atheism and monsters
Reading over the various responses to Ross Douthat’s piece on celestial teapots and the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it occurs to me once again that there is a very obvious difference between a Flying Spaghetti...
Monthly Archive: January 2009
More on Occupation
Following up on ED’s post (and the sad 60 Minutes video), here is another video on the Occupation. Called Checkpoint by Israeli filmaker Yoav Shamir it simply leaves the camera’s rolling in daily interactions...
Tough Love
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, it is the settlements more than anything else that prevent a two-state solution from being realized. Whereas the Palestinians have no true guiding authority to end, once and...
Economic Crisis
This post grows out of some discussion Freddie and I have participated in over at The Confabulum re: Conor’s post about potential bank nationalization. Bank nationalization,were it to occur, would undoubtedly be the result...
human beings, human limits
(The video above in part inspired me to write this post. I’m including it for context. This isn’t intended as an indictment of either Wilkinson or Yudkowsky, although I do think that Yudkowsky, it’s...
The more I know, the less I know
The funny thing about my political writing is that it has been, from the beginning, very public. And it’s gotten better over time, which is good, and bloggier, too. You learn the tricks. The...
Sunday Poem
PSong of Man Chipping an Arrowhead by WS Merwin Little children, you will all go but the one you are hiding will fly.
knowing when to get out of the way
It’s gratifying to be away from the Internet for a day, and come back to find a couple of thoughtful responses to what you’ve written. (Actually, it’s gratifying, sometimes, to be away from the...
Islamo-Nationalism: Somalia Edition
Apropos of Scott’s reflections on a potentially more nimble stance of the US in foreign policy, as well as the deal or no deal with Hamas posts, I found this Washington Post piece on...
Western Civilization and Same Sex Marriage
An important thing to note when discussing various forms of conservatism is the difference, often-overlooked, between social and cultural conservatism; or perhaps better phrased, religious or fundamentalist conservatism, vs Civilization Conservativism (and in this...
Don’t Feed the Talking Heads
In an earlier post in this series, E.D. wrote that “the talking-head class–the hyper-partisan commentariat–first of all has no desire to attain even a semblance of compromise, and second of all is so absorbed...
a little more on party and perspective
To extend the question of partisan positioning leading to inconsistencies just a bit further (and I promise that I’m done after that), consider James Poulos, echoing Peter Suderman, “If movies aren’t always, or even...
doubt, believings, and post-postmodernism
Long time blogging pal of mine, Bill Harryman (whose blog Integral Options is worth your time), posted this quotation. I want to link it into our thread our post-postmodern. “Doubt is most often the...
The Talking Heads will Feed Themselves
Kyle asks: What motivates the Limbaughs and the Hannities and the Malkins to take up the standard of hyper-partisan contrarian now? Surely one would say to provide a voice of balance against the rampant...
earnestness is mine, sayeth the conservative
I was pondering Erik and Mark’s thoughts on partisanship, and this video fell in my lap. I first saw this via Andrew, but it appears to be making the rounds in the right-of-center blogosphere....
The Case of Principle v. Partisanship
I was about to start writing a post for the lively Israel-Palestine series, the beginnings of which are percolating through my head. But then Kyle had to come in and write a post that...
Twisting the Knight Away
First of all, I have to admit, I enjoyed The Dark Knight. I didn’t leave the theatre thinking I’d seen Oscar material–though, to be fair, I’m not particularly sold on the value of the...
Contrarianism for the Sake of Contrarianism (or: The Virtue and Vice of Partisanship in a Post Partisan World)
by Kyle Moore It may seem most odd coming from me a single concept: partisanship is good. Now you can look across the internet and find no shortage of others making this very same...
I got the mic, I rock it how I please
Max Socol wrote a post that I think is an example of rhetorical bad faith. To put it simply, those who say “let’s talk policy, not morality” are always, in fact, talking morality, they’re...
Policy and Dissent
Max Socol is unhappy with our initial foray into the Israel/Palestine debate: Moral arguments concerning Israel and Palestine may be of incidental interest (i.e., did Israel commit war crimes in Gaza? Who is to...
