An 80-page report from the Pew Forum (PDF) published October 9 contains some interesting statistics about the current state of declining religious belief in the United States. In the latest survey, 2.4 percent describe themselves as atheists, 3.3 as agnostics, … Continue reading
The popular web comic XKCD has a nice graphic illustrating the changing makeup of Congress, by party and ideology, over U.S. history. Click on the image below (or this link) for a larger, more readable version, or click on one … Continue reading
An interesting article by World Bank economist Richard J. Carroll, published on Bloomberg.com in June, summarizes his book-length study comparing the 12 U.S. presidents since World War II in terms of how well the economy did on their watch, using … Continue reading
As a businessman I’m not quite sure what to make of this op-ed by Robert S. McElvaine published October 19 in The Washington Post. In brief: Since 1928 four successful businessmen have served as president — Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter, … Continue reading
As Steven Pinker pointed out in his recent book The Better Angels of Our Nature (previously reviewed here), violence worldwide has been trending down over the centuries, but not uniformly. An interesting set of graphs from Kieran Healy shows that … Continue reading
I spent my childhood in Carolina Beach, North Carolina, where every summer everyone looked forward to donuts from Britt’s, a small shop in the small boardwalk area that served what I’ve always suspected are the best donuts on the planet. … Continue reading
This book, by two conservative Christian professors, is a rebuttal to The Jefferson Lies by David Barton, a writer whose books and talks about American history are unfortunately popular with a large segment of the religious right. Some of Barton’s … Continue reading
This is an entertaining history of the idea of a hollow Earth, from what at the time was serious scientific speculation (concentric Earths supposedly explaining why the magnetic poles don’t line up with the geographical ones) to crank theorizing to … Continue reading
David Barton is a pseudo-historian popular with some members of the Christian right because he claims that the United States was intended to be a Christian nation and the Founding Fathers, including Thomas Jefferson, were orthodox Christians who wanted Christianity … Continue reading
In an earlier post I noted that the United States has prosecuted waterboarding — the practice of strapping prisoners to boards and pouring water into their faces, historically also called “water torture” and more euphemistically “water treatment” or “water cure” … Continue reading