Shawn Lawrence Otto, 2/16/12

Author, 'Fool Me Twice'; Science Advocate; Filmmaker; Co-founder, Sciencedebate.org

Recently leaked budget documents from the Heartland Institute, the leading voice of climate change denialism, lay out plans to spend $100K on a phony K-12 science curriculum based on propaganda.

Bill Moyers, 2/16/12

Managing Editor, Moyers & Company

Here we are once again, arguing over how to honor religious liberty without it becoming the liberty to impose on others moral beliefs they don't share. Our practical solution is the one Barack Obama embraced the other day.

Eric X. Li, 2/16/12

Shanghai venture capitalist

The West's competition of ideas with China isn't between democracy and authoritarianism, but two different outlooks on political systems. The West sees democracy as an end in itself

Dan Rather, 2/16/12

Host, 'Dan Rather Reports'

If you want a simple shorthand for the dysfunction in Washington, D.C., I can do it in two words: Don Berwick.

Cara Santa Maria, 2/15/12

Science correspondent, Huffington Post; editor, Talk Nerdy to Me

Deanna Fei, 2/16/12

Author, "A Thread of Sky"

What's most undeniable about Jeremy Lin is that the guy has balls. Which obviously has always been true of other Asian males. But now Lin is demonstrating it in a way that even the most racist or ignorant person would be hard-pressed to refute.

Bob Cesca, 2/16/12

Host of The Bob & Chez Show, Media Producer

With a series of anti-choice and anti-contraception laws on the books in various southern and midwestern states, the Republican Party is hastily constructing an ideological and legislative Berlin Wall around itself, and Rick Santorum has become the latest poster boy.

Elena Haliczer and Sam Napolitano, 2/16/12

At the Huffington Post, we're all about starting conversations. That's why we're introducing the HuffPost Social Reading app to share the stories you read on your Facebook timeline.

Ari Berman, 2/16/12

Author, 'Herding Donkeys'

If you want to know how the moneyed class, who prospered during the Bush and Clinton years, found a way to kill or water down nearly everything it objected to in the Obama years, look no further than the grip of the 1% of the 1% on our political system.

Josh Silver, 2/16/12

CEO, United Republic

Real conservative Americans should be seriously irked after the Heartland document leak. Think tanks like Heartland falsely brand themselves as conservative while blindly espousing a free market free-for-all that history proves as untenable.

Danny Woodburn, 2/16/12

Seinfeld's "Mickey Abbott"; TV, film, stage and comedy club performer

No Rosie, don't discuss this with other Little People (we're scary) or even a therapist, you've got Chelsea ("Did-you-do-one -- NO!") Handler in the house. Chelsea is at the forefront of small thinking. Well, we are a very funny group of people.

Rev. Al Sharpton, 2/16/12

President, National Action Network

Every day we walk past or ignore another Jeremy Lin -- people who may not look like what society deems a 'winner.' But given the right circumstances, these folks would shine; there's a Lin in every school, church, job. You may be ignored, but never lose sight of your own strengths and abilities.

Amelia, 2/16/12

Mother, wife, partner and breadwinner

I thought there was a fair chance that he would someday say, "I'm gay." But my kid is only 7 years old. I figured I had a few years before we crossed that threshold (if we ever did), probably when he was 14 or 15. I never thought it would happen this soon.

Quora, 2/16/12

Connecting you to everything you want to know about

According to Craig Newmark, "The thing got traction during its first few years, when it was just my hobby, got substantial traction, as I measure it, in its first few years."

Annie Fabricant, 2/16/12

Art writer

As a theater maker, how do you generate toe-curling drama, excitement and intrigue for an audience whose hitherto experience of Hamlet is loaded with memories, associations and scrutiny?

Katie Halper, 2/16/12

Co-founder, Laughing Liberally

I'm really glad women aren't allowed to testify at this hearing, which is about their bodies. It's a dangerously slippery slope and I think we all know what comes next: box turtles are allowed to testify.

William Bradley, 2/16/12

Political Analyst, NewWestNotes.com

With the Republican presidential race in disarray and something of a lull in the post-"inevitable Romney" phase, there is one ongoing constant: All the conceivable nominees is pushing for war with Iran and none have anything like a plan as to how an Iran war would, you know, work.

John Ziegler, 2/16/12

Conservative filmmaker/commentator

Either Palin repudiates any notion that she may still be a candidate in any form or she gets suspended at least until after there is a nominee. Otherwise, Fox News will effectively become something even worse than what the left already thinks it is.

Katrina Lantos Swett, 2/16/12

President and CEO, Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice

There is renewed hope that Mikhail Khodorkovsky may one day breathe the air of freedom. And yet, the bizarre posthumous trial of Sergei Magnitsky, is a chilling reminder that the Russian winter is by no means over.

Daphne Eviatar, 2/16/12

Senior Associate, Human Rights First's Law and Security Program

The United States has plenty of problems to focus on right now. As we can see from today's sentence of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, U.S. federal courts not being sufficiently tough on terrorism isn't one of them.

Toby Lester, 2/16/12

Author

You know the picture. Everybody does. It's Leonardo da Vinci's iconic man in a circle and the square, the figure known as Vitruvian Man. But if everybody knows the picture, almost nobody knows anything about its story.

L. Randall Wray, 2/16/12

Professor of Economics and Research Director of the Center for Full Employment and Price Stability, University of Missouri–Kansas City

There is little doubt that the global financial crisis posed "unusual and exigent" circumstances that had to be met with a huge response by the Fed (and Treasury). It is not clear, however, that the response actually mounted was legal. It was certainly not transparent.

Nita Chaudhary and Shaunna Thomas, 2/16/12

It's 2012 and the biggest controversy in Washington, D.C., is over unemployment, the foreclosure crisis, the war in Afghanistan, birth control.

Adam Levin, 2/16/12

Founder, Credit.com

Once upon a time in America, Greek was routinely included in the curriculum of a liberal arts education. Today, we don't necessarily need to speak the language, but we do need to better understand what's happening.