The story to date: bankers and financial fidgeters made a great many stupid reckless positively inebriated investments that depended on the ridiculous premise that real estate prices would go on inflating forever as if no living bankers had ever heard of such a thing as a bubble; to the astonishment of the experts, real estate prices suddenly stopped inflating and began to do the other thing with ever-increasing speed; trillions of dollars turned out never to have existed except in the imaginations of the ‘experts’; the US economy turned into a heap of rubble, and the economy of the rest of the world followed suit; the US government, guided by the savvy B-school president and his friend Hank Paulson, formerly … Read the rest

Buruma is at it again.

Dutch criminal law can be invoked against anyone who “deliberately insults people on the grounds of their race, religion, beliefs or sexual orientation.” Whether Mr. Wilders has deliberately insulted Muslim people is for the judges to decide. But for a man who calls for a ban on the Koran to act as the champion of free speech is a bit rich.

No, not exactly, and not necessarily. Being a champion of free speech does not necessarily mean being a champion of absolute free speech with no exceptions whatever. It can mean, for instance, defending free speech construed more broadly than to allow one anti-speech law but still more narrowly than to permit another. It’s … Read the rest

I went into Bartell’s (a drugstore chain; think Boots if you’re in the UK, but not as nice) yesterday, and was skimming along an unfamiliar aisle when I stopped, amazed. There in front of me dangling from those little rods that packages dangle from, were packages of Foot Detox Pads. Kinoki Cleansing Detox Foot Pads, to be exact. They’re real! Sense About Science didn’t just make them up!

There were before and after pictures on the box: clean white pad, then grubby brown pad. Yes but as Sense About Science points out, the pads contain vinegar and herbs and they make the feet sweat: the brown is from moisture and vinegar and herbs, it’s not a nice brown smear … Read the rest