There is a downside to following politics too closely in that it can cause you to misjudge the impact of a news story on the general public. Take the case of Mitt Romney’s taxes. It has been known for a long time amongst the cognoscenti that not only was he wealthy but that his income came from investments and [Read more…]
In the article titled Buddhism Without the Hocus-Pocus in the The Chronicle of Higher Education (January 13, 2012, page B4, unfortunately behind a subscription wall) by Owen Flanagan, a professor of philosophy at Duke University, that I wrote about yesterday, the author quotes the Dalai Lama as saying that if [Read more…]
I almost forgot to mark the occasion of the seventh anniversary of this blog. Well, technically not at this particular location which I moved to on January 9th of this year. But I started blogging on January 26, 2005 and never thought I’d last this long.
So onward and upward to year #8!
The candidate for US Senate from Massachusetts seems to have passion and a willingness to take on the big financial interests that are working against the poor and the middle class. While the US Senate has become a largely ineffective body, she may still be able to use it as a platform to articulate a point of view that is currently with little voice in Congress.
Of course, I have been disillusioned before by many candidates who [Read more…]
France’s parliament has just passed a law that forbids denying that the mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks in 1915 constituted genocide. This has infuriated Turkey which has suspended military, economic, and political ties with France.
Outlawing points of view, however much you disagree with them [Read more…]
Large gifts given to others are taxable. There are some loopholes. For example, a parent can give up to $10,000 per year to a child without incurring gift taxes. But if you have income that can be classified as ‘carried interest’, then you can give huge gifts to your children without incurring any tax whatsoever.
Romney’s tax returns reveal that he gave $100 million to his children using this loophole, that is available only to the wealthy whose income is from investments.
Scientists and atheists tend to be naturalists. Owen Flanagan, a professor of philosophy at Duke University, has written an article titled Buddhism Without the Hocus-Pocus in a recent issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education (January 13, 2012, page B4, unfortunately behind a subscription wall) which provides as good a definition of naturalism as any.
Naturalism comes in many varieties, but [Read more…]
Christianity has this two-pronged system to try to keep you within the fold. There is the reward of heaven but also the threat of hell if heaven is not sufficient. There is god as the good cop who cares about you and wants to save but also the devil as the bad cop who just wants the chance to fry you for eternity.
But according to a Gallup poll, Americans are ‘the glass is half full’ kind of people, believing slightly more in god than in the devil, and in heaven more than hell.