The Daily Show suggests that having more frequent elections may be the best way to stimulate economic growth. [Read more…]
The Daily Show suggests that having more frequent elections may be the best way to stimulate economic growth. [Read more…]
Every time that there is a major doping scandal associated with sports, like the recent one in which Lance Armstrong was portrayed as essentially a drug kingpin who “didn’t just take drugs: he was the enforcer of a small mafia within professional cycling that moved ruthlessly against anyone who threatened to expose him or his collaborators. He bullied and threatened team-mates, journalists and fellow cycling professionals and officials”, calls emerge that maybe we should simply allow it. [Read more…]
Ever since Black Like Me was published in 1961 chronicling the experience of a white man posing as black in the segregated South, others have tried similar things. One of the latest is Timothy Kurek who grew up as your stereotypical Bible belt fundamentalist Christian, even to the extent of attending the late Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University. He naturally hated homosexuality in all its forms. [Read more…]
I like to think of myself as fairly well read but the season of Nobel-prize winning announcements has just ended and of all the prizes, the literature prize is the one that reminds me each year of how wrong my self estimation is because I have never even heard of almost any of the winners. And the sad thing is that even though I tell myself that I should read those authors and widen my knowledge of great world literature, I almost never carry through on that promise, even though the winners are universally hailed as great writers. [Read more…]
As The Daily Show points out, there does seem to be any limit on how insane your views can be and still get elected to federal and state government. [Read more…]
During the campaign and the debates, whenever the Romney-Ryan camp has been repeatedly told that there is no way that they can find ways to balance the budget if they give an across-the-board cut in the marginal tax rates by 20%, unless they raise taxes on the middle class in other ways, such as eliminating the deductions that benefit that group more. They have countered that six studies have shown that it can be done. [Read more…]
David Letterman pokes fun at the photos of Paul Ryan released on the day of the debate. When I first saw them, I thought that they were photoshopped but it turns out that he actually posed for them. It adds to the overall image of a self-aggrandizing narcissist. [Read more…]
We have heard charges from the Romney-Ryan camp that the Obama administration will cut the defense budget while the Obama camp has countered that their opponents are proposing a $2 trillion increase without saying how they will pay for it. [Read more…]
The Neanderthals are an interesting species though unfairly treated. They are frequently portrayed as knuckle-dragging idiots, serving as a metaphor for people with retrograde views, especially with respect to gender and sexuality, though there is no reason to think that they were any worse than the ancestors of our own species at that time. [Read more…]