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"Despite being pilloried by the public lately, a banker's lot can't be all that bad. At least, that's what Wal-Mart executives must be thinking." Forbes on the retail giant's new banking ideas.
"Shouldn't we expect a scramble to put forward plans for promoting growth and restoring jobs? Apparently not." Paul Krugman is critical of backward-looking economic theorizing.
"Free exercise of religion? No, thanks. The taming and domestication of religious faith is one of the unceasing chores of civilization." Christopher Hitchens on the freedom to practice faith.
"What does it take to trade in a commodity that cannot be seen or touched—and isn't even a commodity in the United States?" Scientific American reports on traders in the global carbon market.
"The magic income: $75,000 a year. As people earn more money, their day-to-day happiness rises. Until you hit $75,000. After that, it is just more stuff, with no gain in happiness."
"The pastor who plans to burn Korans is despicable. But the rush to condemn this maniac clouds legitimate free-speech debate." Tunku Varadarajan on when rights should be abridged.
"Are leaders born or made? Evolution may be throwing us a curve ball when it comes to picking them in the modern world" The New Scientist says leaders must first convince the rest of us.
How can space impact and improve the happiness of a community?
NASA is in a catch 22 situation. Five years ago, Congress mandated by law that NASA should track 90% of all of the dangerous asteroids and comets that may threaten […]
When you compile a list of artists that other artists love to hate, a few names typically appear: Jeff Koons, Thomas Kinkade, and, perhaps most virulently, Damien Hirst. You can […]
The New Yorker’s “Notes on Mourning,” excerpts of Roland Barthes’s (are they?) journal entries regarding the loss of his mother, are extraordinary. They are worth reading for anyone interested in […]
Will Sarah Palin run for president? Could she win? Garance Franke-Ruta argues that Palin's best strategy would be to remake herself as a leader within the Republican Party. She notes […]
In the wake of the Aug. 23 court decision that halted Federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, Democrats are gearing up to use stem cell research as a wedge […]
What is happening to the neurochemistry of an addict's brain that makes that person so unable to do without cocaine, heroin, or methamphetamines?
Who decides what "insane" means? This was the major question of Ken Kesey's countercultural classic "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest," which illustrated how mental illness could be deployed by […]
For those of you who don’t frequent Craigslist Adult Services section, life was perhaps pretty uneventful last weekend. However, if you live in the US and are a patron of […]
Few people have felt the muzzle of an automatic machine gun in their gut, let alone survived a kidnapping on their birthday. In January 1998, then-federal prosecutor Stanley Alpert was […]
There were two threads of news this morning about potential activity at two fairly active Chilean volcanoes. First, there are reports of explosions (spanish) with ash or merely steam emissions at […]
The unexpected revival of Sinabung in Indonesia is now in its 2nd week and so far, the activity continues to ramp up. Overnight, the volcano experienced some of the largest […]
"With car use increasing all the time, in a few years we could be facing global gridlock. Can the calculations of mathematicians and engineers keep us moving?" The Independent reports.