Category Archives: Uncategorized

Magical thinking watch: foreign policy chapter

The Obama Administration is bruiting it about that the president is impatient with the slow pace of “nation-building” in Afghanistan, reports the New York Times.  Nine months (Obama’s White House tenure)–or, hey, call it even eight years (since the bombing … Continue reading

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We Are Doomed Reviewed

In Wall Street Journal today, favorably–one would like to say, “of course,” but these things are tricky.

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Nice animals

Conservative pundits occasionally imply that other-directed human virtues, such as charity, compassion, and mercy, came on the scene only thanks to Christianity.  No one has ever shown hospitality to a stranger or helped survivors of an earthquake in other cultures, … Continue reading

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Ice People Club

Is there, as some commentators have claimed, affirmative action at work in the awarding of Nobel Prizes? If there is, it has been almost entirely restricted to the Peace Prize in recent years. The Nobel Committee publishes a year-by-year list … Continue reading

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The doctor made me not do it

We need to induce doctors to practice preventive, not just reactive, care!  is a favored nostrum in the current health care debate.  I’ve yet to hear an example of what this means.  Prevention lies overwhelmingly within the realm of individual … Continue reading

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An advantage of polytheism

The Pope announced during his Angelus broadcast last Sunday that he was “imploring God to relieve the pain” of the survivors of  a recent flood in Sicily and of the recent earthquake in Indonesia, according to RAI International.  Such an … Continue reading

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Breaking News: Europe hates Bush

Neocon Europe-bashing, especially its theocon chapter, always produced in me an opposite, possibly equally kneejerk, reaction.  Europe’s reluctance to start wars was an understandable and hardly blameworthy reaction to its 20th century bloodbaths, I thought, its secularism a welcome development, … Continue reading

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Best Painting Ever?

Well, perhaps not, but in its splendid (interactive!) way, one of the more entertaining. H/t: The Daily Dish

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The silent treatment

I keep waiting for the doughty advocates of “increasing health insurance competition by more government regulation” (that may or may not include a public option) to explain why insurance should not be available across state lines.  Not only is this … Continue reading

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The possible limits of power

Ten experts polled by the New York Times present their advice for winning in Afghanistan.  Suggestions include “a genuine run-off election,” “empowering local pashtuns” by “political and economic means,” creating a “functioning local justice system with courts, lawyers and jails,” … Continue reading

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