Total Surveillance Equals Total Tyranny

In the name of fighting terrorism a new kind of government is being implemented in Washington, D.C. We are witnessing the birth of a powerful multi-billion dollar surveillance lobby consisting of an army of special interest groups, Washington lawyers, lobbyists, and...

The Refugee Curse

Here’s a puzzle: How do Palestinian refugees differ from the other 135 million 20th-century refugees? Answer: In every other instance, the pain of dispossession, statelessness, and poverty has diminished over time. Refugees eventually either resettled, returned...

Thank You, Harry Potter!

With a long-term war in progress and threats of further terrorist attacks on American soil, is it mere escapism to go to movies such as Harry Potter? Not at all; such movies provide something just as essential to winning a war as weapons and soldiers. Harry Potter...

A Tale of Two Wars

Here we are, five months after the war in Iraq began, and we haven’t yet solved all of that country’s problems. Who would have thought that we would? Apparently a significant section of the American media either thought that we would or is simply piling on...

Mortgage Markets: In Control

In writing so much about Paul Krugman I have, to some extent, become distracted from writing about the most common and most dangerous media manifestation of the conspiracy to keep you poor and stupid. Krugman’s only a very special case of it: his writings about...