Engagement
So just a few weeks ago, I became engaged to this woman: Antoinette Capaccio. We went to college together, and she’s now a law student at Vanderbilt University. Pretty great, eh?
Out of Iraq
George McGovern ‘s plan to stabilize Iraq : Step 1. Leave Step 2. Deputize Iran (and other Arab states ) Step 3. Pay for our Mistakes ( just like Iraq pays Kuwait ) I’m not sure what I think of this, but there it is. Leaving is a tossup: either the destabilized regions continue with…
Lakoff 1, Pinker 0
George Lakoff responds to Steven Pinker’s review of Whose Freedom?: The Battle over America’s Most Important Idea. Highlights include shocking charges of deception or incompetence on both sides. This is the only paragraph of vitriol-free prose I could find in the review, and since it’s mostly summary I’ll include it here: Lakoff’s theory is aimed…
Manifestos
People don’t write manifestos like they used to… Whatever happened to the Surrealist Manifesto ? How about the the Italian Futurist Manifesto (and its many spinoffs )? There’s also First and Second OuLiPo Manifestos , Humanist ( I, II , & III ) as well as Post-Humanist Manifestos , not to mention Donna Haraway’s Cyborg…
Steven goes 99 Theses on your ass.
The simple truth is that such accumulation of earthly power is ruinous because it takes the eyes of good Christians “off the prize”. Perhaps you wonder what gives me the right to say what is good or bad for Christianity when so many religious leaders would disagree. Because Christianity is the religious faith of another…
PINR on North Korea’s Nuclear Weapon Test
The article is here , and mostly quotes PINR’s prior analyses. They see little risk of imminent conflict but rather note that this is a matter of asserting influence in the region: As PINR stated in May 2005, “it is feasible that Pyongyang would go one step further to declare itself a nuclear power by…
What’s up with democrats who don’t believe in the demos?
“Quoting Madison or Tocqueville about how contemporary instituitions operate in 2006 has little more merit than reading sheep’s entrails.” There’s a quote that makes a civic republican like me sit up and take notice. While Madison and Toqueville could never have imagined today’s society, they pretty much told us what would go wrong with institutions…
North Korea’s got da bomb
Oh my . Although, really, this just means we have to start feeding them. I make a low probability that they nuke China… say 1%. Look for an article on the Power and Interest News Report tomorrow. If this old report is correct, we only have ourselves to blame: our hawkish post-9/11 axis of evil…
Why the Bombings Mean That We Must Support My Politics
I always have trouble expressing my feelings on 9/11. Finally, someone has done it for me . Of course the World Trade Center bombings are a uniquely tragic event, and it is vital that we never lose sight of the human tragedy involved. However, we must also consider if this is not also a lesson…
November, 2006
Electoral-vote.com appears to be a mostly non-partisan polling site covering all 33 Senate races this November. Their battleground page is especially helpful. Interestingly, the Democrats are projected to end up two seats down, but some people wonder whether the “sixth-year effect” may win a couple of Republican-leaning races. Not me, since I don’t know anything…