Free Republic

The folks at Liberal Conspiracy have asked people to put together “info-graphics and bits of information about inequality”, so I thought I’d help out a bit with this neat little graph (the little blue dots represent American states). Citing New Economics Foundation, Resolution Foundation and Joseph Rowntree Foundation, Sunny Hundal points out that:

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Alluding to the scandal embroiling his ascendant campaign, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told a crowd in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday that he would “cheerfully answer every single question” reporters had. Following the event, however, he refused to answer any questions about the work he did for mortgage giant Freddie Mac. In recent days, it has been revealed that Gingrich earned $1.6 million for work he did for Freddie Mac, the agency many blame for the housing bubble that preceded the financial crisis. “In the next three weeks I predict to you, we’ll have all sorts of questions...

At the heart of the weirdness for which the field of quantum mechanics is famous is the wavefunction, a powerful but mysterious entity that is used to determine the probabilities that quantum particles will have certain properties. Now, a preprint posted online on 14 November1 reopens the question of what the wavefunction represents — with an answer that could rock quantum theory to its core. Whereas many physicists have generally interpreted the wavefunction as a statistical tool that reflects our ignorance of the particles being measured, the authors of the latest paper argue that, instead, it is physically real. “I...

Presidential candidate Newt Gingrich would invite mostly scientists and entrepreneurs — including Charles Darwin, father of the theory of evolution — to a hypothetical dinner party in which he could select the guest list from historical figures, living or dead, he told the Bio channel. "He was the most influential scientist in the modern world, and an extraordinary observer of nature," Gingrich said of the evolutionary scientist. The topic of evolution has become a hot-button issue in the Republican field, after Rick Perry said that it was "a theory that is out there — and it's got some gaps...

Dennis Gartman gave a blistering defense of income inequality... We celebrate income disparity and we applaud the growing margins between the bottom 20% of American society and the upper 20% for it is evidence of what has made America a great country. It is the chance...to make something of one’s self; to begin a business and become a millionaire legally and on one’s own that separates the US from most other nations of the world. ... That is why immigrants come to the U.S.: to join the disparate income earners at the upper levels of society and to leave poverty...

When Barack Obama speaks to us, why does he always look like a prick when he does it? After all, shouldn’t a president show a little emotion? But Obama doesn’t.

Q: On another domestic matter, does the president have any reaction to the way the Occupy Wall Street protesters were removed, how that was handled? White House Press Secretary Jay Carney: He’s aware of it, obviously, from the reports. And our position and the president’s position is that obviously every municipality has to make its own decisions about how to handle these issues, and we would hope and want, as these decisions are made, that it balances between a long tradition of freedom of assembly and freedom of speech in this country and obviously of demonstrating and protesting, and also...

An old Russian joke tells about a poor peasant whose better-off neighbor has just gotten a cow. In his anguish, the peasant cries out to God for relief from his distress. When God replies and asks him what he wants him to do, the peasant replies, "Kill the cow." The joke illustrates an important point about human nature: The line between clamoring for justice and envy can be very thin. The subject came to mind when I read a recent column by Ross Douthat in the New York Times about the issue of income inequality and the redistribution of wealth....

The Penn State legend tried to do an end-run around the trustees, but they still fired him for doing nothing to stop the alleged sexual abuse of young boys. Now it’s time to ditch the rotten college football system, says Buzz Bissinger.Like everyone else, I cannot get the scandal of Pennsylvania State University out of my mind. The story is unfolding at the speed of sound, not just the worst sports scandal in modern history but also one of the worst scandals in modern history: A former Penn State assistant coach for 29 years and alleged sexual predator, Jerry Sandusky,...

Hank Williams Jr. won’t be singing the opening song for ESPN’s “Monday Night Football” anymore as a result of a comment he made about President Obama. Some consider him the latest prominent victim of political correctness. A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 79% of American Adults think political correctness is a serious problem in America today, up five points from a year ago. Just 16% feel it’s not a problem for the country.

The Budist is a Christian. You won't find much difference in Budism with that of Christianity. Buda preached accepting sufferings calmly, so did Christ. That's what Beinsa Douno said in regards to Budism. Any budists coming here on this forum?

Which of the Ten Commandments is most pertinent to today’s headlines? A group in Minnesota thinks it is the 10th–thou shalt not covet, for those who haven’t read Exodus for a while. I think they have a point; if the Occupy movement isn’t covetous, what is? Anyway, they put up this billboard here in the Twin Cities:I believe the billboard just went up this morning, but it is already getting considerable notice.

