When dealing with the Big Con, a little Latin goes a long way. Here's a useful phrase: cum hoc ergo propter hoc. It means, roughly, "with this, therefore because of it." Because two things happened at the same time, one must have caused another: correlation implies causation. It's a fallacy. Just because literacy and atmospheric sulfur dioxide increased at the same time, it doesn't mean that literacy caused air pollution. A recent editorial in Barron's offers a good example of the Conservative (mis)use of "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" arguments..

As you've probably read, Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. But you probably haven't read the responses to the news on right-wing forums and comment pages.

Imagine America's national morality as infrastructure. Bridges let us walk over rivers; norms let us live without hurting or annoying others. Most of this 'infrastructure' is invisible and implicit. No rule prevents you from cutting in line; you just don't do it. But some norms need to be enforced by the state. It turns out that the right has just as much respect for our moral infrastructure as it does for the physical one.

I bet you didn't know that many of the Founding Fathers were devout evangelical Christians. You probably didn't even realize that James Madison believed that American polis was grounded in the Ten Commandments. You just haven't been paying enough attention to David Barton.

The Republican War on Science has a new weapon: God. A cabal of conservative evangelical institutions have teamed up to produce the "We Get It" declaration — a manifesto for divinely-inspired Global Warming denial. Check out the declaration itself below the break.

You know that our national infrastructure isn't in great shape. Maybe you walked to work because the subway got rained out. Maybe you've flown out of O'Hare. Maybe your car fell into a sinkhole. But it's much worse than you think.

You probably don't know what a gusset plate is. I sure didn't. But the little-known structural component offer a case study in the unlearned lessons of the I-35W bridge collapse.

Again and again and again and again and again and again and again , this blog has chronicled the mess conservative ideology has made of our national infrastructure. But how do we clean it up? How are we going to come up with the 1.3 trillion dollars needed to get our infrastructure back in shape?

When dealing with the Big Con, a little Latin goes a long way. Here's a useful phrase: cum hoc ergo propter hoc. It means, roughly, "with this, therefore because of it." Because two things happened at the same time, one must have caused another: correlation implies causation. It's a fallacy. Just because literacy and atmospheric sulfur dioxide increased at the same time, it doesn't mean that literacy caused air pollution. A recent editorial in Barron's offers a good example of the Conservative (mis)use of "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" arguments..

As you've probably read, Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. But you probably haven't read the responses to the news on right-wing forums and comment pages.

Imagine America's national morality as infrastructure. Bridges let us walk over rivers; norms let us live without hurting or annoying others. Most of this 'infrastructure' is invisible and implicit. No rule prevents you from cutting in line; you just don't do it. But some norms need to be enforced by the state. It turns out that the right has just as much respect for our moral infrastructure as it does for the physical one.

I bet you didn't know that many of the Founding Fathers were devout evangelical Christians. You probably didn't even realize that James Madison believed that American polis was grounded in the Ten Commandments. You just haven't been paying enough attention to David Barton.

The Republican War on Science has a new weapon: God. A cabal of conservative evangelical institutions have teamed up to produce the "We Get It" declaration — a manifesto for divinely-inspired Global Warming denial. Check out the declaration itself below the break.

You know that our national infrastructure isn't in great shape. Maybe you walked to work because the subway got rained out. Maybe you've flown out of O'Hare. Maybe your car fell into a sinkhole. But it's much worse than you think.

You probably don't know what a gusset plate is. I sure didn't. But the little-known structural component offer a case study in the unlearned lessons of the I-35W bridge collapse.

Again and again and again and again and again and again and again , this blog has chronicled the mess conservative ideology has made of our national infrastructure. But how do we clean it up? How are we going to come up with the 1.3 trillion dollars needed to get our infrastructure back in shape?