Guest Thinkers

Animal smuggling has grown to a $9.8 billion-a-year criminal industry, and is exceeded only by the drugs and arms trades. Profits help to fund terrorism and civil wars, says The Independent.

Though the revolution against Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi has no set leader, rebels in Benghazi have set up a provisional government in a courthouse which is now the center of the revolution.

A happy adolescence increases the odds of a happy adulthood, says new research. There’s a catch, of course: those who have enjoyable teenage years are more likely to get divorced as adults.

The mainstream is beginning to accept the “post-rational view of the mind, but what next? How do we rethink our societal assumptions and institutions? Join the conversation here with the After Thought Project.

After months of delays and preparation, the oldest remaining shuttlein the fleet–Discovery, finally made its way from the Vehicle Assembly Building at the KSC to the launch pad. At 4:53 […]

Things have been exciting in Hawai`i lately – and today is no exception. The crater vent inside at Pu`u O`o collapsed in spectacular fashion this evening, with the whole crust […]

Anyone who drives a car knows that gas prices are going up. The average price of gas in the U.S. hit a seasonal record high in February. Crude oil prices […]

If you remember, I’ve decided to “celebrate” the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War by remembering failures of Southern and Confederate statesmanship.  My first post affirmed the […]

By all accounts, Nick Clegg is not a happy man. This week his candidate trailed into a truly humiliating sixth place in the Barnsley Central by-election, losing his deposit and […]

Between the WikiLeaks scandal and the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, Frederick Siedel’s “Our Gods” is the perfect poem for our times.

“Secession wasn’t evidence that the South didn’t have a reasoned intellectual life. In fact, it was the strongest evidence that it did,” according to the teaser on a blog post […]

In Yemen, Hillary Clinton’s recent remarks about Iran’s influence in Yemen sound as crazy as President Salih’s remarks about a secret room in Tel Aviv controlled by the US sounded to Americans.

Besides the immense pleasure that it gives, bet you didn’t know that regular sex is also a great way to improve your physical and psychological health. Yes, sex does a body good!

Apparently, fewer teens and young adults are having sex, according to a federal study that offers numbers but doesn’t examine the reasons. Why might it be decreasing?

“You fall backward and you’re moved by the spirit of God and you get up and go forth and you’re a different person,” artist Liza Lou says in an interview […]

Kirsten Powers has a piece in the Daily Beast arguing that birth control doesn’t prevent abortions. Her case is largely based on a blatant factual error. She writes: In the […]

The largest economy in the world is likely to stay slow even though the recovery finally seems to be gaining momentum. This has nothing to do with our current economic crisis and everything to do with long-term demographic trends.

“I believe in a forgiving God,” Newt Gingrich said the other day when he was asked to reconcile his public defense of “traditional marriage” with the fact that he cheated […]

Parents should be telling their sons: “Work hard so you can go to college. Not only will you make more money, but it’s your best chance to get laid.”

Another week has blown by … and I haven’t had a lot of new volcano news (beyond the earthquakes at Krísuvík) to report this week – just some images and books. […]

The other evening I was asked onto a radio programme in order to criticise the international community for being slow, or downright useless, in responding to the Libyan uprising. What […]

America may not love unions—certainly not the way some countries do—but it doesn’t hate them either. Yesterday, I wrote that unions play an essential role in a healthy economy by […]

There is one thing about living with a lawyer that never fails to amuse me. When I described to her yesterday how, despite a temporary restraining order prohibiting Wisconsin’s Department […]

I am somewhat dragging this week – I think it is the exhaustion that leads into spring break – so today’s we’ll have a Mystery Volcano Photo. Our last installment, […]

Climate change expert Bjorn Lomborg says carbon pricing is a “broken” scheme and the world must instead invest heavily in R & D to make green energy cheaper than fossil fuels.

The fact that foodies so often construct their pursuit of rarified taste to be an environmentally and socially responsible act only intensifies the ugly paradox at the core of the movement.

What if scientific investment sought to benefit people directly rather than secondarily through technological development? Welcome to the emerging world of social innovation.

Rare earth minerals crucial to the operation of laptops, cellphones and iPods are mined from conflict areas like the Congo where profits from resource extraction fund civil wars.

So I’ve been thinking some about the fact that “The Social Network” portrays people–even techno-meritocrats–as worse than they really are.  I’ve been criticized, of course, for not recognizing the artistry […]

“Once I am sure there’s nothing going on/ I step inside, letting the door thud shut,” begins Philip Larkin’s poem “Church Going.” “Another church: matting, seats, and stone,/ And little […]