The Twitter
Now you can follow me on Twitter. I plan to use Twitter only to consolidate a list of links for content already published elsewhere (here, the Washington Examiner, Cato@Liberty, etc).
Monthly Archive: July 2010
Managed Ignorance
Out in real America, I strongly suspect that there’s a class of people that never got the whole story about Shirley Sherrod. They heard that she was a racist against white people and that...
The Shallow Drafts of Charles Hill
In my first post in this series, I claimed that Charles Hill, Yale’s “Diplomat in Residence,” had won “uncritical, almost fulsome praise.” You can strike the “almost.” According to Edward Luttwak’s review, Hill’s book...
The Uses and Abuses of the First Amendment
Not being a hipster, I don’t always get around to reading every issue of Vice in a timely manner. Or wait — do hipsters read anything in a timely manner? It’s only ever “before...
Balance and Propaganda
I’m not typically a fan of EJ Dionne’s, but I have to say that I’ve got a hard time disagreeing with any of his column today. “Balance” does not mean that you take seriously...
Charles Hill and the Greening of American Diplomacy
So I had planned a running critique of Charles Hill’s appearance on Peter Robinson’s webTV program, Uncommon Knowledge. Alas, I got through just one chapter before getting rudely sidetracked by the need to make...
Revenge of the Nerds
The Westboro Baptist Church decided to picket Comic Con 2010 for some reason. (God probably hates anime.) The cosmic alliance of convention-goers responded by staging a counter-protest across the street with an appropriately high level of silliness. Pictures here....
Empire of Illusion Ch.2: Porn of the Living Dead
[Note: This post discusses the second chapter of the book Empire of Illusion by Chris Hedges, which some of us are reading. It mainly discusses pornography in general, so I’d like to invite those...
My Immigration Dilemma
As someone who’s won the citizenship lottery (read: American born), I’m very reluctant to comment on immigration. But I do believe in certain mild restrictions on the influx of new arrivals, so here’s my...
Consider Phlebas
PHLEBAS the Phoenician, a fortnight dead, Forgot the cry of gulls, and the deep seas swell And the profit and loss. A current under sea Picked his bones in whispers. As he rose...
Joy, purpose, and the hard work of parenting
Rod Dreher, writing at his new digs at Big Questions Online, has this to say about parenting and happiness: “The loss of parental freedom is severe, and if young marrieds had any idea how...
The Twisting of Affirmative Action?
Without endorsing or disputing it (for personal reasons, there are important elements of Webb’s piece that I am not comfortable commenting upon) , I just want to say that this piece by Jim Webb in today’s Wall Street...
A Penniless Aristocracy
This is why we should repeal the estate tax altogether for illiquid assets, and maybe do away with annual property taxes, too. The creation of a penniless aristocracy would benefit us all.
A Sin Prevention Machine
If you have seen I am Love, you should go read Matthew Milliner’s review, which explains what most of the critics who reviewed the film seemed to miss. Spoilers below.
Loyalty and the Shirley Sherrod affair
I’d like to fully endorse this post from Noah Millman. I was talking to my wife about the Shirley Sherrod affair and she basically said, who cares if a blog posted the video? Most...
Freeways and the death of the great American city
Tim Lee’s post on the decline of St. Louis is fascinating and heart-breaking all at once. For as long as I can remember I’ve had a visceral dislike of city freeways. This is partly...
Flotsam and Jetsam
Flotsam: James Joyner’s piece on the JournoList and “Conservative Media Bias” is right on the money. Relatedly – I’m done with this topic. Jetsam: Publius at the Fourth Branch has an interesting and (I...
