Monthly Archives: December 2012

On the fifth day of Christmas . . .

. . . My true love gave to me a book on pop metaphysics. Yes, I read Jim Holt’s Why Does the World Exist? over the weekend.  It’s light stuff: A journalist ─ though a more-than-usually intelligent one ─ talks to … Continue reading

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Liberty, Not So Much

We’ve heard a lot from the Roman Catholic church of late about how its “religious liberty” is supposedly infringed by the Obamacare “contraception mandate”. It’s a dodgy and unconvincing argument for any number of reasons (and hypocritical too, given the … Continue reading

Posted in Church & State | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

“Sensible Proposals”

Heather, you wrote: Anyone who was expecting Vice President Wayne LaPierre to break the NRA’s week-long silence after the Newtown massacre with an olive branch and some sensible proposals regarding better background checks, say, or restrictions on high-capacity ammo clips … Continue reading

Posted in debate, law, politics | Tagged | 1 Comment

Happy Christmas!

How to mark Christmas, grandest and jolliest and most syncretic of festivals, this year? With this brief extract, I think, from The Exiles by Ray Bradbury, who, of course, died just a few months ago: A door banged wide in … Continue reading

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Umm . . . we didn’t mean THAT kind of gun control

You gotta love the NRA.  Anyone who was expecting Vice President Wayne LaPierre to break the NRA’s week-long silence after the Newtown massacre with an olive branch and some sensible proposals regarding better background checks, say, or restrictions on high-capacity … Continue reading

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Framing, overinclusion, and underinclusion in the response to the Sandy Hook massacre

At what point do we declare that the near saturation media coverage of the Newton massacre, however understandable initially, has become not just politically opportunistic on the part of a nearly unanimous gun control bloc but also voyeuristic?   Perhaps any … Continue reading

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Recalling the 1987 Bork confirmation fight

Did you know opponents of Bork’s confirmation waged a whispering campaign against the conservative nominee in the South on the grounds that he wasn’t a religious believer? I explain in a New York Post op-ed out this morning. According to … Continue reading

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Social Justice and All That

The Pope, writing in the Financial Times today: Christians work for more equitable sharing of the earth’s resources out of a belief that, as stewards of God’s creation, we have a duty to care for the weakest and most vulnerable. … Continue reading

Posted in law, Religion, Uncategorized | Tagged | 1 Comment

Sir Patrick Moore (1923-2012)

One of Britain’s television legends has just died. His Daily Telegraph obituary can be found here. Some key extracts: A genuine eccentric who never took himself too seriously, Moore played up to his image as a “mad professor”, and wrote … Continue reading

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Learning the Lessons of Kerensky

Cross-posted on the Corner: Jihad Al-Khazen writes in Al Arabiya: I expected the worst as I watched on television one day the Supreme Guide of the Muslim Brotherhood Mohammed Badie, who was not elected by anyone, walking in front of … Continue reading

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