Consulting by RPM || Free Advice Blog

Wisdom From Seinfeld on Crimea Showdown

Court Intellectuals Hit Back at Whistleblowers

I’ve been traveling and just now read the mid-January piece in The New Republic by Sean Wilentz, a history professor at Princeton. The ostensible purpose of the article is to cast doubt on the motives of Edward Snowden, Glenn Greenwald, and Julian Assange, but Wilentz’s hatchet job (and yes I use that term quite consciously) […]

Surely the American People Would Never Let That Happen!?

Things have gotten so bad, I have no choice but to read aloud from the New York Times.

ObamaCare Is About Sticking Up for the Little Guy Against the Powerful State

This offhand remark by Krugman is really amazing: Terrific piece in the WaPo on how Kentucky’s rural poor are being helped by Kynect, the state’s version of Obamacare, which has had a picture-perfect rollout. This is why we need health reform. To my misfortune, I accidentally read some of the comments, which which full of […]

Guest Post: “Revising Patriotism” by Adam House

Editor’s note: I recently carpooled with Adam on a trip from Nashville to Atlanta to see a performance by Jordan Page. I asked Adam how he had come to his current political views and thought his answer–which centered on his time in the military in Afghanistan–was quite profound. I asked him to share his thoughts, […]

Even More Middle East Map Fun–Animated and With Music

Watch this and then read my two comments: (1) Some people didn’t understand why I was saying it’s important, when considering the arguments for bombing Syria and aiding its rebels, to look at a map. Does this video make it clearer? (Again, keep in mind that many Americans–including me!–are awful at geography.) (2) I am […]

Jon Stewart Is How I Honestly Get My News at This Point

I had no idea about Kerry’s snafu. This is awesome, and Jon Stewart is dead-on.

More Middle East Map Fun

Whenever the US government tells us how awful a regime is, and why military action is urgently needed, I like to look at a map. (I did this exercise back when the Iranians were the Nazi Germany of the day.) So here you go: For what it’s worth, in 1994 the Rwandan genocide supposedly involved […]