http://www.globallyrational.com Think first Fri, 04 Jul 2008 20:30:30 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en Two hundred and thirty-two years ago today, Thomas Jefferson announced the Americans' future right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  But people often forget the next part of the Declaration of Independence, where he states "that to preserve these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just ... http://www.globallyrational.com/2008/07/04/super-democracy/ The Pew Research Center, which always seems to come up with great surveys and statistics, recently asked people if they think that Barack Obama is Muslim.  10% of people said "yes", which is obviously wrong.  Do people think that Islam is an ethnicity and not a religion?  Or do they ... http://www.globallyrational.com/2008/07/03/did-you-know-1-out-of-10-voters-think-obama-is-muslim/ Welcome to the 68th edition of Carnival of the Liberals! It was very difficult to choose a reasonable number of articles from the many submissions that I received, but I think I managed to cut it down to the point where it's not overcrowded. I also included some comments about ... http://www.globallyrational.com/2008/07/02/carnival-of-the-liberals-68th-edition/ People often talk about how they prefer "natural" cures or "natural" foods or other things of a "natural" nature. I'm not one of those people.  I don't deny the value of preserving the environment... but as far as the difference between eating "organic beef" (I won't even bring up ... http://www.globallyrational.com/2008/07/01/is-your-beef-more-natural-than-mine/ I saw an article today suggesting that, for the first time, the average TV viewer is now over 50 years old. I think it's interesting to note that top TV characters, on the other hand, seem to be getting younger as time progresses. If you look at the ... http://www.globallyrational.com/2008/06/30/tv-characters-are-getting-younger-musicians-are-staying-put-and-tv-viewers-are-getting-older-why/ This is just a reminder that Globally Rational will be hosting the July 2 edition of Carnival of the Liberals, a fortnightly event which showcases the best recent articles by liberal bloggers.  The deadline for submitting an article is midnight CST on July 2, so get your submissions in ASAP! Here ... http://www.globallyrational.com/2008/06/30/carnival-of-the-liberals-reminder/ This is another in my set of "Sunday Rewinds", where I re-post one of my favorite articles that I wrote back when nobody was reading. FYI, the status of North Korea has changed a little bit since I first wrote the article. Wikipedia defines "terrorism" as "violence against civilians to ... http://www.globallyrational.com/2008/06/29/sunday-rewind-rogue-terrorism-vs-state-sponsored-killing/ "Democracy" is a popular buzzword here in the US.  Everybody assumes that if a country is "democratic", they are also automatically "free".  While I don't oppose the idea of freedom and liberty, I don't think that they should be naturally associated with the word "democracy". In America, democracy and freedom both ... http://www.globallyrational.com/2008/06/28/democracy-vs-freedom-mugabe-illustrates-the-difference/ McCain's top VP prospect, Bobby Jindal, apparently believes that Intelligent Design is "the very best science." When talking about the subject, he mentioned that "The way we're going to have smart, intelligent kids is exposing them to the very best science and let them not only decide, but also ... http://www.globallyrational.com/2008/06/27/intelligent-design-is-a-science-now/ We all hate child molesters.  Even child molesters hate child molesters.  We can all agree that they deserve whatever sort of punishment we can give them... but where do we draw the line? Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal recently signed a bill allowing chemical castration for convicted sex offenders.  While the law ... http://www.globallyrational.com/2008/06/26/cruel-and-unusual-vs-letting-him-off-too-easy/