the word “corruption” is.

While traveling in Turkey last month, it occurred to me that a little empathy would go a long way toward repairing the United States’ relationships with both our traditional allies in Europe and with states such as China, Russia, and Iran with which we have some substantially divergent interests.

I’m currently sitting in the United Airlines lounge at Washington Dulles Airport — about to fly to Paris. I will be meeting some TWN readers over there. Coincidentally, Francis Fukuyama is sitting here too — going to the same conference I am. . .

With oil now below $45 a barrel, and Merrill Lynch projecting that it’ll drop to $25 in the next year, I think it’s worth glancing around at those economies that’ll be ravaged if these trend lines continue.

(photo credit: Lou Linwei for The New York Times) The U.S. government is about to kick $15 billion over to the U.S. auto industry.

The New York Times offered a strong critique of one of George W. Bush’s exit interviews — and Bush National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley has just issued his protestations. The Times offered this powerful punch: It was skin crawling to hear him tell Mr.

What else can be said about Sean Penn other than that he is an unbelievably extraordinarily gifted actor with a sense of self and social conscience matched by very few in Hollywood.