The East Room was packed with beaming lawmakers and advocates for civil rights and workers’ rights.… Read the rest
All entries by this author
An Ordinary Human Being Can Make a Difference 
Feb 1st, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Lilly Ledbetter talks about her 10-year fight for justice and the new law.… Read the rest
‘Blue Monday’: Pseudoscientific Media Myth
Feb 1st, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Making stupid stuff up about the most depressing day of the year doesn’t help anyone.… Read the rest
AIDS Denialism’s House of Cards
Feb 1st, 2009 | By Seth KalichmanAIDS was first reported by US physicians in New York and California in 1981 when young men and women were falling ill of diseases that are usually kept in check by a healthy immune response. It was soon apparent that these individuals’ immune systems were failing. Within just a few years the causal agent of the mysterious disease was discovered; a human retrovirus that would come to be named HIV. Soon after the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS, an antibody test became available and over the past 25 years more than two dozen drugs have been approved for treating HIV infection. HIV treatments improve the health and extend the lives of millions of people worldwide. Despite the thousands … Read the rest
Pay me, pay me, pay me my money down
Jan 31st, 2009 5:28 pm | By Ophelia BensonThe 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
Samantha Power to Take Job at NSC
Jan 31st, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Author of A Problem From Hell to be senior director for multilateral affairs at the NSC.… Read the rest
Anti-Semitism in Venezuela, Egypt and Iran
Jan 31st, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Nostalgia for Auschwitz and other japes.… Read the rest
Octuplets’ Mother Plans Exciting TV Career
Jan 31st, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Will portray a childcare expert stranded in the wilderness with only a knife and a pacifier.… Read the rest
No Reason to Worry About Thimerosal in Vacs
Jan 31st, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Researchers find no risk of thimerosal in vaccines causing brain problems.… Read the rest
Drink Coffee, See Dead People
Jan 31st, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Ben Goldacre takes a closer look, finds the usual confusions; academics are sadly unblameless.… Read the rest
Octuplets Not Really an Occasion for Rejoicing
Jan 31st, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘The cost of taking care of multiples is huge. It’s not going to finish when the babies go home.’… Read the rest
The Logic of Bonuses for Bad Performance
Jan 31st, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
The bonuses for 2008 were the sixth-largest on record and paid for by taxpayers. What’s the thinking here?… Read the rest
Bankers Defend Their Bonuses
Jan 31st, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Say they work hard, ‘earn’ their bonuses; call disagreement ‘socialism.’… Read the rest
Mother of Octuplets Has Six Children Already
Jan 30th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
So she needed fertility treatments because…… Read the rest
John Patrick Diggins
Jan 30th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
‘He was the most philosophical-minded of the American historians,’ said the political historian Paul Berman.… Read the rest
Obama Calls Wall Street Bonuses Shameful
Jan 30th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Rewarding themselves for trashing the economy and causing mass impoverishment not okay.… Read the rest
Women Gather to Cheer Female Submission
Jan 30th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Signers affirm that women and men were designed to reflect God in ‘complementary and distinct ways.’… Read the rest
Michelle Goldberg on Tragic Ted Haggard
Jan 30th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
By preaching against homosexuality and allying with anti-gay politicians, he caused real damage – and trapped himself.… Read the rest
Abu Hamza Gets it Wrong Again
Jan 30th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
If a husband rapes a wife, she might call the cops, or ‘accept it with laughter and embarrassment.’… Read the rest
Forced Marriage in Syria
Jan 30th, 2009 |
Filed by Ophelia Benson
Muna, 15, dreads being married off to cousin who hits his mother with an iron bar.… Read the rest
