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Theory & political commentary
Dear Representative Boehner, Earlier this month, after President Obama was re-elected, you assured America in an interview that you are the "most reasonable, responsible person here in Washington.” No one wants to hurtle over the “fiscal cliff” in January, even if it is just a “fiscal slope,” and ...
In his recent post, fellow Big Think blogger Adam Lee blames the intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict on competing religious fundamentalisms. The recent renewal of fighting on the Gaza border, he writes, is being inflamed and prolonged by religious zealotry on both sides. Whether it's ...
It reads like a headline in The Onion: “Study Finds People Prefer Having Sex to Scrubbing the Toilet.” Throw in an ironic moniker (the author of the happiness study is named Carsten Grimm) and it’s really too good to be true. Except this is for real. It is the latest, and by my lights the most ...
Down in the dumps? You’d better watch your wallet, among other things. We all face dozens of choices every day between instant gratification and delayed rewards, perhaps too often opting for the immediate pleasure. But as Harvard University researcher Jennifer Lerner and two colleagues report in ...
Over at The Stone, Christy Wampole diagnoses the malaise of the post-millennial age and suggests a few ways “How to Live Without Irony.” It is a sign of Wampole’s misdiagnosis that her recommended cures sound a lot worse than the disease. First, the claim: For many Americans born in the ...
It turns out that Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” gaffe in October wasn’t a gaffe at all: it was, as some observed at the time, a reflection of how the Republican nominee sincerely regards the American political landscape. On Wednesday, Romney held a conference call with campaign donors to give them ...
Last week, voters in Los Angeles County passed a referendum requiring male actors in adult films to wear condoms in scenes depicting vaginal or anal intercourse. Measure B was an unusual ballot issue in more ways than one, and it has stirred controversy. "The idea of allowing a government employee ...
Now that the long presidential campaign is over and a winner has emerged, the blogosphere is asking the question we hear every four years at this time: does the president-elect have a mandate to govern? At the Economist today, I point out how empty the debate is. But as vacuous as the discussion ...
The Election Night spectacle on Fox News featuring an apparently unhinged Karl Rove taking on a roomful of data analyzers who had called the election for President Obama has me thinking that the whole thing might have been an elaborate stunt. First with a red sharpie and then with a barrage of ...
Immanuel Kant, the 18th-century metaphysician who remains “the central figure in modern philosophy,” has wrangled up a Twitter account from the ether and this morning tweeted an endorsement in today’s election: In a statement released concurrently from the noumenal sphere, Kant offered an ...
When you enter the voting booth on Tuesday and pull a lever or jab a touchscreen for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama, you will be registering a vote not only for president but for the ideological tilt of an institution that will likely have more influence on your life over the coming decades: the ...
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg doesn’t give in very often. During his reign, Bloomberg has pushed for smoking bans in bars, restaurants and city parks. He has wrested control of the public schools from the Board of Education. He has required chain restaurants to post nutritional information ...
Update 11/4: A few hours after I published this post, Mayor Bloomberg decided to cancel the marathon for the reason I develop below. See my analysis of Bloomberg's surprising last-minute reversal here. After Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that the marathon is on this Sunday despite the ...
Hurricane Sandy has introduced significant uncertainty into next Tuesday’s presidential election. But even without a natural disaster hobbling transportation and cutting off power to as many as 10 million people on the eastern seaboard, we all have reason to wonder about the safety and accuracy of ...
Yesterday I argued that Hurricane Sandy may enhance President Obama’s prospects for re-election. Today, in the aftermath of the worst storm to hit the eastern seaboard of the United States in 100 years, we cannot be sure the election will be held as planned. We can be certain, though, that ...