According to the Economist, becoming a millionaire in America (solely based on median household pre-taxed income ) requires only a few decades. In some other countries (inclusive to Europe) the timescale of enrichment is a whole order of magnitude longer. That is to say, in America one has a better chance of accumulating wealth…
Old news, but still timelessly depressing. Ananta Bijoy Das, a secular Bangladeshi blogger, was hacked to death by masked men wielding machetes on Tuesday morning while on his way to work in a city in northeastern Bangladesh. The grisly murder was the third such deadly attack this year alone on secular-minded bloggers by avowed Islamists, marking a disturbing trend…
Americans should be proud of these figures (myself included). It is a testament to the enduring legacy of the Jeffersonian liberal democratic project. However, the numbers should be taken with both caution and appreciation. For, the trolling social justice warriors are hell bent on pissing it all away and replacing our liberal heritage with a…
What is most shocking about this short clip is not how the caller was delighting in his most maddened theocratic fantasies. What is baffling is how a liberal, western media outpost, such as the BBC, is publicly legitimizing the premise of Islamic thought crime. Notice how the posed question is not “do you support punishing blasphemy” (given a predefined…
According to reports from India, a 31-year-old man named H. Farook was hacked to death on Thursday night by four men who were pissed off that he posted atheistic messages on a WhatsApp group and Facebook page. At 11.15pm on Thursday, [Farook] received a phone call summoning him out of the house. His wife advised…
Get a load of these freethinkers. Its not enough they had to censor the controversial speaker out of the room. This mob of sensitivity even went so far as to send a faculty member to the emergency room. And no, we’re not talking about those thuggish Trump supporters we’ve all been properly rehearsed to fear and loath. No, the…
Punishing thought crime is making a comeback in Scandinavia. A man whose named has not been made public has been charged with ‘blasphemy’ in Denmark. The 42-year-old allegedly made a film of himself burning a copy of the Quran and shared the film online. He gave the video the title: “Consider your neighbour: it stinks when it burns”…
What a tumultuous new year it has been. The election of Donald J. Trump to the presidency of the United States of America has been met with anything but peace and conciliation. Since Trump’s victory back in November, massive rallies, calls for impeachment, violence and just about everything else you can imagine immediately ensued. In the…
The “I told you so” meme is becoming really tiring. Beyond the obvious environmental risks, it’s doubly bad news for Venezuela, a country in dire economic straits and full-fledged crisis, with a political impasse, looting, dangerous food and health supply shortages, and massive protests. Venezuela is massively reliant on oil exports to bankroll government services. But the…
Nice article on the economic consequences of protectionism, concerning Trump’s recent executive order against TPP. Another analysis of trade restrictions can be found here from the Foundation for Economic Education. And no, free trade (NAFTA, TPP or otherwise) isn’t destroying the manufacturing sector, as has been pointed out time and time again. Particularly hard hit will be low income…
Cultural Criticism: The Moral Imperative Self-criticism is the one unforgeable signature of our humanity. Without this essential quality, there would be no marked difference between us and our mammalian cousins. The English philosopher John Locke underscored this observation best when he quipped that “beasts abstract not”. But more importantly is the fact that coupled with…
It is in large part because of people like Bernie Sanders and his methodically simple approach to profoundly difficult social and economic problems that we have arrived at a post-truth era of presidential politics. There was not and still is not a conundrum of fiscal or economic policy with which people like Sanders are not equipped to address by…
An interesting piece by the intelligent and indomitable Ben Shapiro. UPDATED November 13, 2016 On November 13, President-Elect Donald Trump named Bannon his White House Chief Strategist. He will serve alongside White House Chief of Staff and former RNC Chairman Reince Preibus as co-equals, reportedly. ORIGINAL: On Wednesday, the Trump campaign shifted top campaign staff:…
This entire election cycle was about how “shattered” the American dream is for so many. Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump filled our heads with ideas about “poverty” and “inequality” destroying the American middle class. But, how cutthroat is this capitalism that it undermines the average American, while sparing the brown-skinned minorities? Hindus are also most likely…
The sheer scale of sociopathology at work here is almost more amazing than that betrayed by the so-called average Trump supporter: The first one to really go viral involved a Muslim female student at the University of Louisiana who claimed to have had her hijab ripped off and her wallet stolen the day after Trump’s election…
Certainly Doubtful 