Monthly Archive: May 2011

How to Build a State

My posts on the Israel-Palestine question two weeks ago led to requests for a primer on the Palestinian Authority’s plan to request U.N. recognition in September.  This article (from Haaretz) provides just that, for those interested....

We, as a society

Last year, about this time, we were talking about Radley Balko’s report of a SWAT raid in Missouri. It was a horrifying video with children being endangered, pets being shot, and a small amount of marijuana...

Doubt and Ideology

Erik just posted a piece considering how liberals and libertarians view liberty and justice, and how he is left ambivalent between these worldviews.  If you haven’t read it yet please do so, I can...

The Essay, Reborn

Daniel McCarthy finds reasons for optimism in the “death of the book” — the potential of the e-reader to rejuvenate the essay, and its lengthier, “Victorian,” versions in particular, as a literary art form....

Beyond Unions

Recently we had the Labor Roundtable and much interesting discussion on the nature and necessity of organized labor in America ensued. I’ve cooled on the idea of unions lately, at least in their current...

The Drum Plan

Kevin Drum’s Medicare reform plan strikes me as well worth considering, and most certainly creative.  At first blush, I suspect that its ultimate effect would be essentially the same as most proposals for means-testing...

Raptured

From a friend’s Facebook update: “The most valuable lesson from the Camping Rapture incident? If you make apocalyptic predictions, make them secular. Paul Erhlich is a tenured professor at Stanford.”