President Obama has just signed a new hate crimes bill into law. In the past, I have been ambivalent about such legislation. At first, I supported it completely. I mean, hate is bad, right?[...]

Last night, Steven Levitt, co-author of Freakonomics and now the ostensibly freakier Super Freakonomics, appeared on The Daily Show. Jon Stewart expressed his enthusiasm for Levitt’s position that we should be combating global warming in many ways, not only by reducing emissions but also by implementing strategies to actively remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.[...]

You may have seen these commercials for FreeEnterpriseAmerica.com. This is the latest effort in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s campaign to let businesses do whatever the hell they want. The face of the campaign is respectable enough: Harness American innovation to create 20 million new jobs. Wonderful! Let’s do that. But of course, the only way to do that, according to the Chamber, is to never hold any business accountable for anything.[...]

Apparently, Thursday’s version of the public option has a provision for states to opt out if they think it will lead to super communism. This is one of those compromises that can only have come about as a solution to a political problem because it sure isn’t a solution to the healthcare problem.[...]

Yesterday, I slammed Fox News, and I shall do so again today. There is a certain difficulty in convincing some people that Fox is not a legitimate news source. To some people, it’s the only news without a liberal bias, and to others it is laughable.[...]

This weekend, the White House gave Fox News a sharp elbow, restarting the periodic debate about whether Fox News is actually news. This is rather like asking whether Daffy Duck is actually the Chrysler Building. Of course it’s not. Everyone knows it’s not. Why would the White House bother to bring it up?[...]