In his last New Rule of the evening, Bill Maher argued that Christian populism and anti-intellectualism have been steadily growing in the Republican party, and that one of the core beliefs of the religious right in America today is that “knowing things has become an affront to the all-knowing.” Maher decided if the Republican party wanted to nominate a devoutly Christian candidate, they might as well nominate Denver Broncos quarterback Tim Tebow. Maher argued that on the football field Tebow was way in over his head, and rated his football abilities as sub-par, but it was Tebow’s Christian faith that...

A well-known psychologist in the Netherlands whose work has been published widely in professional journals falsified data and made up entire experiments, an investigating committee has found. Experts say the case exposes deep flaws in the way science is done in a field, psychology, that has only recently earned a fragile respectability. The psychologist, Diederik Stapel, of Tilburg University, committed academic fraud in “several dozen” published papers, many accepted in respected journals and reported in the news media, according to a report released on Monday by the three Dutch institutions where he has worked: the University of Groningen, the University...

AND NOW . . . amidst billowing clouds of fragrant, aromatic first- and second-hand premium cigar smoke. . . it is time for . . . that harmless, lovable little fuzz ball, the highly-trained broadcast specialist, having more fun than a human being should be allowed to have, from behind the golden EIB microphone, firmly ensconced in the prestigious Attila-the-Hun chair at the Limbaugh Institute of Advanced Conservative Studies, serving humanity simply by showing up, and he’s not retiring until every American agrees with him, do NOT doubt him, with shrieks of joy at the mere mention of his name...

A well-known psychologist in the Netherlands whose work has been published widely in professional journals falsified data and made up entire experiments, an investigating committee has found. Experts say the case exposes deep flaws in the way science is done in a field, psychology, that has only recently earned a fragile respectability. The psychologist, Diederik Stapel, of Tilburg University, committed academic fraud in “several dozen” published papers ... In a prolific career, Dr. Stapel published papers on the effect of power on hypocrisy, on racial stereotyping and on how advertisements affect how people view themselves. Many of his findings appeared...

Last week, the New York Times published an opinion piece by Karl W. Giberson and Randall J. Stephens — a physics professor and a history professor at Eastern Nazarene College — that takes evangelicals to task for being anti-intellectual, anti-reason, and anti-science. Their evidence: Evangelicals doubt man-made global warming. Evangelicals believe that gays can “pray away” their homosexuality. Evangelicals believe the earth is only thousands of years old and that men lived alongside dinosaurs. Evangelicals oppose same-sex marriage. It is worth analyzing these charges, given how often they are made. With regard to man-made global warming, the charge that all...

At an appearance at George Washington University here Saturday night, Bill Maher bounded into territory that the news media have been gingerly tiptoeing around. Magic underwear. Baptizing dead people. Celestial marriages. Private planets. Racism. Polygamy. "By any standard, Mormonism is more ridiculous than any other religion," asserted the famously nonbelieving comic who skewered the "fairy tales" of several faiths in his documentary "Religulous." "It's a religion founded on the idea of polygamy. They call it The Principle. That sounds like The Prime Directive in 'Star Trek.'" He said he expects the Romney crowd — fighting back after Robert Jeffress, a...

Research on Dordogne cave art shows children learned to finger-paint in palaeolithic age, approximately 13,000 years ago -- Archaeologists at one of the most famous prehistoric decorated caves in France, the complex of caverns at Rouffignac in the Dordogne known as the Cave of a Hundred Mammoths, have discovered that children were actively helped to express themselves through finger fluting – running fingers over soft red clay to produce decorative crisscrossing lines, zig-zags and swirls. The stunning drawings, including 158 depictions of mammoths, 28 bisons, 15 horses, 12 goats, 10 woolly rhinoceroses, four human figures and one bear, form just...

An important feature environmentalism shares with fascism is the centrality, within each movement, of the European aristocracy. However, while aristocrats flaunt their environmental credentials, they conceal their past involvement with fascism. This is why Jonathon Petropoulos’ Royals and the Reich (Oxford, 2006) is so useful. 270 German princes and princesses were Nazi Party members. A sampling of 312 “old aristocratic” families found 3,592 Party members. Every noble family east of the Elbe River had at least one member in the Party. A third of Nazi-aristocrats joined the Party before Hitler became Chancellor; a majority supported the Nazis, or like groups,...