Monthly Archive: December 2010

Adam Serwer searches for the slimmest of silver linings in the government’s effort to charge Julian Assange with conspiracy: I say this is merely the “least terrible” because, unlike simply charging a person with...

The Serbian artist Marina Abramovi?’s performances suggest, to me, that performance art really isn’t a radical departure from plastic arts, but a return to art’s roots in ritual and religion. Her photography is sometimes more direct, but still retains the...

We haven’t done one of these in awhile. Patrick at Popehat takes a look at the latest frivolous-in-a-reasonable-world anti-McDonald’s lawsuit (a claim of emotional distress because the plaintiff’s daughter too-often asks her mother to...

Start here, because it’s the most personally damning. Saith Eliezer Yudkowsky: The first virtue is curiosity. A burning itch to know is higher than a solemn vow to pursue truth. To feel the burning...

I think one of the driving tensions in my own internal political ecology arises between the components of this posts title: limits and liberty. (Other tensions: progress and tradition; subsidiarity and solidarity; egalitarianism and...

Each time I cross-post something I have written here to another blog and viewthe receptions that an honest attempt at dialog receives elsewhere compared to how it is received here, I grow to appreciate...

Imagine that “China’s defense minister announces plans to

There’s only one thing that can kill the movies, and that’s education. — Will Rogers . Constant Viewer — who, let’s face it, hasn’t been all that constant in his viewing lately — gave...

Currently appearing at the Acte2galerie in Paris, Cédric Delsaux’s “Dark Lens” series (manipulated photos of Dubai) is a clever, surrealistic take on the Star Wars films. A sample after the jump:

Ongoing events, coupled with some discussions I’ve been having in the context of those events, have prompted me to revisit a story which I consider to be among the most telling in terms of...

Good for Michael Moore – a man I rarely see eye-to-eye with – for posting Julian Assange’s bail and offering to host WikiLeaks on Moore’s servers: Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London,...

Blasphemy Channel: Bible History #1 (Sodom & Gomorrah)Watch this video on YouTube In my last post I noted, if one wants to justify (the normally prohibited kinds of) incest (as noted, if you extend...

In the Eugene Volokh post the other day which Jason so strongly criticized, Volokh approvingly quoted the following language from Jonathan Rauch: It would be a false comfort… to suppose that the gays-as-oppressors narrative...

I’ve gotten a lot of grief for my calling Eugene Volokh a significant opponent of same-sex marriage (with some over-the-years context in the comments, here). I’d actually considered taking down the post — it...

Analogies can be tricky things. That’s something that Dr. John Corvino has noted. Over at the Volokh Conspiracy, our old friend EV has blogged about the recent case of the Columbia Professor charged with...

Recently, E.C. Gach made a very interesting argument here about the closed belief systems that support empires; one that I think is basically true. Imperialism tends to give rise to, and perhaps needs, fairly...