Skeptics have, throughout history, concluded that we can never be sure about what it is that exists, and even that reality itself does not exist except in the mind. With their gospel of "eternal doubt," advocates of skepticism have thus playe...
Yet another excuse for some people to gain power over others is this idea of the level playing field. It's a metaphor, of course, but used often to mean starting in a race with no advantages for any of the participants. Another term by which to in...
The Chinese miracle plays on. Around the world, the yuan pushed up against the dollar now that Chinese leaders are letting the yuan float. Chinese stock markets are soaring. Meanwhile, Senator Joseph Lieberman has launched legislation to specifically g...
For the last umpteen months, beginning with sightings of "green shoots," the powers-that-be have been trying to gin up a recovery. It is a kind of dominant social theme of course, the idea that after a painful "recession," economies...
Several months ago we wrote about UK Prime Minister David Cameron's adoption of Phillip Bond's idea of neo-communitarianism. Since at the time Cameron was struggling to redefine himself and his Tory party, the idea of political devolution proba...
I am always baffled and now and then really angered when people defend using coercion against other people. (Some will say I must be biased since I come from several early years of tyranny and since one of my parents was an out and out brute. How...
Many moons ago President Richard Nixon lashed out at Charles Manson after he learned of the carnage but before the law could get at the mass murderer. The president told reporters that Manson was "guilty, directly or indirectly of eight murders.&...
More talk about global currencies. Medvedev has announced this ruble-reserve push with great fanfare in advance of the lastest G20 meeting, and the news is splashed all over the Internet. From our point of view, this statement is no accident and may ha...
We try not to directly analyze articles of the alternative 'Net media because we are more interested in the dominant social themes expressed by mainstream news. But in this case, we cannot help it. This article was brought to our attention by a Bel...
Here you have yet another instance of never allowing a good disaster to go unexploited for political purposes, a policy endorsed a while ago by White House Chief Eric Rahmer. But I will leave that aside for now and focus once again on the curious phen...