In Backtalk: Monica Benderman announces the establishment of the Kevin Benderman Defense Committee’s Web site: BendermanDefense.org. John Mayew suggests that we write to our elected representatives in support of Sibel Edmonds, while T. Tunney says that letter-writing...

In today's Backtalk:Carl Webb, a soldier protesting the Iraq Stop Loss Program, announces his new website: CarlWebb.net. Monica Nouwens seeks Iraq veterans in southern California for her documentary: monicano@earthlink.net.Tim Gillin continues the "peak oil theory"...

It turns out that people think conflicts of interest don't much matter. "If you disclose a conflict of interest, people in general don't know how to use that information," George Loewenstein, an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon, says. "And, to the extent that...

I received some comments on "The Economics of Oil." T. Gillin wrote: There is another dimension to the peak oil debate, at least insofar as foreign policy is concerned. Whether or not "peak oil" or more "price elastic" views of the oil supply situation is "right" or...

I read the following passage in David D. Friedman's Hidden Order: The Economics of Everyday Life (published in '97): In the previous discussion, we were considering a pure depletable resource -- a resource whose price was entirely determined by its limited supply....

The "bombs-and-Jesus crowd" (Hunter Thompson's decade-old description) – whose heart is in Dixie – has become the decisive voting bloc in American politics. For nearly a century after the civil war Dixie voted solidly Democrat until a magic bullet in Dallas killed the...

THE UNPOLITICAL ANIMAL: How political science understands voters The most widely known fact about George H. W. Bush in the 1992 election was that he hated broccoli. Eighty-six per cent of likely voters in that election knew that the Bushes’ dog’s name was Millie; only...

Ted Friedman comments on "The New Energy 'Crisis' and Iraq": This is a confusing post that sees to suggest that Peak Oil is a "theory" based on "junk science." Mathew Simmons seems to have excellent credentials. Much better than the author of this post. His quote...

Tim Gillin of the Personal Independence Day blog has emailed us comments on "Guns, Oil, and Neocolonialism": My guess is that Hazlitt would recognize a group of inter-related economic myths that are shared by both neocons and greens, both of which are groups that have...

"You seem surprised to find us here," the man said. "I am," I said. "I wasn't expecting to find anyone." "We are everywhere," the man said. "We are all over the country." "Forgive me," I said, "but I don't understand. Who do you mean by we?" "Jewish refugees." I...