An article by Claudia Rosett titled “First, they came for our 100-watt bulbs” making the rounds of right-wing media this week proposes that a new engineering standard is really an encroachment on our basic rights. She bemoans the loss of freedom represented by the federal government mandate to gradually phase out incandescent light bulbs, starting […]
There are three things you should always remember about Newt Gingrich: Let’s start from my secular humanist position on the personal lives of politicians: Essentially, I don’t care what elected officials do with consenting adults when it comes to their sex lives—infidelity, homosexuality, bondage, whatever. It’s their personal business. No one can get inside a […]
Earlier this week, Facebook published a list of the 40 most-shared stories in 2011. Once we put aside the definitional problem that arises when you publish an annual list for a year before the year is actually over, we can have a lot of fun with this list. What I did was to categorize all […]
Read More… from Facebook users create their own virtual newspaper and it looks a lot like a tabloid
President Obama is proposing to extend the temporary cut in payroll taxes beyond this year, lower it even more and pay for it by assessing people who earn $1.0 million or more a special 3.25% tax. The Republicans say that they’re open to extending the payroll tax break, which put about a thousand dollars in […]
Day after day, people suffer financially outside the public view. They lose their jobs. Their unemployment benefits expire. They can’t pay their mortgage, and if they sell the house, they’ll still owe money to the bank. They move in with relatives or into their car. They scrimp on food for their families. They forego medical […]
The news sent a chill up my spine: In eight states more than 1 in 20 school children now don’t get all the vaccines required for attendance. The number of parents denying vaccines to their children is up in virtually every state. I immediately winced, imagining the unavoidable increase in children getting debilitating diseases and dying […]
In a weekend OpEdge entry, I concluded that the three small incidents of violence reported nationally on Black Friday demonstrated how docile a society we have become. An Associated Press writer used the same three incidents to build a case that Black Friday has “devolved” into a “wave of violence” in an article titled “How […]
A woman pepper sprays her fellow shoppers to get close to the XBox she wants to buy. A robber shoots a shopper in the parking lot of a mall. A cop bloodies the face of a senior citizen who was trying to take advantage of the swarm of people to shoplift something. What are we […]
Read More… from The lack of Black Friday violence demonstrates that Americans love to wait on line
I’m still catching up with the Sunday newspapers. I want to recommend “Sorry, Strivers: Talent Matters” by David Z. Hambrich and Elizabeth J. Meinz, both professors of psychology, that appeared in the “Sunday Review” section of the New York Times. Hambrich and Meinz dismantle the myth that time on task can make anyone a success, […]
It’s really hilarious how often it is that some organization or another comes up with a study that concludes that the best place to live or raise a family is a distant suburb in which all there is to do is visit the chain stores in the mall, take drugs and get into trouble. A […]
Read More… from When will media stop trying to sell us on a car- and mall-dependent suburban life?