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I won't propose an answer to this hugely complex question today. Instead, I want to point out some striking similarities between the American perspective on the conflict in Chechnya a decade ago and the run-up to the Obama administration’s pending decision on how to handle the Assad regime’s ...
He billed his first presidential visit to Israel as a listening tour, but it turns out Barack Obama is doing quite a bit of speaking as well. On his first day in the Holy Land, the president was all about the love: I know that in stepping foot on this land, I walk with you on the historic ...
I'm not sure any of the reader suggestions to replace the deeply unpopular term "redistribution" will quite cut it as bumper sticker slogans for the fall election. But leaving aside proposals from the right — Philopoemen's "coercive sharing" and Bill J. Canada's "THEFT," for example — comments ...
What’s the Big Idea? In Kafka’s appropriately unfinished novel The Castle , the protagonist – K. – spends the whole book trying to gain access to the castle that governs a village to which he’s been summoned by a bureaucratic error. He never gets beyond a petty official called “the Council ...
What is the Big Idea? A new study released on Tuesday shows that immigrants play a leading role in innovation and economic growth in the United States. “Patent Pending: How Immigrants Are Reinventing The American Economy" , a report authored by Partnership for a New American Economy, details the ...
Europe’s economic troubles are reaching a pivotal point. In Spain, where austerity measures has caused a 0.3% economic contraction from Q4 of 2011, unemployment has risen to a record 25% and just over 50% among youth. The Italian economy, already forecast to grow negatively this year, contracted 0 ...
Senator Bill Bradley sits down with Big Think to discuss his latest book, We Can All Do Better, out in hardcover today, May 8, 2012. He talks about what it means to be American, and how that has changed since his grandfather's time. "The middle class has really taken it on the chin," he says ...
What's the Big Idea? Just before he was elected in 2008, Obama noted an urgent need for politicians to give up “polarizing debate” and get things done. Across-the-aisle collaboration was to be one of the guiding forces behind his presidency. Two weeks after he took office, the New York Times ...
What is the Big Idea? French voters go to the poll today for the first round of the presidential election. Nicolas Sarkozy, and his Socialist challenger, François Hollande, will probably emerge as the finalists in a field of 10 candidates. They will face a run off on May 6. The two are neck ...
What is the Big Idea? Israel ranked 14th on the United Nations first World Happiness Report launched on April 2. Topping the list are peaceful and ultra-liberal countries like Denmark, Finland, Norway and the Netherlands. How can this be? This is especially confounding when you take into ...
On Tuesday, April 4th, 2012, we had the pleasure of interviewing Richard Tafel, human rights activist and founder of the policy advocacy organizations The Log Cabin Republicans and The Public Squared. Tafel, who has been named by Newsweek as one of the 30 most influential gay leaders in the United ...
Welcome to an ongoing feature on the Floating University blog, FU Asks, where we open up the academic debate on our e-learning platform to the Big Think community. This week we're featuring a discussion prompt from Saul Levmore, William B. Graham Distinguished Professor of Law, University of ...
Editor's note: 2011 was a good year for participatory democracy. But as new governments rise to replace old regimes, a pressing need has emerged for strong models on which to build the foundation of a modern society. In this guest post, David Alexander proposes a radical idea: that model should not ...
President Obama has unveiled his proposed 10-year budget today, and while there’s nothing particularly shocking included for those who have been following the ongoing debate between the White House and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, the new economic plan for the United States ...
Just as Mitt Romney appears to be wrapping up the Republican nomination for the presidency, congressional Republicans are taking steps to set up their own political framework for the 2012 election. In short, the future of Medicare is on the line and a Romney vs. Obama match-up will surely address ...