Why Asian Muslims didn’t explode

After the cartoon fiasco, Karim Raslan of the The New York Times wrote Why Asian Muslims didn’t explode. He doesn’t really answer why, but he does cite several cultural differences. Some of hsi strongest rhetoric: Whether we are conservative or liberal, many of us are appalled and angered by the stupidity and insensitivity of the …

The Secret Life of Dr. Chandra

The CBC’s The National ran an exposé on Dr. Ranjit Kumar Chandra. It turns out he’s been faking his research data for 20 years: Chandra claimed to have given 96 healthy seniors from St. John’s a daily multivitamin pill for a year. He then tested their memory for improvements. But the test results didn’t make …

the west wing

Why Farhad Manjoo still watches The West Wing: The show is a fiction, certainly. There isn’t a politician in the world like Jed Bartlet, an exceedingly smart, (mostly) honest man with principles, who doesn’t govern by politics, who takes counsel from the cooler, calmer heads on his staff, and even from his opponents. Today in …

great speeches of the 21st century

Robert F. Kennedy at the Sierra Club, September 10, 2005 [via Wil]: I do 40 speeches a year in red states, and there is no difference between how Republican audiences and Democratic audiences react when they hear what this White House and this Congress are doing. There is no difference except that the Republicans come …

saying no to diamonds

A couple of months ago, Sarah got engaged. She declined to get an engagement ring (she doesn’t elaborate on her reasons). This, in my opinion, was an excellent decision. Why? Since then, I came across an Econ-Atrocity Bulletin “Ten reasons why you should never accept a diamond ring from anyone, under any circumstances, even if …