What’s with the green eyeshades? “I can’t tell you how tired I am of Republicans who are green-eyeshade accountants,” former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told Newsmax TV last weekend. Representative Paul Ryan’s “new budget road map is more vision than green-eyeshade exercise,” Larry Kudlow wrote March 15 at National Review Online, using Kudlow code to suggest that the House Budget Committee chairman has a political future. “If Paul Ryan wanted to dispel his image as a green-eyeshade guy obsessed

Viewpoints March 24, 2013

Sitting on a Tokyo runway last week, the captain announced that our flight would be delayed for reasons few of us could believe: sandstorms. Chuckles filled the aircraft. The woman next to me quipped: “What, are we in Egypt?” As we all craned our necks to look out the windows, it really did feel as if we were taxiing in Cairo or Marrakesh, not the capital of a Group of Seven nation. The sand is compliments of China’s boom. Thanks to deforestation and overgrazing, more and more of the Gobi Desert

Viewpoints March 24, 2013

It is the job of the South Korean unification minister to improve relations with North Korea, aiming at an eventual Korean reunification. Still, it was nothing less than inappropriate for a new unification minister to put an emphasis on the resumption of inter-Korean dialogue at a time when Pyongyang was threatening to turn South Korea into a “nuclear sea of fire” and launch a “second Korean War.”True, new Unification Minister Ryoo Kihl-jae did mention the high level of tension that had been esc

Editorial March 22, 2013

In a widening sex-for-favors scandal, Vice Justice Minister Kim Hak-ui tendered a letter of resignation on Thursday. While denying being involved in the scandal, Kim said his name being mentioned in connection with it made it impossible for him to continue to do his work as a vice minister.But his resignation reaffirmed that background checks by the Park Geun-hye administration on those selected for top public posts were seriously flawed. The presidential office, though informed of his alleged i

Editorial March 22, 2013

PARIS ― The European Union’s $13 billion bailout plan for Cyprus has nothing to do with socialism but rather with much greater stakes. This is the EU attempting to outmaneuver an uncharacteristically flat-footed Vladimir Putin and Russia in a key battleground, over long-festering issues: transparency, corruption, and support of Syria and Iran. This is also a case of the EU calling out a Trojan-horse country embedded inside the eurozone.In exchange for the $13 billion from the EU, Cyprus would ha

Viewpoints March 22, 2013

The massive computer network failures at top TV broadcasters and major banks on Wednesday are another painful reminder that the nation still remains highly vulnerable to cyber terrorism even after a series of similar attacks from North Korea in recent years.According to reports, government investigators are analyzing the malicious programs they found on the crashed computer systems of the victimized companies, which included three TV broadcasters ― KBS, MBC and YTN ― and three banks ― Shinhan, N

Editorial March 21, 2013

After a long delay, President Park Geun-hye has picked a nominee to lead the Constitutional Court along with two new justice candidates to sit on the court’s nine-member bench. Park nominated Park Han-cheol, who has served as an adjudicator of the court since 2011, to become its chief justice, a post that has been left vacant for 60 days since former chief justice Lee Kang-kook retired in January.She also picked Cho Yong-ho, chief of the Seoul High Court, and Suh Ki-suhk, head of the Seoul Centr

Editorial March 21, 2013

For many in the U.S., the 10th anniversary of the invasion of Iraq has been an occasion for settling scores and playing “what-if” games with history. Iraqis don’t have that luxury ― as evidenced by the day’s wave of bombings and assassinations that left at least 50 dead. For Iraq, this anniversary underscores the need for Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and his government to find a new sense of responsibility and engagement. Otherwise, the country’s future may be as dark as its recent past. The l

Viewpoints March 21, 2013

Just outside President Goodluck Jonathan’s office sat 17 ambulances, just in case he or one of his aides fell ill. They were seldom if ever used.No actual health care facility nationwide had as many, and in fact a few still have none at all. But as soon as a Nigerian newspaper took a photo of the ambulances and published a story about them, they suddenly disappeared ― probably to an underground garage.Jonathan is president of Nigeria, which should be among the world’s most prosperous nations. Af

Viewpoints March 20, 2013

Will Shinzo Abe’s plan to revive Japan suffer the magazine-cover curse? Might Benigno Aquino meet the same fate in the Philippines? What both leaders have in common is everyone slapping the “-nomics” suffix onto their growth strategies. “Abenomics” has excited investors, not to mention the pundit class, with its aim of ending 15 years of deflation. The same is true of “Aquinomics” in a country long deemed the sick man of Asia, now an investment darling. Such bouts of euphoria often end in tears:

Viewpoints March 20, 2013

At various times in history, members of the U.S. Senate have adopted one of three positions with respect to presidential nominees for the federal judiciary: 1. The blank check: A senator should vote to confirm anyone the president chooses. 2. The competence and character test: A senator should vote to confirm anyone the president chooses, unless the nominee is incompetent or suffers from a fatal character flaw (as demonstrated, for example, by corruption). 3. The out-of-the-mainstream test: A se

Viewpoints March 20, 2013