In a piece that could easily have lampooned several putatively educational cable stations, the fine humorists at The Onion are reporting this morning that the “Science Channel Refuses to Dumb Down Science Any Further.” Â “Look, we’ve tried, we really have, but it’s simply not possible to set the bar any lower,” said a visibly … Read more
Should corporations be considered persons? Is personhood the same as citizenship? And is money a legitimate form of free speech? These are the questions I’ve been asking myself since reading the news of the Supreme Court’s ruling on Thursday that corporations and unions are persons with free speech rights, therefore permitted to contribute as much money … Read more
Over at his popular Chicago Sun-Times blog, Roger Ebert calls attention to two documentaries that recently debuted at the Sundance Film Festival. Both films look at education, though from quite different angles. The first, Waiting for Superman, exposes the disaster of U.S. public education, and was so persuasive that it left the reliably liberal Ebert … Read more
Though it was easy to miss in the media non-coverage, last week the U.S. Department of Health & Human released its congressionally-mandated impact study on the Head Start program for the years 2002 – 2003. The results were devastating for supporters of the 45-year old, $100 billion dollar program. In the fall of 2002, researchers … Read more
Now this is embarrassing: Two years ago, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued a report claiming — among other things — that the glaciers of the Himalayas would melt by 2035. Unfortunately, it appears that the researchers didn’t do a lot of actual, you know, research. In the past few days the … Read more
A happy announcement for carpetbagging opportunists everywhere: You have a new king, and his name is Harold Ford, Jr. You may remember Ford as the former five-term Congressman from Tennessee, where his voting record — and campaign rhetoric — marked him as a moderate Democrat. But political winds rarely blow in one direction for long, … Read more
Remember all that talk about how the Bush and Obama stimulus packages were going to create jobs with new public works projects? Well, it hasn’t quite turned out that way. The infrastructure projects are lined up, sure — along with their sizable price tags — but the new jobs are nowhere to be found. Â … Read more
Six Coptic Christians and one security guard were killed last night as worshippers left their celebration of Christmas Mass in the ancient town of Nag Hammadi, Egypt. The gunmen — acting in retaliation against the alleged rape of a Muslim girl — sprayed parishioners with machine gun fire as they left the church. [Bishop Kirollos] … Read more
Father Tim Jones, the Anglican priest who suggested recently in a homily that the poor ought to take up shoplifting to feed themselves, has received some memorable feedback on his idea. A Yorkshire priest who caused controversy this month by preaching that shoplifting could sometimes be justified has had a bucket of pasta thrown over … Read more
It appears that some state and county Tea Party groups are trying to cleanse their ranks of libertarians. That’s a shame since the movement started with Ron Paul and his libertarian followers, and was then co-opted by mainstream GOP Sean Hannity types. Lawrence Samuels, editor of Facets of Liberty: A Libertarian Primer and participant in … Read more
Iran appears to be moving toward a full-scale revolution. If you want to follow the unfolding events, Andrew Sullivan remains the best media source for first-hand reports and video. And Stephen Walt makes an important point at Foreign Policy: [T]his is an especially foolish time to be rattling sabers and threatening military action. Threatening or … Read more
If you think today’s recession is bad, be glad you’re not living in Britannia at the close of the Western Roman Empire. For two or three hundred years, beginning at the start of the fifth century, the economy of Britain reverted to levels not experienced since well before the Roman invasion of AD 43. The … Read more
The New York Times‘ house economist Paul Krugman is no fan of the filibuster… at least, when it’s used against the kinds of intrusive, big government legislation he promotes. In March 2005, he warned America that “extremists” were trying to eliminate the filibuster to push through their partisan (and pro-life) judges. But now that Obama … Read more
The more Americans know about the new healthcare bill before the Senate, the less they like it. That’s the unmistakable trend in polling on the issue. But as Michael Cannon at Cato notes, that’s not stopping the Democrats from moving at full steam. Rather than go back to the drawing board and write a better … Read more
Last Thursday was Human Rights Day and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, held a hearing to highlight abuses in China, Cuba, Sudan, Vietnam and various other countries. Vietnam, for example, has gone “from bad to worse”: “Hanoi has unleashed a torrent of repression upon courageous citizens fighting for basic rights. … Read more
Last Thursday was Human Rights Day and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, held a hearing to highlight abuses in China, Cuba, Sudan, Vietnam and various other countries. Vietnam, for example, has gone “from bad to worse”: “Hanoi has unleashed a torrent of repression upon courageous citizens fighting for basic rights. … Read more
Last Thursday was Human Rights Day and Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), senior member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, held a hearing to highlight abuses in China, Cuba, Sudan, Vietnam and various other countries. Vietnam, for example, has gone “from bad to worse”: “Hanoi has unleashed a torrent of repression upon courageous citizens fighting for basic rights. … Read more
Well, it looks like today’s Video Day. Margaret’s posting of that wonderful Sufjan Stevens rendition of “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” has inspired me. Every year on the Christmas episode of The Late Show, David Letterman invites the magnificent Darlene Love to close the show with a rocking performance of “Christmas (Baby, Please Come … Read more
Sad news for those in journalism and publishing: Abandoning some of the best known names in trade publishing, the Nielsen Company said Thursday that it would shut down Editor & Publisher and Kirkus Reviews, and sell a stable of other publications, including Billboard and The Hollywood Reporter, to a newly formed media company…. For generations, … Read more
There was a time when the History Channel covered actual, you know, history. That day is long passed, sadly, and most of the station’s programming is now given over to ice road trucking, pawn shop reality shows, Bigfoot, and the nonsensical “prophecies” of Nostrodamus. And when it does ostensibly cover the substantive past, the channel … Read more