Monthly Archive: October 2010

Whose Fault is Generation Me?

Hey all, I’m Ned Resnikoff. Along with Barrett Brown, I’m part of the latest batch of dewy-eyed greenhorns to start contributing regularly to this blog. A little bit about me: I’m a recent NYU...

The Irrelevance of Damon Linker

Damon Linker is a relative irrelevance. Any attempt by a significant figure to refute his glaring errors only serves to validate the bête noire role he has chosen for himself. Happily, I can point...

Here are all these things

The problem with going over to National Review’s blog The Corner for quick material, as I did last night, is that one tends to run across at least two or three other things that also...

Nice to Meet You, I’m a Libertarian

Describing an incident in which the local utility company chose to – without notice – rip out some of his trees in order to replace his water meter as “Why People Hate Government,” John...

The Toothless Mandate?

Commenter Boegiboe writes: I’m really confused about this whole health care fine stuff. Can someone (preferably a lawyer or law student) please explain what is wrong with FactCheck.org’s analysis of this law? It seems...

Replies on Compulsory Insurance

B-Rob offers “A simple explanation as to why the [individual mandate] is constitutional,” via the general welfare clauses, which allow Congress to pass “all Laws” that work toward “promot[ing] . . . the general...

National Review Gives Up, Tries Magic

I’d like to begin here by asking everyone to note that National Review has today put up an article by a certain Joel Rosenberg, who is presented as an expert on the Middle East. This is a wonderful coincidence, as I happen to know a few interesting things about Rosenberg. For instance, he claims to have predicted the last decade of Middle Eastern affairs by interpreting the Book of Ezekiel and other items of ancient Hebrew prophecy.

Question for Supporters of the Individual Mandate

Can I just get an admission that this makes the so-called individual mandate look pretty ridiculous? The individual mandate — that is, the affirmative requirement that all people must purchase health insurance from a...

Why we’re stuck with the War on Terror

Prompted by this entry from Greenwald, Erik and Tim Kowal kicked off a Gmail debate about why there’s such a startling degree of continuity between the Obama and Bush Administration’s counter-terror policies. The answer...

Anyone using Ubuntu?

Just started using Ubuntu 10.10 and I really like it, but I can’t stream on Netflix which just seems absurd. Other than that I think it’s a pretty great OS.

A failure of institutions ctd.

Commenter Sam M. writes, in response to my last post: But isn’t the full implication of this diconcerting to a lot of people? To affect this change, I think it presupposes that you accept that...

A failure of institutions

Ta-Nehisi Coates bumps a comment from commenter Sorn into a full-post. It’s well worth the read. Sorn talks about his experience in the military, how it first gave him a sense of what was...

Pentagon: We’ll Stop Enforcing DADT

All branches of the U.S. Armed Forces will stop enforcing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell pending the outcome of the Obama administration’s appeal. It’s an admirable testimony to the respect our society has for courts...

Sophocles: Philoctetes and Wounded Warriors

One of the real mixed blessings of modern warfare has been that improvements in medical technologies have allowed more wounded soldiers to survive what would have once been fatal injuries- now there are more...