Ezra Klein

Tyler Cowen quotes one of his readers saying: [Americans] can get “cheap” European care if they like, just create extremely bad American HMO insurance, or don’t buy health care at all and go to Public hospitals. The reason the European systems are cheaper is not that they magically have less costs, it is that they […]

by Stephen of the Thinkery Interesting news about religion coming out of China. East China Normal University conducted a poll on religious belief among the Chinese, and estimates that 31.4% of all Chinese over 16 are religious believers. This puts the number of believers at approximately 400 million. What’s interesting about this poll is that […]

Yikes. James Kirchek thinks the processes the Senate and the House of Representatives use vote on legislation are “a tad totalitarian.” I thought that was the sort of overheated rhetoric The New Republic eschewed. Next the Plank will be talking about Bu$hCo and Amerikkka. Meanwhile, Chris Hayes snarks, “Can something be “a tad totalitarian?” Isn’t […]

(Posted by John.) For a perfect example of the kind of writing Sino-American relations don’t need, read this by Mark Helprin. Helprin makes much of America’s reduction in it’s nuclear arsenal, and the supposed disadvantage this will bring vs. China, but there’s really only three things you need to know:

(Posted by John.) Many if not most of you probably saw this at Kevin Drum’s place, but it’s kind of important and I’d like to think energy-blogging is still something I do every once in a while. Apparently, Stuart Staniford at The Oil Drum (your one-stop energy news shopping destination) has crunched the numbers, and […]

[litbrit speaking] Journalists covering the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are there becausethey believe the ends–getting the story and the images out there,telling the truth–justify the means, which is to say, putting theirown lives in grave danger by even being in country. Imagine the angerand disappointment a reporter or photographer feels when a story isburied […]

[litbrit says Good Morning!] Ah, Monday fun. I can’t imagine how Max Blumenthal of The Nation was able to get himself and his cameraman into the CPAC to-do this weekend, but they managed to secure some excellent footage, including a little smackdown of Ann Coulter and a meet-‘n-greet with Flipper, the anti-Romney dolphin. The pièce […]

By Ezra I was struck by this on Mike Huckabee’s attitudes towards crime and punishment: [Huckabee] has refused to take the predictable path by talking tough on crime to deflect the DuMond criticism. Instead, he campaigns on a compassionate approach to wrongdoers, especially those whose crimes are the result of drug or alcohol addiction. At […]

Cartoon of the day.

By Neil the Ethical Werewolf The Grand Mufti of Egypt, Ali Gomaa, has come out with a fatwa permitting women to hide premarital sexual relations from their husbands, either with surgery to reconstruct their hymens or by just not admitting their sexual past. While we in the West have progressed far enough that it makes […]