The voice of Poverty, in Aristophanes’ Plutus (408 BC): Look at the orators in our republics; as long as they are poor, both state and people can only praise their uprightness; but once they are fattened on the public funds, they conceive a hatred for justice, plan intrigues against the people and attack the democracy.…
In the context of recent events in Syria, discussion of a 2007 article by Eisensee and Strömberg at The Duck of Minerva: Based on their study of 5,000 natural disasters between 1968 and 2002, they find that “U.S. policy makers are less likely to declare disasters during the Olympics, and in general when other newsworthy…
What happened during the search to find 8,000 inspirational individuals to carry the Olympic torch for the 2012 games? At almost every stage of the allocation process torchbearer places were given to executives at sponsors and their commercial partners, awarded to staff for sales performance, to diplomats, journalists and media bosses. The full story in…
After June’s bill banning ‘propaganda of nontraditional sexual relations’, news from Russia of ‘Occupy Paedophilia’ torturing and killing gay men (and uploading pictures of the process, for your consideration). News also that the new laws are likely to be enforced at the 2014 Winter Olympics, leading to condemnation by the US president. Will the International…