We hear a lot these days about Islam’s misogyny and cultural authoritarianism.. A good example is that idiot lawyer fighting construction of a mosque in Chattanooga, enthralling public hearings with juicy quotes he’s mined from the Quran.

Apparently he’s never read the Bible. The li… Read full post »

“Autoimmune diseases,” per the Wikipedia article on same, “arise from an inappropriate immune response of the body against substances and tissues normally present in the body. In other words, the immune system mistakes some part of the body as a pathogen and attacks its own cells.�… Read full post »

The UK’s Guardian sports a typical “analysis” headline on Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s selection of US Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) as his running mate: “[F]irebrand from Wisconsin has built reputation on fiscal frugality.” Ryan, writes the Gua… Read full post »

In classical logic, the standard model of deductive reasoning is the syllogism. Most people are probably familiar with this example: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal.

The enthymeme is an incomplete syllogism with one of the premises left implicit. In classical rhet… Read full post »

Shrinking or dismantling the state through political processes — running candidates, lobbying against various policies, etc. — is mostly a waste of time. The system’s rules are set up to favor the interests of those inside the corporate-state power structure, against those on the ou… Read full post »

On July 27, The Real News Network reported that the prisoner hunger strike in Georgia entered its 47^th day. The strike began with ten prisoners participating; it has since dwindled to two remaining strikers.

At this point, the strikers have only a few demands. They demand medical care for injuries th… Read full post »

Any appreciation of Eugene Luther Gore Vidal (1925-2012) must necessarily resemble the fable of the blind men and the elephant. He was so many things that the only term which can really be stretched to cover them all is the too-often used “man of letters,” and any individual fan in the… Read full post »

The silliness about Obama’s “socialism” and his deficient understanding of “Americanism” just keeps coming from the Romney campaign. In a recent Romney campaign conference call, Ohio businessman Kyle Koehler came up with this howler:

“It seems to me that the Obama Amer… Read full post »

In a recent article for Reason, Ira Stoll praised the 2012 Olympics — not only in the body but the title itself — as a “Triumph of Capitalism” (July 23, 2012).  He’s entirely correct — but not for the reason he thinks.

Stoll’s characterization of the Olympic… Read full post »

It’s gradually emerged in recent months that the Food and Drug Administration not only spied on its employees, but did so on a massive scale — collecting tens of thousands of employee emails to one another, as well as to journalists, members of Congress and congressional staff workers. Th… Read full post »

Most mainstream political discourse on health policy in the US today revolves around the Affordable Care Act, better known as “Obamacare.†Liberals praise the bill for expanding healthcare access and conservatives decry the bill as government overreach. But as political partisans squabble, Obama… Read full post »

As the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) prepares for its annual meeting next week, there remains a great deal of confusion about what the organization supports. ALEC advertises itself as a group that supports free markets, limited government, and federalism. But in reality, ALEC pushes… Read full post »

“What good are shareholders?†ask Jay W. Lorsch and Justin Fox in the latest edition of the Harvard Business Review. The authors grapple with some of the most pressing and recurring issues surrounding the relationship between the many people who “own†a given company and the few who actually… Read full post »

Since early 2011 the mainstream press has expressed moral panic over an alleged “War on Cops.” That panic was sparked by a rash of police killings in January 2011. According to a March Christian Science Monitor article, 24 cops were killed on the job compared to only 15 during the same… Read full post »

In last month’s Rio +20 (UN Conference for Sustainable Development) declaration, “The Economy We Need,” RIPESS (French acronym for Intercontinental Network for the Promotion of Social and Solidarity Economy) dismisses the “so-called green economy” model promulgated &#822… Read full post »

We’ve seen another “patriotic” holiday come and go, and with it the same obligatory maudlin comments from local TV news anchors about troops overseas “defending our freedom.” Just like we saw on Memorial Day, and just like we’ll see again on Veterans’ Day.

Gr… Read full post »

Last week’s 5-4 decision from the US Supreme Court, holding that Congress did indeed possess the constitutional authority to enact the individual mandate that remains Obamacare’s most controversial provision surprised many. The Court’s majority opined that although the US Constitution&#8217… Read full post »

In “Empire of the Rising Scum,” Robert Shea observed that, regardless of their ostensible mission, hierarchical institutions tend to be headed by people whose primary skills are careerist climbing and bureaucratic in-fighting. As I’ve said before, you simply cannot become a Presiden… Read full post »

Contrary to outraged cries from Republicans that it’s some sort of radical departure from our “free enterprise” system, Obamacare is in fact a direct continuation of the bipartisan neoliberal consensus of the past thirty years. The guiding principle of this consensus is the use of s… Read full post »

Well, here it is, folks: The Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the “individual mandate” provision in the Affordable Care Act, aka “ObamaCare.” As of 2014, all Americans will pay a portion of their taxes to an insurance company of their choice instead of to Uncle Sam (or U… Read full post »

It’s not unusual to hear helicopters over and around my house (I live near, and on the approach path to, St. Louis’s main airport), so I didn’t notice the US Department Homeland Security’s major terrorist roundup only a few blocks away until I saw it on the news late last week… Read full post »

In a recent BBC opinion piece, economic historian Niall Ferguson argues that “young people should welcome austerity.†Pointing to the “huge debts†accumulated by western democracies, Ferguson suggests that critics “are right to discern that something is amiss with our political institutions… Read full post »

A Twitter friend facetiously raised the question today of whether the Constitution is America’s “Terms of Service,” following up with “[Expletive]. I knew I should have read the fine print instead of quick scrolling down to the bottom and hitting ‘Agree.’”

So… Read full post »

Singapore’s Ministry of Law (Orwellian nickname “MinLawâ€) announced this week that it is developing a plan to make the nation “Asia’s one-stop destination for world-class [intellectual property] services.†The release boasts that “[t]he first thrust entails … facilitating grea… Read full post »

Surveying the new JOBS Act, legislation with the ostensible purpose of aiding “emerging growth companies,†the Washington Post’s Rob Kaplan and Tom Voekler contend that the act’s biggest impact will be on the formation of “small and mid-sized business capital.â€

Observing an important diff… Read full post »