If you don’t follow Teju Cole (@tejucole) on Twitter, you’re regularly missing out on some of the best pithy social commentary on the web. Last night, he tweeted a long series of words and their true (but usually unspoken) interpretations in public discourse. I’ve given it the hashtag #TweetingBetweenTheLines. The result was hilarious and devastatingly … Continued
Is religion on the decline? That’s what several recent polls seem to indicate. Today, a record 1 in 5 Americans say they do not belong to any religion; among those under 30, it’s more like 1 in 3. But Rodney Stark, co-director of the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion, disagrees. In an op-ed in … Continued
In his latest post at Ricochet.com, libertarian law professor Richard Epstein responded to criticism of his earlier op-ed, co-authored with Cato’s Roger Pilon, defending the NSA’s secret data-gathering programs. While conceding factual errors on a couple of points, Epstein maintained his core argument that the mass surveillance of millions of Americans’ internet and telecommunications data constitutes both … Continued
Almost certainly not.
Margaret Doughty is a British atheist who has lived in the United States for over 30 years, but unless she joins a church, immigration officials told her, her application for citizenship will be denied. The reason? Doughty is a conscientious objector, which means she is morally oppose to all war, and the oath of citizenship … Continued
From Steve Horwitz at BHL comes this prescient statement from a prominent western intellectual during the 1920s. See if you can guess the author without Googling. The questions which I group together as sex questions have not been party questions in the past. But that was because they were never, or seldom, the subject of … Continued
When “social activists” spread fear-mongering bullshit about some product or technology (e.g., cell phones, artificial sweeteners, corn syrup, GM crops, or whatever), companies in related industries will inevitably defend their products from those attacks. This isn’t sinister or unexpected. You should be equally skeptical of their statements as those of their detractors, but you shouldn’t … Continued
“President Obama Vows to End the Perpetual War”–so reads the New York Times‘ editorial about President Obama’s speech on counter-terrorism policy. The Times hailed the president’s remarks as a “momentous turning point in post-9/11 America,” but given Mr. Obama’s history of broken pledges, failed expectations, and underwhelming performance, we are less than enthusiastic about this latest among … Continued
