It is clear that the Republican party is still smarting from its losses in the last election and trying to find ways to become more appealing to the general public, especially women, minorities, immigrants, and the young, without alienating its traditional base and in particular the extremist bloc that has painted the party into a corner by forcing them to take unpopular stances on social issues. How can it do both? [Read more…]
Pakistan has draconian blasphemy laws on the books. The latest bizarre turn in their use is that the Pakistani ambassador to the US Sherry Rehman has been accused of it. [Read more…]
Last night I watched the Frontline documentary The Untouchables that I wrote about yesterday that explored the question of why, more than four years after the financial debacle involving widespread mortgage fraud, not a single high-level Wall Street executive has faced criminal prosecution. All that has happened is a bunch of very low-level people being charged and a series of civil prosecutions resulting in plea bargains in which some banks have paid fines that seem large but are puny compared to the scale of the fraud, and which the bank executives can simply write off as the cost of doing business while they continue to enrich themselves with high salaries and bonuses. The program covers some of the same ground as that excellent 2010 documentary Inside Job that I reviewed here [Read more…]
So you read Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead and inspired by their powerful message of the virtue of selfishness and the vice of altruism, you have sworn off having anything to do with the moochers and looters who are trying to live off the hard-earned rewards of your own genius. But you now feel lonely because there are so few pure Randian objectivists around and none of the people in your present circle seem willing to take you up on your generous offer to loan them 1,000 page novels containing turgid prose and two-dimensional characters. What is a maker to do? [Read more…]
I have heard good reports of a new Frontline program that was broadcast yesterday on PBS titled The Untouchables that examines why, four years after the financial crisis, not a single Wall Street executive has been prosecuted. I have not seen it yet but plan to but since these programs are freely available online for just a limited time, I wanted to pass it on. [Read more…]
I came across this tragic story in which the manager of a CVS store gave chase to someone who shoplifted a tube of toothpaste and caught him in an alley. The manager and other bystanders ended up strangling the shoplifter in the process of subduing him. [Read more…]
This video shows why, if you want to own a gun, you really need to have serious training in gun usage and safety if you are to avoid harming yourself and others. The video is designed to evoke laughter but the consequences of unskilled usage can be tragic. [Read more…]
The speech delivered by president at his second inauguration said many good things. He emphasized the value of collective action, of seeing ourselves as needing to work together and not separately to achieve important goals. In fact, his repeated invocation of the phrase ‘we, the people’ was a pointed rebuke to those who want us to see ourselves as individuals, looking out for just ourselves. [Read more…]