The Mosque and the Meta-Debate
When the debate over the proposed “Ground Zero Mosque” first began to engage the attention of the nation, my first reaction was to dismiss those who loudly and insistently protested its construction as demagogues...
Monthly Archive: August 2010
The Irresponsible Media Who Ruin Lives and the Unnamed “Senior Officials” Who Enable Them
[UPDATED BELOW THE FOLD] The Big Story yesterday and, to a lesser extent, today was the arrest of two legal Yemeni immigrants on suspicion of plotting a terrorist attack. The pair, one of whom...
Lomborg Recants
Well, this is interesting (via Grist): The world’s most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today” and “a challenge humanity...
U.S. Government Assassination Program for U.S. Citizens
Just how perverse is the Obama administration’s assassination program is reflected in the rights Awlaki is forced to assert. He alleges — as the Complaint puts it — that the Government is violating his...
Soccer Shocker
Bob Bradley re-signs (rather than resigns) with the USA Men’s National Team for another World Cup Cycle. I think this is a better move than getting Jurgen Klinnsman, who I think would have proven little...
Churchill on Appeasement
Quoting the same article twice is probably bad form, but I had to highlight one of Churchill’s lesser-known lines, which should be thrown back in the face of hawks every time the word “appeasement”...
Beck and Obama’s radically different theologies
[updated] It is perhaps a little ironic that Beck is invoking theology so often and especially in order to demonize Obama further. Ironic because conservative and evangelical Christians probably have more in common theologically...
Liberaltarian Q & A session
Michael Drew asks some questions in the comments. And before I even begin to try and answer them, let me just admit to not having this all worked out. There are no solid answers,...
The Old Testament: Notes on Genesis
My wife has joked about the foolhardiness of blogging the Bible due to the likelihood of offending everyone: people who take the Bible as the word of God understandably take it very seriously, and...
Rumors of liberaltarianism’s death are greatly exaggerated
Tim Carney thinks liberaltarianism is dead following the departure of Will Wilkinson and Brink Lindsey from Cato. He asks if there are any real life liberaltarians in politics, pointing out that the the only...
The Genealogy of Concern Trolling
Been dipping into League favorite Max Nordau lately, where I found this gem of 19th-century concern trolling: The nations which emancipated the Jews have mistaken their own feelings. In order to produce its full...
This.
Timothy Lee identifies the problem with fusionist libertarianism. I agree in full with his conclusions.
Erotic Capital
Tell you what, refraining from blogging is a lot easier than abstaining from beer. I haven’t been around these parts much, but I have had a rich and varied summer: Discussions of aesthetics with...
Still missing the point
Daniel Larison goes another round with Ross Douthat: On the one hand, Ross urges us not to believe that “all religious cultures are identical, or that the intellectual climate in contemporary Islam is no...
The Old Testament and Modernity
A response to Jaybird’s inquiry concerning the applicability of certain aspects of the Old Testament in modernity by Robert Cheeks Which brings me to ask how do you know what we’re able to toss...
Against seasteading
This passage from Timothy B Lee is very good: If all you care about is avoiding the long arm of the law, that’s actually pretty easy to do. Buy a cabin in the woods...
Irshad Manji on Park51
What’s this? A thoughtful, non-demagogued, and thought-provoking piece on Park51? Heaven forfend!
Apologies all around
So I killed that last post because, honestly, that was an emotionally driven, snarky, stupid thing to write (except the part about how I love you guys, that’s all true). It was something I...
C4C Again
Here’s one thing I don’t think has been grasped by the dissenters in the C4C business. You could have had everything that was even arguably good out of Cash for Clunkers without destroying the...
