Category Archives: discussion

US Death Penalty Sans An Intellectual Argument

On October 23rd, 2009, the American Law Institute(ALI)  resolved to withdraw Section 210.6 of the Model Penal Code (MPC). The official copy of the resolution (proposed on April 15, 2009) is available here (in PDF). Why is this important? Simply because peeling back the obfuscating legalese reveals that this resolution has effectively demolished the intellectual

On the Institution of Marriage

Given that marriage is an institution of great importance across many (if not all) cultures, it is not unreasonable to expect some sort of a definition of marriage. Ironically, anthropologists are yet to agree on such a definition! Of course, it does not help that the institution itself has been constantly changing over time. So my query is the following: What exactly is the institution of marriage? The institution of marriage, in my opinion, has conflated three different, but related, institutions: (1) a personal institution, denoted pMarriage, (2) a social institution, denoted sMarriage, and (3) a legal institution, denoted lMarriage.

The United States of socialism

The nationalization of Freddie Mac and Fanny May marks a major shift in the US policy of free-market, deregulated economy (to a more socialist policy), or does it? With my rant against the the bailout out of the way, lets see if this really is something different that the US government has had to do

Smoking ban?… uh, no.

Mr. Ramadoss has spoken, he is stepping up his fight against tobacco smoking. From October 2nd, a blanket ban on indoor smoking goes into effect. While I understand that the intention is to reduce the prevalence of smoking, a major health concern in India, and protect non-smokers from second-hand smoke, I do not understand how