Category Archives: politics

Christine O’Donnell is one of you!

Posted on October 5, 2010 by David Hume

Ms. O’Donnell makes very explicit one of the aspects of contemporary right-wing populism. On the one hand it is surely true that the American Elite Establishment has become stagnant and calcified. On the other hand, do we really want Average … Continue reading →

Posted in politics | Tagged , | 23 Comments

Dinesh D’Souza’s poison

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Heather Mac Donald

Forbes magazine has now “fact-checked” Dinesh D’Souza’s infamous September 27 cover story, “How Obama Thinks,” and has uncovered one “slight” misrepresentation, it says, of an Obama speech on the BP oil spill.  Such a “fact-checking” feint is irrelevant to this … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, politics | Tagged , , | 96 Comments

The Rise of the Orthodox

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Via The Economist: Just 42% of adult Israeli Jews define themselves as secular, according to recent official figures. The rest range from mildly to devoutly religious. And because the most religious seem to have the most children, the secular figure … Continue reading →

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The markets are rational?

Posted on September 26, 2010 by David Hume

Sarah Palin: Still Not the Front-Runner: …But right now, in autumn 2010, at what seems like a moment of maximal populist outrage and anti-establishment fervor, Sarah Palin can’t crack 20 percent in primary polling, and Mitt Romney (for all his … Continue reading →

Posted in politics | Tagged | 19 Comments

Will November be a Pyrrhic victory?

Posted on September 24, 2010 by David Hume

Matt Yglesias explains his recent shift toward liberaltarianism: It was suggested to me by a number of parties this week that I should give some explicit account of why the blog has turned in what you might call a more … Continue reading →

Posted in politics | Tagged | 25 Comments

Pagan Pique

Posted on September 21, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

Cross-posted from the Corner: It’s not every day that I give thanks to the folks over at the Huffington Post, but today is one of those days. Take it away, Sam Stein: …A spokesperson for the neopagan network “The Witches’ … Continue reading →

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DeMint’s Choice

Posted on September 15, 2010 by Andrew Stuttaford

One reason that Delaware’s best-known GOP candidate will have such a mountain to climb in the general election is the emergence of fresh embarrassments like these comments (via New York magazine today) from a 1996 debate on whether creationism should … Continue reading →

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The irrelevancies of the sects

Posted on September 15, 2010 by David Hume

Update: Ignore this post. I was wrong, it looks as if Christine O’Donnell had an evangelical phase, and if my chronology is correct she was an evangelical Protestant Christian when this video was made. She later converted back to Roman … Continue reading →

Posted in politics | Tagged | 6 Comments

A misunderstanding of civility

Posted on September 8, 2010 by David Hume

At The New Republic a writer is confused that a professor of Islamic Studies in Delaware would say this: Along with the idea of God and prophets, the Quran is the thing that Muslims hold the dearest. My children have … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, politics | Tagged | 39 Comments

Religion & the state of Laïcité

Posted on September 4, 2010 by David Hume

The Christian Science Monitor has an interesting article on the rise of evangelical Protestantism among French Gyspies, and how that differentiates them from eastern European Roma in their anti-social tendencies: The Gypsy Evangelicals in Chaumont, France counter any stereotype. They … Continue reading →

Posted in culture, politics | Tagged , , | 4 Comments