stcynic
Posts by this author
October 11, 2004
One thing that absolutely drives non-partisans insane about our political system is watching the way the parties distort what the other side says in order to make a false argument. This is something that the Bush campaign, in particular, are turning into an art form of stupidity these days. We've…
October 9, 2004
Via Jason Kuznicki, via Alas, A Blog, and via Teresa Nielsen Hayden, comes this story of an aspiring writer who is attempting to sell a book manuscript on E-bay, but only to famous authors. He believes that it's good enough that if it just had a famous author's name on it, it would be a bestseller…
October 9, 2004
Well, I managed to stay up and watch the whole thing. Here are my thoughts on it:
First, it needs to be said that the only thing that matters is how the undecided voters viewed it. The polls are showing a consistent dead heat 3 weeks before the election, with about 10% undecided. Those are the…
October 8, 2004
Yesterday, I wrote about Robert Wright's claim that Daniel Dennett had reluctantly admitted that there is evidence of design in nature. Today, Andrew Sullivan has Dennett's reply:
"This is ridiculous: Wright misinterprets his own videoclip (I am grateful that it is available uncut on his website,…
October 8, 2004
Recently I was watching an HBO comedy special starring Ellen Degeneres. I only watched her sitcom a few times when it was on, but I've always thought she was quite funny and original. And I've always respected the way she handled that big "coming out" show that got so much attention. She didn't…
October 7, 2004
We're all used to lies from politicians, so used to them that most of us barely react at all when we come across a new one. But one thing that fascinates me is someone lying boldly, that is, lying when it's so easy to find the truth and when they know that lots of people will in fact find it. One…
October 7, 2004
Robert Wright has written an article about what he characterizes as a rather dramatic admission by Daniel Dennett, one of our foremost minds and also a prominent atheist, that life on earth shows signs of having been the product of intelligent design. This would come as quite a shock to those who…
October 6, 2004
There has been a lot of talk about a military draft lately, for a lot of reasons. Many observers and analysts are saying that if Bush is reelected and he continues the foreign policy path he has started, there is going to have to be a draft. He has repeatedly denied that, and the only movement in…
October 5, 2004
We all know that President Bush is passionate about "protecting the sanctity of marriage", especially from people who want to get married. One of the programs he has proposed to do so is the Healthy Marriage Initiative. As the Heritage Foundation described it:
The President's Healthy Marriage…
October 5, 2004
One of the most astonishing things about the Bush administration, in my view, is how many former officials have come out and criticized things the administration has done, and how little impact it has had politically. This can partially be chalked up to an uninformed populace, of course, but also…
October 5, 2004
Jon Rowe has an article up about the revelation that Alan Keyes has a lesbian daughter. I told him the other day that I was probably going to address this at some point, and I fully expected to do what I usually do, which is mock Keyes for his constant public poses of self-righteousness. But now…
October 4, 2004
I came across this interview with Christopher Hitchens and I'd like to post a few excerpts from it. I've long had a fascination with Hitchens. His collection of essays, For the Sake of Argument, is one of my favorites, and I quite enjoy his wit. My earliest memory of him was seeing him on the CNN…
October 4, 2004
The debate tournament went well, though I definitely realized that I am too old to do that anymore. It ended Saturday night and I'm still recovering from the lack of sleep. Still, it was a nice nostalgia trip. I was disappointed in the quality of the debate that I saw. The best team there was from…
October 3, 2004
It's always fun seeing the Worldnutdaily weigh in on church and state issues. They can predictably be seen pushing the "Christian Nation" idea to their credulous readers. I've documented the false claims on this subject that regularly appear there. The latest bit of nonsense comes from columnist…
October 1, 2004
I'm leaving in a couple hours to judge a debate tournament for the first time in over a decade, so I won't be around to post anything new until Sunday. I thought I'd put down a few thoughts about last night's presidential debate before I left.
As predicted, there was very little substance. Lots of…
September 30, 2004
I posted a bit of this email from a Wall Street Journal reporter in Baghdad in the Andrew Sullivan post below, but there's more worth reading in it.
