Monthly Archive: August 2010

In tonight’s groundbreaking, must-see episode, the Housewives Politicians cause a media firestorm when Danielle Staub Alaskan activist Kathleen Gustafson calls Teresa Giudice Sarah Palin a lying bitch bad governor and Giudice Palin rolls her...

We’ve reached the end of Empire of Illusion. Throughout the previous chapters, Chris Hedges has argued that Americans have retreated into a fantasy world that denies the grim realities the country now faces. Here,...

Honestly, I’m so, so sick of hearing about the precious feelings of the opponents of same-sex marriage. What if they think I’m a bigot? What if they think I’m mean? What hurtful names will...

Phaedrus is a masterful dialogue that it’s impossible to do justice to. Here Plato is at the height of his powers describing the soul’s ascension towards the divine with the aid of the beauty...

I’m a bit late to it, but this post on the history of the Great Mosque of Cordoba and Newt Gingrich’s deeply inaccurate interpretation of the same validates the existence of the blogosphere.  Perhaps...

Recently, I asked if there had been a recent uptick in people protesting Islam and the building of mosques. The Times says yep, ‘fraid so: “While a high-profile battle rages over a mosque near...

Using mathematical models, it is easy to demonstrate that every human being alive today is likely to be a direct descendant of Confucius, even using mathematical models that assume an extremely small amount of...

I highly recommend this BBC documentary about Andrew Wiles, the mathematician who solved Fermat’s last theorem. In one scene, Wiles leads a course wherein he lays the groundwork for what would ultimately become his...

This is the first one of these I’ve done, mostly because my musical tastes are not very sophisticated. I’ve got a decent ear for classical, but when it comes to rock, blues, country and...

…The fact that movement conservatives in good standing are advising the President of the United States to use the power of the federal government to prevent the construction of a religious institution in Lower...

This bit of Sarah Palin worship in a dead-tree outlet (and also this one) leaves me speechless.  Yeah, I know, it’s the New York Sun.  But still.  What I find absolutely staggering is this little...

An Andrew Sullivan reader, writing in response to coverage of the most recent well-publicized case of puppycide by the police, writes: As a resident of Baltimore, I am disappointed that when you turn your...

The level of judicial scrutiny that gays and lesbians should get is both left undetermined in Perry and also is stated in a slightly confusing way. This post is my attempt to iron it...

No, really.  Just because public safety officers and teachers are public employees whose job it is to serve the public does not mean that their lobbying or government relations wings are any less “special...