theDrahos

‘The argument that genetically modified organisms (GMOs) are needed to feed the earth’s growing population holds less and less water as new research emerges, particularly with new understanding on how to utilize centuries-old techniques involving […]

‘Once again, the completely illogical debacle concerning the world of vaccinations has surfaced. By now, you know they’ve come under fire by those who are adamant that they do more harm than good. Countless people […]

From the unwanted compulsory television point of view, there are far worse airports than Paris Charles de Gaulle. At least no sound emanates from the devilish screens installed there, whereas in many airports the sound is turned on loud enough to be hard to ignore, but too soft to be intelligible (the volume must have been carefully calculated by someone with this in mind). Oddly enough, the intonation always suffices to tell you that what is said is drivel, in the same way that a dog can understand what you say by the tone of your voice. Broadcast drivel has … Continue reading →

Defending free speech and free press rights, which typically means defending the right to disseminate the very ideas society finds most repellent, has been one of my principal passions for the last 20 years: previously as a lawyer and now as a journalist. So I consider it positive when large numbers of people loudly invoke this principle, as has been happening over the last 48 hours in response to the horrific attack on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. Usually, defending free speech rights is much more of a lonely task. For instance, the day before the Paris murders, I wrote an article about multiple cases where Muslims are … Continue reading →

There has been a global outpouring of support for free speech (more precisely, speech without consequence) in the wake of a recent tragedy…well let’s have Time Magazine tell the tale: People protesting the Paris killings unauthorized recording met in Trafalgar Square LA Live as British Prime Minister David Cameron Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti and German Chancellor Angela Merkel NBA Commissioner Adam Silver discussed the attack in Downing Street on Donald Sterling. You see, Donald Sterling was recorded – unbeknownst to him – saying a few things that the NBA found politically incorrect.  Adam Silver, and many of the other … Continue reading →

There are three types of “crimes”, however two of those should not be considered as such. Let me explain. 1) Crimes against so called natural rights, conferred by natural law. Natural rights are universal ethical rules, developed over thousands of years and e. g. to be found in the commandments of all large religions. These natural rights link the Non Aggression Principle (NAP) to the respect for private property- you shall not kill, steal, covet your neighbor’s house, use violence or offer violence against any other person except in self-defense etc. Nobody should be coerced into a contract and thus … Continue reading →

Artists often go unrecognized during their lifetimes, and several great writers and thinkers found that their greatest works either went completely unnoticed or were poorly received when they first came out. The following books were not immediately appreciated for their genius, much to the dismay of the authors responsible for them. 10 Moby-Dick – Herman Melville Moby-Dick is Herman Melville’s most famous work, studied at length by literary scholars and constantly referenced in popular culture. While Melville was alive, however, it was hardly a best seller. The brilliantly executed work sold only 3,715 copies, a far cry from other works by Melville … Continue reading →

As we recently noted, The Prison State of America is alive and well as our prison-industrial complex, which holds 2.3 million prisoners, or 25 percent of the world’s prison population, makes money by keeping prisons full. While the statistics are mind-boggling, we thought it particularly ironic that on the day when President Obama officially launched his “free community-college for all” plan, that we point out there are more jails than colleges in America… and here’s where they live… As The Washington Post shows, It’s often been remarked that our national incarceration rate of 707 adults per every 100,000 residents is … Continue reading →

Americans who live abroad — more than six million of us worldwide (not counting those who work for the U.S. government) — often face hard questions about our country from people we live among. Europeans, Asians, and Africans ask us to explain everything that baffles them about the increasingly odd and troubling conduct of the United States.  Polite people, normally reluctant to risk offending a guest, complain that America’s trigger-happiness, cutthroat free-marketeering, and “exceptionality” have gone on for too long to be considered just an adolescent phase. Which means that we Americans abroad are regularly asked to account for the … Continue reading →

For those of us who normally listen to Radio 4 with half an ear, it was confusing. Just hours after its sublime day-long dramatisation of War and Peace on New Year’s Day, it started to speak of Prince Andrew’s troubles. Prince Andrew is perhaps the most attractive male character in Tolstoy’s great novel – a brave soldier who lay on the field of Austerlitz, wounded, staring at the sky, contemplating the mystery of things. Suddenly, it seemed, by some surreal leap, Prince Andrew had become a character in the news bulletins, and was behaving wildly out of character. Our man, … Continue reading →

The hypocrisy of American police is beginning to bother even law and order conservatives. The New York Police Department is rivaling the black community in Ferguson in keeping alive the murders of their community members. We are constantly reminded of how dangerous it is to be a police officer. A total of 50 police officers were reportedly killed last year in the “line of duty,” but the police themselves managed to kill 1,029 Americans during the same time period, most of whom were unarmed and innocent of wrongdoings. In other words, any encounter between the public and the police is … Continue reading →

In the wake of the Obama administration’s partial normalization of relations with Cuba, proponents of the embargo condemned the move, with National Review publishing an unsigned editorial claiming that allowing Americans to trade freely with the island nation amounts to giving comfort to murderous dictators. NR’s editors concluded with: The Cuban government is not legitimate, and never has been. It is a one-party dictatorship with a gulag, an archipelago of prisons into which democrats and dissidents are thrown. We hope that the new American policy — Obama’s policy — does not benefit the Cuban dictatorship and harm Cuban democrats. We … Continue reading →

For several weeks now the anti-Russian stance in the US press has quieted down. Presumably because the political leadership has moved its attention on to other things, and the media flock has followed suit. Have you read much about Ukraine and Russia recently? I thought not, despite the fact that there’s plenty of serious action — both there as well as related activity in the US — going on that deserves our careful attention. As I recently wrote, the plunging oil price is a potential catalyst for stock market turmoil and sovereign instability. Venezuela is already circling the drain, and numerous … Continue reading →