stcynic
Posts by this author
Timothy Sandefur has a brief description up of his overnight trip to San Fran, one of my favorite cities. He says:
San Francisco is a kind of heaven. Not the boring sort of cotton-wadded hell that they told you about in Sunday school, but a vibrant, living place with lights and style. It is the…
All of a sudden I'm getting a bunch of hits from snopes.com, the site that debunks urban legends. But the referral page is the bulletin board/forum and I can't find anywhere in the forum that I'm mentioned. So one of you people who linked to here from snopes.com, leave me a comment and tell me…
From his new column answering email feedback:
Q: I was watching "Seinfeld" the other night and wondered: How many dates do you think it took to sleep with Elaine? I say third date and you're in. I think she would go all the way on the second date, but she probably would think that's a little…
One of the most overlooked events in American history is the battle between Lincoln and the Supreme Court over habeas corpus. One would think that the recent Supreme Court cases involving the authority of a president to suspend habeas corpus would have been an ideal time for those in the media to…
I'm so pissed off about this that I woke up at 2:30 am seething and I had to get up and write this. Just read this and tell me that this doesn't deserve a gold medal in the 100 meter stupid hypocrite freestyle:
President George W. Bush plans to seek a court order to force the U.S. Federal Election…
Definitely go read Jon Rowe's new post on the misnamed Constitution Party. It is 100% on the mark.
I'm curious to know if any of my readers has seen the new documentary Outfoxed, about the Fox News Network. I've found the Fox News phenomenon fascinating since I first came across the network unwittingly a couple years ago. I remember very clearly flipping channels on cable and coming across Bill…
ACLJ says:
The term "Equal Access" is also used more specifically to refer to the nondiscriminatory use of public school facilities. The Equal Access Act, passed by Congress in 1984, provides that when a public school district gives students an opportunity to form extracurricular clubs that meet on…
Last night's showing of this year's World Series of Poker on ESPN was quite amusing to watch for two reasons - to see Phil Hellmuth whine and to see Mike Matusow being an obnoxious ass to the guy who pays him back by knocking him out and winning $5 million. Hellmuth is, of course, the ultimate…
A couple weeks ago, I was chided by a couple of readers for only attacking rightwing lunacy and leaving leftwing lunacy alone. Let me rectify that for the moment with a look at this amusing bit of balderdash from Leonard Shlain, a professor of surgery from UCSF. It's an excerpt from his book The…
Once upon a time, I was an interdisciplinary social science undergrad. What does that mean? It means I spent 3 years studying political science, political philosophy, and history, then dropped out to become a stand up comic. Political scientists are a strange breed. In large part, they study voter…
After the last entry, I feel like I should at least point out the few people who actually are making an effort to find the truth about statements made by the politicians. There are two websites that come immediately to mind, both of which I link to under news sources on my sidebar - Spinsanity and…
The charm of democracy, as HL Mencken noted so long ago, is that it is the only truly amusing form of government ever invented. Unlike Mencken, however, I can't feel only joy and mirth when watching how ridiculous our entire political system is. That great American democracy that we're always…
Nick Gillespie from Reason's Hit and Run blog has an interesting post about the hullaballoo surrounding John Kerry's military service and he finishes with this statement:
You've got to hand it to the Democrats. They enter a presidential race against a guy who clearly worked to evade active service…
I've been meaning to write about this for quite some time, since it actually happened a few weeks ago, but it kept slipping my mind. Now that he's published an article about it, it's as good a time as any. Timothy Sandefur of the always challenging Freespace blog, in his day job as an attorney for…
Until the typekey issue is sorted out, I've turned off comment moderation. I figure this is probably too new to attract the comment spammers anyway. I'm also having difficulty installing mt-blacklist, so any of you bloggers out there who have the new blacklist installed (version 2.0e, not the old 1…
If you're reading this, you obviously got the message from my old blog and followed the link. This is the permanent home of Dispatches from the Culture Wars. A lot more content is planned for the main page, but that will take some time to get going the way I want to. As you can see, I pasted the…
Jon Rowe has written an absolute must-read essay on our favorite intrepid campaigner, Alan Keyes, and our favorite nihilist-who-sounds-like-a-fundamentalist philosopher, Allan Bloom. I was not aware until I read it that Keyes was the person that Bloom was referring to in his book The Closing of the…
Is there anything more fun than watching Alan Keyes campaign? He's like a carnival barker with a PhD. He gets so fired up and on such a verbal roll that I imagine him waking up some mornings, looking at newspaper reports from the day before and saying, "I said THAT?". First, his excuse for why he's…
One of the truly valuable voices in the world on military issues belongs to David Hackworth. Hack is one of our most highly decorated military veterans, from his days as an underage merchant marine at the end of World War II through Korea, where he was the youngest captain in the Army, and Vietnam…
The last few days were rather stressful because of the hurricanes in Florida. Hurricane Charley was projected to be heading right for the community that Lynn lives in and she evacuated along with her brother and his family. As the hurricane approached land, however, it took a turn to the east and…
By the way, Dispatches from the Culture Wars will soon be moving. I have registered the domain name stcynic.com and will be putting up a webpage there this weekend. My hope is to make this into more than just a blog, I also have a lot of other content in mind for the future. But in the meantime, I…
Jon Rowe has written an absolute must-read essay on our favorite intrepid campaigner, Alan Keyes, and our favorite nihilist-who-sounds-like-a-fundamentalist philosopher, Allan Bloom. I was not aware until I read it that Keyes was the person that Bloom was referring to in his book The Closing of the…
Is there anything more fun than watching Alan Keyes campaign? He's like a carnival barker with a PhD. He gets so fired up and on such a verbal roll that I imagine him waking up some mornings, looking at newspaper reports from the day before and saying, "I said THAT?". First, his excuse for why he's…
Timothy has a post addressed to me, in reply to my post yesterday. He makes two arguments. First, he argues that the crimes of communist thugs were often understated and the crimes of anti-communist thugs often overstated. No argument from me on that one. I absolutely agree, and for the record I am…
One of the truly valuable voices in the world on military issues belongs to David Hackworth. Hack is one of our most highly decorated military veterans, from his days as an underage merchant marine at the end of World War II through Korea, where he was the youngest captain in the Army, and Vietnam…
The last few days were rather stressful because of the hurricanes in Florida. Hurricane Charley was projected to be heading right for the community that Lynn lives in and she evacuated along with her brother and his family. As the hurricane approached land, however, it took a turn to the east and…
Timothy Sandefur has started a campaign to encourage people to donate to an organization that wants to put up a Victims of Communism memorial. Yesterday he wrote an essay on why communist systems lead to repression and barbarism, which I find mostly quite accurate. I think he's slightly off on his…
There has been much discussion and contemplation this weekend about the direction this blog has taken lately, and I'm going to attempt to change the course a bit. Not a total overhaul, but perhaps a change in tone. Lately I have been focusing a lot on outright mockery of the truly stupid or deluded…
Found this interesting site that lists all of the presidential candidates, not just the major parties. There are a lot of parties out there I'd never heard of.