Monthly Archive: November 2009
No Private Sector Experience Necessary
I’m not sure if this chart on the professional background of Obama’s cabinet appointments is a weird outlier or a telling indicator, but it’s pretty interesting nonetheless.
In Defense of Industrial Agriculture
Via NR, the author of “The Omnivore’s Delusion: Against the Agri-Intellectuals” unloads another broadside against critics of modern agriculture.
The Height of Disingenuity
As some of you know, Sen. Grassley has put forth an amendment to prevent a proposed panel on criminal justice reform from engaging in any discussion regarding the propriety of decriminalization or legalization of...
A Reminder
For our Canadian readers, please do read Scott’s follow-up post this morning on the Afghan detainee transfer scandal. If you’re so inclined, you can sign (and/or link, if you’re a blogger yourself) Scott’s petition...
Glenn Beck – hero or villain?
Conor thinks it’s a good sign that “prudent conservatives and libertarians are growing uncomfortable with Mr. Beck’s rhetoric.” I agree, but for entirely different reasons.
One green to rule them all…
I have been pondering the issue of global warming lately. I generally take a cautious position when it comes to climate change. I am first of all uncertain as to what portion of climate...
Jumping To Conclusions
Thanks to Jaybird, who pointed out this story. After all the speculation that the death of a census worker was fueled by anti-government extremism
Can’t we all just get along?
A nice vignette from the Grizzlies-Kings game (via): Grizzlies center Hamed Haddadi , the first NBA player from Iran, and Omri Casspi, the first Israeli player in the league, met at midcourt and shook...
Good thing we freed him
Ross Douthat has a smart post on why we shouldn’t opportunistically try terror suspects in civilian courts.
Andy McCarthy, just askin’ questions
Seriously, National Review. This is getting embarrassing: I didn’t suggest that Bill Ayers is the author of one of Barack Obama’s biographies — I reported that someone else had made the suggestion and had...
Fiscal Responsibility, part II
I don’t understand how Conor can say this with a straight face: You’d think after rightly complaining about the Bush Administration’s unprecedented irresponsibility for eight years, leading Democrats would understand that we’re trapped in...
quote for the day
“We combat uncompromising and irreducible philosophical oppositions presented by all kinds of absolutism: dualisms of reason and imagination, of knowledge and opinion, of irrefutable self-evidence and deceptive will, of a universally accepted objectivity and...
The Unprincipled Conservative.
Alex Knapp takes a look at the GOP’s newly proposed set of principles by which all GOP candidates would have to abide to receive GOP funding and shows how they are not only incoherent...
How to get through airport security (with your toiletries intact)
A useful primer from The Economist.
The Annual Misuse of Hate Crime Statistics
NOTE: SIGNIFICANT UPDATES BELOW THE JUMP. Every year around this time, the FBI publishes its statutorily-mandated annual report on hate crime statistics. Like clockwork, every year that report gets misused no matter what the FBI...
Momentum for marijuana legalization builds
Speaking of drugs, the current level of support (or at least openness) to marijuana legalization among mainstream pundits is pretty unprecedented.
“The Fall of Mexico”
After reading this article, it seems as if legalization is the only solution to Mexico’s drug problem. Countries without strong independent judiciaries and relatively non-corrupt public institutions don’t have the luxury of outlawing drugs.
Modernity, Christianity and Islam
I linked to this earlier, but amateur history buffs will find Cato Unbound’s discussion on the origins of modernity pretty fascinating. The central point of contention is the so-called “first cause” of modernity –...
