Tag Archives: 2012

Darwin, Lucretius, and End Times Hysteria

Regarding doomsday today, December 21, 2012, the calamity has already arrived: the comet hit in 1859 when Charles Darwin published his Origin of Species. I’m referring, of course, to the death of God. Since the Italian Renaissance and Anglo-French Enlightenment, … Continue reading

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Before You Do Something Stupid

It’s December 20, 2012, and regarding the Mayan calendar Doomsday date tomorrow, the Los Angeles Times reports the following: NASA says, “the world will not end in 2012.” “Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion … Continue reading

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2012: The Best Year In All Of Human History?

It sounds like a joke, but that’s the thesis of the lead article in The Spectator’s 2012 Christmas issue: Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing … Continue reading

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Paul Ryan Requests Obama Stimulus Funds Five Times, Then Lies About It

Can we say hypocrisy? What else is Paul Ryan lying about? This is in the Boston Globe today: After seeking millions of dollars from a federal stimulus program he opposed on grounds it would not help the economy, Republican vice … Continue reading

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Romney Hood, Romney Hyde, Romney Hide

I like President Obama’s clever reference to Mitt Romney as Romney Hood. It’s surely bound to stick because it so obviously fits him. But if Romney Hood nicely links Mitt Romney with serving rich interests, where are the apt monikers … Continue reading

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Obama’s Reelection: Greece in June Will Tell Us Ohio in November

And Greece is looking bad for President Obama. Here’s Reuters today: The U.S. Commerce Department estimates that more than a quarter of all manufacturing workers in Ohio depend on exports for their jobs. Against this backdrop, the Obama administration has … Continue reading

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A Bit of Perspective on Job Creation, and a Prediction

Here’s part of what Mark Gongloff and Bonnie Kavoussi, at the Huffington Post, have to say about the lackluster employment numbers that came out today (120,000 new jobs in March): The economy has created 1.2 million nonfarm payroll jobs in … Continue reading

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Romney, Are You OK? Romney, Are You OK? Are You OK, Romney?

I still think, if Newt Gingrich gets out of the presidential race, that Rick Santorum is going to be the Republican nominee, stealing the nomination from Mitt Romney, and leaving him, like “Annie” in the Michael Jackson song, bleeding out … Continue reading

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Khamenei Strategist Alireza Forghani: “In the name of Allah, Iran must attack Israel by 2014”

You can’t say we weren’t warned. This was in the Jerusalem Post yesterday: Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei’s strategist provided the legal and religious justification for the annihilation of Israel and the Jewish people, in a document published on conservative Farsi website Alef. Reports … Continue reading

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2012 On the Brink: Our Networked Human Future

We live in interesting times: the end of the “dumb society.” A great short documentary on our collective (and hopeful) future:

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Could Rick Santorum Really Win the Republican Nomination for President?

William Galston, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, and a contributing editor to the New Republic, thinks so: [A] group of movement conservatives has called an emergency meeting for next weekend in an attempt to find a “consensus” candidate. … Continue reading

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A Poem for the New Year: Alfred Lord Tennyson’s “Ring out, wild bells”

From In Memoriam (106), by Alfred, Lord Tennyson Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, The flying cloud, the frosty light: The year is dying in the night; Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. Ring out the … Continue reading

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Islamic Herderianism is Coming to Egypt

As a result of recent Egyptian elections, the (so-called moderate) Islamic Brotherhood and (all agree fanatic) Salafists will represent two-thirds of the seats in the new parliament. Erik Trager of the New Republic interviewed seven of these election winners, all … Continue reading

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H5N1: A Threat to Human Civilization in 2012?

It’s hard to imagine a nervier end-of-the-year story. H5N1 is a highly virulent strain of bird flu. If it ever went aerosol, transmitting itself between humans through coughing or sneezing, it would probably kill a billion people before a vaccine got … Continue reading

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Cassandra 2012

___ I’m feeling increasingly bleak about the human future going into 2012. I say this without the least pleasure because I have two small children (one is five, the other is eight). I don’t want anything I point to here … Continue reading

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Paul Krugman’s Advice to Italy and Spain: Inflate and Stimulate

Paul Krugman continues to think that what’s going on in Greece, Italy, and Spain says nothing—nothing!—about the political culture surrounding welfare statism in Europe and everything about the way the euro ties the hands of those making monetary policy: Japan is much more deeply … Continue reading

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Rick Perry for President of the United States?

I’m not thrilled with Rick Perry’s Christianism, but his otherwise libertarian instincts are damned appealing. After watching his announcement to seek the Republican nomination for president, I’d be tempted to vote for him, and I’m a liberal! President Obama is … Continue reading

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In a Michelle Bachmann Administration, Would She Entertain the Idea of Making Glenn Beck Her Press Secretary?

Knowing that, at the end of this week, Glenn Beck will no longer be with Fox News, I watched the full hour of one of his parting shows. I wanted to see what impression he might leave me with—something to recall about him—and what struck me was his … Continue reading

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Right Ring: Perry-Bachmann 2012?

The Herderian religious conservative governor of Texas, Rick Perry, at the recent Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, appears to have wowed the Christian fundamentalist dominated crowd. This is from NBC News: Of all the speakers of the three-day confab, Perry was … Continue reading

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Ask the Whale Question of the Republican Presidential Field!

For the 2012 primaries, I’d like to see the following question asked of the Republican presidential candidate field (during a debate): Do you believe that, five days after the universe began, there were whales in it? Genesis 1 says that there … Continue reading

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