It's hard to pinpoint when the 'turning point' exactly began. Was it April
when the Fallujah fell out of the grasp of the Americans? Was it when…
September 30, 2004
From Andrew Sullivan, an ardent supporter of the war in Iraq, who echoes much of what I've been saying here lately about the situation there:The reason I believe things are dire in Iraq is pretty simple. The evidence is accumulating that the insurgency - fostered by Baathist thugs, al Qaeda…
September 30, 2004
As if on cue, the Worldnutdaily has provided a perfect example of what Bill Moyers was talking about in the quote I posted yesterday about Christian evangelicals viewing our foreign policy through the prism of end times eschatology.
Amazing role of U.S., Israel, Iraq in Bible prophecy screams the…
September 30, 2004
My thanks to Timothy Sandefur, who just emailed me a link to this post by Stuart Buck about Cheney's statement that if Kerry is elected there will be another terrorist attack. I hammered Cheney pretty hard over that, not because of the statement itself, which is fair comment (obviously both sides…
September 29, 2004
Someone suggested that I should write something about the upcoming presidential debates that draws on my background as a debate judge, coach and theorist (yes, there is actually such a thing as debate theory and I've actually published on it). It brought to mind 1988, when I was in college and…
September 29, 2004
I just had to copy this passage as well from Moyers' speech.
The Chicago Tribune recently conducted a national poll in which about half of those surveyed said there should be been some kind of press restraint on reporting about the prison abuse scandal in Iraq; I suggest those people don't want…
September 29, 2004
Thanks to Brian Leiter for linking to this brilliant speech by Bill Moyers of PBS. It's a wide ranging speech covering a lot of ground and Brian is posting excerpts from it. This passage particularly caught my eye and it may well explain a lot of the motivation for what is going on right now.How do…
September 28, 2004
From Debbie Daniels' fawning religiobabble article about President Bush at intellectualconservative.com:
George Bush is no ordinary man. It is because of his deep faith in God that he's been able to withstand the vile attacks by seemingly everyone...
He's been knocked by one of the big three…
September 28, 2004
Jerry Falwell's Liberty University is starting a law school. I'm sure it'll be every bit as rigorous as Pat Robertson's law school. How rigorous is that? Well, out of 184 law schools ranked, they're 177th in the percentage of students passing the bar the first time and 178th in overall program…
September 28, 2004
I love this. The Worldnutdaily's idea of "news" is an article like this one, entitled "Christian Revival in U.S. - Can It Really Happen?", which is really just an ad pimping a book by John Chalfant that is available, naturally, from the Worldnutdaily at a tidy profit. Ironically, but predictably,…
September 28, 2004
Here's a scathing article on Bush administration incompetency in Iraq, written by a retired Air Force Colonel and Central Command war planner:
To discern the truth about Iraq, Americans must simply look beyond the spin. This war is not some noble endeavor, some great struggle of good against evil…
September 27, 2004
"The point is, if millions of heterosexual divorces every year have not hopelessly denigrated the institution of marriage, why would some thousands of same-sex marriages do so? If straights like reactionary radio commentator and drug-head Rush Limbaugh can get married again and again without…
September 27, 2004
Since I'm in the mortgage business, the frequent spam emails I get promising the lowest rates ever regardless of credit just get deleted out. But a few minutes ago, I got one that caught my attention, from ChristianMortgageUSA.com.Refinance Your Home with Christian Lending Partners says my "lending…
September 27, 2004
Jason Kuznicki has followed my lead in giving a positive review to Timothy Sandefur's recent article on liberal originalism in the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. Incidentally, Jon Rowe agreed with us as well. Mr. Sandefur sent copies of the article to the three of us (and perhaps others…
September 26, 2004
Eugene Volokh is guest-blogging for Glenn Reynolds on MSNBC and has written an excellent essay on the commonly-heard accusation that liberals exhibit moral relativism. Very well analyzed and fair-minded.