On The Daily Show, Jon Stewart thinks that the bellicose language about war with Iran is the result of politicians pandering to their own constituencies, and tries to lower the intensity of the war rhetoric.
(This clip appeared on March 6, 2012. To get suggestions on how to view clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report outside the US, please see this earlier post.)
Scott Horton goes into more detail in analyzing attorney general Anthony Holder’s speech justifying the killing of US citizens abroad. [Read more…]
Political scientist James Q. Wilson died last week at the age of 80. He was most famous for his ‘Broken Windows’ theory of urban crime that postulated that small signs of neglect in a community can be the trigger for crime, and that if the police ignore minor crimes that leads to more major crimes.
Stanford psychologist Philip Zimbardo explains the theory. [Read more…]
While most of us tend to predict the outcome of presidential elections based on perceptions of the viability of candidates and what happens to be the hot issues of the day, it is useful to bear in mind that the real professionals (like political scientists) look at different things in their crystal balls. [Read more…]
I really like Pat Robertson. Whenever something major happens, he can be counted upon to unfailingly say the wrong thing. For example, most religious people think that prayer can nudge god into overcoming the laws of nature but they also have the sense that to blame deadly natural disasters on insufficient prayer, while being a perfectly logical consequence of that belief, may sound callous and be ridiculed, and so they refrain from doing so. [Read more…]
When it comes to religions, they all have such weird beliefs that comparing them to see which ones are more bizarre is futile. Can we really say that Scientology is crazier than Islam, Mormonism than Judaism? Bahaism than Christianity? How does one measure levels of craziness to enable such comparisons? And yet, people often do make just such judgments. [Read more…]
I do not pay much attention to Rush Limbaugh. As far as I know, he has never said anything insightful and his shtick seems to be, like Ann Coulter, to say outrageous things just to gain attention. I usually just ignore them but his recent outburst against Georgetown University law student Sandra Fluke, repeatedly calling her a slut and a prostitute, was quite extraordinary. I didn’t think that even he would sink so low. [Read more…]