Republican Senator Tom Coburn, whose primary profession is as a doctor, has crunched some numbers (He’s pretty good at crunching numbers—you might have read his highly illuminating “Government Wastebook”) and given us an estimate of the bloat escalation of existing government health programs. Forget Obamacare. Even when all we had was Medicaid, we were already […]
Continue reading →Robin Speronis, a resident of Cape Coral, Florida, wants to live off the grid. She doesn’t use the city’s water—she collects rain water; she doesn’t use the city’s power—she has solar panels; and she tries to survive on non-perishable food and whatever else she can grow. She is as close to self-sufficient as a person […]
Continue reading →Yesterday, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni signed Uganda’s controversial anti-homosexual bill into law. The bill further criminalizes homosexual behavior, which was already illegal in Uganda. First-time offenders can be imprisoned for up to fourteen years and there are even harsher measures for “aggravated” homosexuality—an instance where an HIV-infected person commits homosexual acts. At first the bill […]
Continue reading →The FDA is currently debating whether or not to allow research into test-tube babies from more than two parents. Some scientists have been postulating that using the genetics from more than one pair of humans could decrease the risk of certain genetic diseases in children. Scientists think they know how to do it, but the […]
Continue reading →There’s a deal on the table for Comcast to buy Time Warner Cable, which would make Comcast by far the biggest cable provider in the nation. And there is a lot of back and forth as to whether or not that would be a good thing. A few anti-trust pundits think the merger is bad […]
Continue reading →It’s Wednesday. So it’s time for more bad news. If you’ve been paying attention, you will have already noticed that the United States is headed toward a cliff of imminent destruction at astonishing speeds. Our financial situation is dire, our political situation is dismal, our international situation is tenuous, and our cultural situation is pathetic. […]
Continue reading →If you are a student of history, you know that the most stable times in international and domestic politics are those times when an effective hierarchy of rule is stable. Transitional periods are the worst. Even a harsh and cruel government, if it were stable, can produce tolerable results domestically and internationally. Hegemony is national […]
Continue reading →Research published recently in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that financial crises cause stress through an increase of the stress hormone cortisol (no surprise there), but also that cortisol significantly decreases risk-taking behaviors in those who are affected by it. While a decrease of risk-taking behavior might seem to be good, it […]
Continue reading →National Geographic had a reality show called Snake Salvation which followed the snake-handling adventures of Pastor Jamie Coots. Snake handling is an old Pentecostal Appalachian practice, drawn from a couple passages in the Gospels, that recommends holding venomous snakes as a test of faith. Well, this particular snake-handling Pastor, who had already lost a finger […]
Continue reading →A survey conducted by the National Science Foundation asked Americans some basic science questions to determine American science literacy. Guess what? One in four Americans didn’t know of or hold to a heliocentric view of our solar system—they didn’t know the earth went around the sun. Who knows what these unscientific Americans actually think is […]
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