government
The terrible ‘blast effect’ of AR-15s
Reading Time: 4 minutes It’s about time. Finally, a major news outlet—The Washington Post—had the temerity to show, in 3D, the obscene damage inflicted by high-velocity, needle-nosed bullets from AR-15-type long guns as they blast into and tumble through bodies, leaving “gaping holes” where they exi
Do Biden’s bank bailouts create a ‘moral hazard’?
Reading Time: 3 minutes The Biden administration is insisting its recently announced bailouts of two failed tech-focused banks—Silicon Valley (California) and Signature (New York)—is something else. But experts in previous government interventions to save failing financial institutions, notably thos
Should Christmas trees be banned in tax-funded public spaces?
Reading Time: 3 minutes Although I’m a committed nontheist and ardent church-state separationist, I’m not inflexible about it. Which is to say I see no good reason to oppose Christmas trees, for example, in public, tax-supported spaces. It’s been a centuries-long American civic tradition to erect Ch
How a critical thinking deficit aids fascism…and religion
Reading Time: 5 minutes Why do so many Americans embrace such outlandish and patently false ideas these days? Partly because they were never taught critical-thinking skills.