Category Archives: Uncategorized

Religious Right crack-up continues

Posted on July 3, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Now it’s Sarah Palin’s turn.   That icon of right-wing identity politics, revered for her populist authenticity  and lack of any taint of elite intellectualism, shows herself either to be involved in an as-yet-to-be-revealed scandal, or so nakedly ambitious that she … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 47 Comments

One for Heather

Posted on July 2, 2009 by Bradlaugh

A Yemenia Airlines plane crashed into the Indian Ocean Tuesday. Of the 153 people on board, only one survived, 13-year-old Bahia Baraki of Paris. Said her Dad:  “I can’t say that it’s a miracle, I can say that it is God’s will.” I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Enough already

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Where did Mark Sanford get the idea that he needs to reveal every last excruciating detail about his nauseatingly irrelevant love life–from his pastor, in some sort of open-yourself-to-Divine Forgiveness ritual?  Or is he just drunk with the false martyrdom … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 11 Comments

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 →

Posted in data, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 2 Comments

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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 11 Comments

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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 10 Comments

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 →

Posted in politics, Uncategorized | Tagged , | 8 Comments

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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | 71 Comments

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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged | 3 Comments

Knowledge and happiness

Posted on June 19, 2009 by Heather Mac Donald

Writer Christopher Benson reviews The Wreck of Western Culture: Humanism Revisited, by John Carroll, in the Weekly Standard.  The book, which I haven’t read, appears to lodge the familiar conservative attack on the alleged pretensions of secular humanism to improve … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments