the deception of dignity
“But it’s not right to end on a note of cultural pessimism because there is the fact of President Obama. Whatever policy differences people may have with him, we can all agree that he...
Monthly Archive: July 2009
name your superpower
Okay rule#1 it has to be unorthodox. No “flying” or “superhuman strength” lest I bust out my superpower on you….
more fantasy reading suggestions
This time from Orson Scott Card. I second his recommendation of Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell.
His Heart Isn’t Big Enough
Andy McCarthy is angry: What does it say when the president of the United States is unable to acknowledge that the United States won the Cold War and broke the bonds of Soviet tyranny...
Book Bleg: The First World War
The First World War has always been a subject that I’ve wanted to learn about in great depth. The reasons for this primarily boil down to the fact that I think it’s impossible to...
Michael Lewis on the AIG Financial Products Group
Michael Lewis is one of my favorite financial writers and his new Vanity Fair article about the AIG Financial Products Group and Joseph Cassano is required reading for anyone wanting to learn more about...
The Tipping Point
When Andrew Sullivan isn’t doing his best to erase any memory of his vital contribution to the medium, he’s actually a very good blogger. His intensely personal take on the ‘tipping point’ of the...
The Vector: A Post-Theist Moral Framework
“But, in a nutshell, the further one says the edge of one’s sphere is from one, translates, generally, into how moral one is perceived to be… so long, of course, as one doesn’t go on to screw the proverbial pooch (or the literal one, depending on one’s proclivities).”
two thoughts on sarah palin
I personally don’t care about Sarah Palin’s views on social issues, or that she hunted wolves from a helicopter (whether or not I would do the same or share an opinion on said social-issues). ...
Kirn on aptocrats
Conor flagged a piece in the Times by Walter Kirn, author of Lost in the Meritocracy: The Undereducation of an Overachiever that needs some attending to. I haven’t read Kirn’s book yet, so I...
sage advice
John Whittet offers up some good advice for debating online. The post is specific to Newsvine, but has universal appeal….
The State of Political Economic Definitions
Yesterday ED got a good conversation going in response to this question: How can anti-statists reconcile themselves with protectionism? I think however we need to be careful with the ‘s’ word. I’m guilty of...
Department of Silly Inquiries
John Horgan has a question – does religion do more harm than good? Leaving aside the impossibility of quantifying the benefits and downsides of faith in any systematic fashion – what metric, one wonders,...
books
I think most of the books I’ve read and loved were written by conservatives or libertarians – the fantasy I’ve read was written largely by conservatives, I think because good fantasy plays on themes...
a quote for the afternoon
“Dudes and Dudettes, … it’s July 2009. You are all taking this wayyyy too seriously. I wish I thought it was all only about grabbing Palin traffic, but I fear it’s worse that that. The...
Congrats!
…To PoMoCon extraordinaire James Poulos and his wife Courtney on the birth of their first son, Nikos James, on Friday. Via.
