Today comes news that 20 percent of Americans are unemployed or underemployed, according to a Gallup Poll that queried ten times the number of households involved in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Household Survey. According to BLS numbers, 16 percent of Americans are unemployed or . . . . Continue Reading »
In your post , Jody, you mention that, “You could elect 86 senators with a minority of the population, as the bottom 43 states have fewer people, in total, than the top seven states.” If the always-reliable Wikipedia is to be believed, it has always been possible to elect a majority of . . . . Continue Reading »
Apropos of Jody’s post earlier today: On Feb. 12, I posted this item at my “Inner Workings” blog at Asia Times and on the Spengler blog at First Things : Although Greece is an EC member, its finances and political system have the character of a banana republic. EC membership, . . . . Continue Reading »
And so it starts. Among those in First Things ’ offices, our senior editor David Goldman goes on The Kudlow Report to do the heavy lifting on economics, and things like guessing which way the Euro is going to break are way beyond my remit. Still, there are no good solutions to the Greek . . . . Continue Reading »
While reading an interesting analysis of the (poor) chances of health-care reform from Jay Cost this morning, I came across this note: While I don’t think right versus wrong properly enter into considerations of reconciliation, I have noticed one particularly ridiculous moral argument in . . . . Continue Reading »
What is the reason we educate children? Because of the role of the state and the support of schools with public funds, the most commonly accepted answer has become, “to create an educated citizenry.” Christopher Tollefsen acknowledges that this can be part of the purpose but pushes back . . . . Continue Reading »
In his latest New York Times column, Stanley Fish reviews The Disenchantment of Secular Discourse. The new book by law professor Steven Smith argues that there are no secular reasons, at least not, as Fish summarizes, “reasons of the kind that could justify a decision to take one course of . . . . Continue Reading »
Yesterday I linked to Rich Lowry and Ramesh Ponnuru’s excellent article on American exceptionalism , in which they say: To find the roots of American exceptionalism, you have to start at the beginning — or even before the beginning. They go back to our mother country. Historian Alan . . . . Continue Reading »
“I don’t believe in the Trinity,” my friend said. She and I were discussing the Christian doctrine that holds that one God subsists in three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Despite being a Christian believer, she rejects the doctrine of the Trinity. I was surprised and . . . . Continue Reading »
By now you may have heard about the Russian figure skater Evgeni Plushenko who has been sulking because he lost the gold medal to American Evan Lysacek. Plushenko has taken a fairly audacious strategy to elevating his claim to superiority: his website apparently announced that he has . . . . Continue Reading »
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