Monthly Archives: June 2009

Religion & the welfare state

Posted on June 28, 2009 by David Hume

The fact that high levels of religion tend to be inversely correlated with per capita government social spending is well known on an international scale. But it doesn’t seem true for American states.

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Saints & Sinners

Posted on June 27, 2009 by David Hume

Normally I would post this at one of my science blogs…but it might be relevant right now in politics. Sinning Saints and Saintly Sinners: The Paradox of Moral Self-Regulation: The question of why people are motivated to act altruistically has … Continue reading →

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Not the usual political prayer venue

Posted on June 26, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Mark Sanford occasionally visited a secretive Christian boarding house for politicians  in Washington, reports the Washington Post.   Coincidentally, no doubt, fellow adulterer Nevada Senator John Ensign also lived there with a few other politicians.  A rival minister now charges that the house … Continue reading →

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Mark Sanford’s Thought for the Day

Posted on June 25, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

“God moves in mysterious ways.” I would like to think that most people, even Republicans, wallow in sex scandals just for the sheer voyeuristic fun of destroying a politician’s career for no particular reason other than that one can.   For … Continue reading →

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Althouse’ rule on sex-differences in action

Posted on June 25, 2009 by David Hume

A few years ago Ann Althouse told Bob Wright that there was an easy way to do sex-differences research without being pilloried: make sure that the generalizations work out so that they are flatter women. Over at Feministing, Are Women … Continue reading →

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Politics & the transparent society

Posted on June 24, 2009 by David Hume

The Mark Sanford affair is all over the news right now. Additionally, a newspaper in South Carolina has released the first batch of emails of private correspondence between Sanford and his mistress. How would you like your personal romantic correspondence … Continue reading →

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Why Abortion?

Posted on June 24, 2009 by Bradlaugh

Mr. Hume:   The salience of abortion as a social-conservative issue has at least three components: (1) As an aspect of the culture of permissiveness that persons of a conservative temperament deplore.  Abortion “travels” by association with promiscuity, homosexuality, pot … Continue reading →

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Abortion, the forgotten years….

Posted on June 23, 2009 by David Hume

I’ve mentioned before that in the early-to-mid-1970s abortion did not have the valence on the Right that it does today. It was primarily the Roman Catholic Church which opposed Roe vs. Wade with concerted and strenuous vigor. Though to a … Continue reading →

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Sounds like some Iranians we know

Posted on June 22, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Rabbi Leib Glanz, a leader in New York City’s Hasidic Satmar sect, told a meeting of New York Democrats last year that he saw God’s hand in the elevation of David Paterson to the New York governorship following the fall … Continue reading →

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Iran, is it that polarized by class?

Posted on June 19, 2009 by David Hume

Like many people I don’t know that much about what’s going on in Iran besides what I read. An Iranian American friend asked me what I thought would happen…which I think goes to show that we’re all in uncharted waters … Continue reading →

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