Author: Dennis

“The battle over pharmacists’ consciences has been building for some time…”. That’s how the Christian Post spins the Illinois governor’s order that pharmacists comply with requests for emergency contraception. You see, it’s a little abortion everytime. In cases of rape, broken condoms — what have you. The law, we’re meant to believe, forces Christian pharmacists…

Thanks to a tip from Robot Guy, Eric pointed me toward the latest article on the Oxyrhynchus papyri, promising a 20% increase in the body of classical texts. I’d seen an earlier, shorter version of the story but this one made it seem much more significant. For more than a century, it has caused excitement…

It looks like Eric’s valiant old friend isn’t the only pitbull worthy of that title (Link from the Right Coast): Two dogs whose breed has a reputation for being mean played the roles of rescuers for a woman who was being attacked by another dog. A red chow was on top of Angie Pecoraro, 22,…

In light of Eric’s comments on gay marriage, specifically regarding the legal side of the question, I thought I should link to this piece by Jennifer Roback Morse at Policy Journal Online, “Marriage and the Limits of Contract.” It strikes me that the author has an agenda (she has published two books on love) and…

Not really, but maybe I should think about it. The Florida House of Representatives, citing the need to allow people to “stand their ground,” voted 94-20 to codify and expand court rulings that already allow people to use deadly force to protect themselves in their homes without first trying to escape. The new bill goes…

I had just finished reading about the valiant efforts of one courageous man to spread the word about the evils of Fox News Channel (whilst turning a profit, natch), and I thought, ‘bully for him! Children might see that rot and get all sorts of bad notions about having opinions. The ignorant masses must be…

Via Drudge I see that doctors in the UK authorized and performed a third trimester abortion because of a cleft lip and palate. Really, who wants to be burdened with an imperfect child in this modern age? The Cleft Lip and Palate Association is understandably concerned.

Here’s a must-read piece on progress in the Middle East (link via ALDaily): The slogan for this nascent people’s revolt has become “Kifaya,” which means “enough.” It’s a word that is both emphatic and vague enough to be all-encompassing yet effective: enough of autocrats, enough corruption, enough occupation, enough repression. It has acquired magical and…

Garry Kasparov has retired his men to take on Vladimir Putin: Garry Kasparov, the world’s top chess player for two decades and considered by many the greatest player in history, has announced his retirement from professional chess in an ambitious gambit and vowed to devote his energy to battling what he called the “dictatorship” of…

During the latest Classical Values Summit (Justin, unfortunately, was tied up with Karl haggling over the definition of ‘hit’ — Rove wants to pay us a dollar per hit as registered by SiteMeter, while we favor server statistics — muy lucrativo[*]) the term ‘bullshit’ came up (as it often does, particulalry when discussing our own…

E at the Dave points us toward a new group blog by conservative (and possibly libertarian) philosophers, Right Reason, growing from the ashes of The Conservative Philosopher, which had apparently been mired in a controversy over the founder’s non-philosophical argumentation and deletion of critical comments. (I see that The Conservative Philosopher is still going, but…

<sarcasm> The Republicans are paying me good money to link to this stuff </sarcasm>, so here goes: Bush never accepted the view that Islamic terrorism had its roots in religion or culture or the Arab-Israeli conflict. Instead he veered toward the analysis that the region was breeding terror because it had developed deep dysfunctions caused…

Despite Ted Rall’s eloquent essay against non-credentialed bad guy bloggers, here’s another critique of journalistic technique. UPI’s Michael Kirkland, writing about the Supreme Court case on the Ten Commandments, reduces the debate to a simple binary opposition: On one side are those who say government has a role in promoting morality; on the other are…

I spotted this on Fark.com: After years of referring to Osama bin Laden with the less-than-cuddly term “militant,” Agence France-Presse sees the error of its ways and downgrades him to “dissident“ So he’s Noam Chomsky now? I reckon ‘the responsibility of intellectuals’ has changed some since 1966 …

Daniel Henninger says out with Modernism and Post-Modernism and in with respite. For the sake of argument, I am willing to agree that Duchamp’s urinal was the most influential artwork of the past century. If this is even close to being true, we may declare the modern art movement dead. Why? For one reason: It…

The state wants to wash your dirty little mouth out with a $500k bar of soap. But really, who doesn’t want to make “radio more suitable for family viewing?”

I’m almost hesitant to do this because it seems cruel, but wade through the awkward prose of this piece on tyranny and idiocy if you’ve the stomach. It’s got all the makings of an undergraduate essay: politics filtered through poets (bonus points for non-Anglo-Americans), tangential connections and sweeping generalizations, poor grasp of grammar and syntax,…

… when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. Ah, the value of a non-classical education.

Here’s Rumsfeld on the changing realities of 21st century warfare: “Bloggers and hackers and chat rooms!” Rumsfeld exclaimed Saturday during a question-and-answer session with defense and security officials and experts from around the world. “E-mails and cell phones with global reach!” “It alters how you have to behave… it adds a level of complexity” to…

This is something you’d expect to read of the Religious Right on the Onion: Saudi Arabia’s morality police are on the scent of illicit red roses as part of a clampdown on would-be St Valentine’s lovers in the strict Muslim kingdom. The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Saudi Arabia’s powerful…