Over the past 20 years, PayPal has emerged as a convenient and universal way to pay, but if you’re using the platform to make charitable donations, you’ll want to check with the specific cause (especially if it’s a small one) to ensure that they’ve received your gift. Similarly, if you’ve sold anything on eBay with the…
Category: News
What’s really behind the ‘failure’ of the US ‘war on drugs’ in Afghanistan?
Poppy cultivation, Badakhshan. Getty Images / Paula Bronstein. All rights reserved.Since 2001, the United States has spent over $700 billion on the war in Afghanistan. In contrast, it has spent only $7 billion on counternarcotics operations there. What should we conclude from the fact that the ‘drug war’ in Afghanistan accounts for a mere 1%…
Your On-Demand Groceries Are Costing You
Grocery shopping isn’t what it used to be—and that’s some “disruption” we can stand by. There are more than 50 online grocery retailers and 100 meal delivery services ready to pluck an avocado or tangerine just for you and deliver straight to your sofa. No more arctic freezer aisles, epic lines, or parking lot anxiety. Market researchers predict that the number of…
The false promise of Turkish democracy
Istanbul protest at government's cessation of peace process with PKK, July, 2015. Demotix/Erhan Demirtas. All rights reserved.In spite of being one of the only polities in the Middle East considered as a democracy-model for other Muslim nations by American administrations, Turkey has had an uneasy relationship with democracy throughout its history. While its founding fathers…
What Maksim did on his holidays
A Google search of ‘children’s military-patriotic camps’ in Russian brings up hundreds of hits. Maksim, 12, spent a week of the school holidays at one of these camps near Yekaterinburg, and wrote a diary of his activities there. Day one Today was my first day at the military camp. When we arrived, we were allocated our…
Melissa McCarthy Doubles Down On Brilliant Sean Spicer Impression
You’ll forgive us if from here on out we refer to White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer as “Spicey.” That’s because Melissa McCarthy’s return to “Saturday Night Live” for another round as the combative, fact-challenged voice of the Trump Administration may have sealed the deal on how we view him going forward. McCarthy’s fist surprise…
Ending impunity in Europe?
US European Command's Joint Assessment team and officials from the Georgian government touring Gori homes to assess damage find this Russian missile booster largely intact, August, 2008. Wikicommons/ US Navy/Lt.Jim Hoeft. Some rights reserved.On 27 January the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague made a milestone decision for international justice when it decided to…
How Much Bank Do You Really Need To Have A Baby?
When Capri and Dennis Prentice, 25 and 28 years old respectively, found out they were having twins, the first thing that ran through their minds was “Can we afford this?” Babies are expensive — this we know. Yet potential parents tend to underestimate just how much those bundles of joy actually cost. Here’s an infographic from the…
Israel, ISIS and the Paris attacks
Demotix/Oren Nahshon. All rights reserved.While the world was mourning the victims of the terror attacks in Paris, Beirut, Egypt’s Sinai desert, and elsewhere, Israel was occupied with other matters: how to make the best use out of these attacks locally, regionally, and globally. Let me explain what I mean. Globally, Israel used last week’s attacks…
You Don’t Need To Be An Athlete To Think Of Exercising As Your Job
Thanks to increasing globalization and human-replacing technology, the bar for intellectual performance is higher than ever. As a result, workplace doping — or the illegal use of drugs such as Adderall and other stimulants to enhance cognitive performance — is growing rapidly. But there is a far more healthy and ethical way to get the same (if not greater) mental…