The following was a letter submitted to the Inquirer in response to this letter.
A recent letter challenged anyone who has studied history to identify even one founder who would have agreed with Justice Scalia on guns. I’ve studied our history and here are just a few.
James Mason: “to disarm the people is the best and [...]
Borepatch has a nice post on progressivism (hat tip to Newbie Shooter). Here’s my current summary of progressive agenda:
1. Guarantee an expansive and virtually unfettered right of individuals to pursue all the meaningless distractions that modern life has to offer.
2. Restrict and regulate the areas of life that actually have real significance (freedom of expression, [...]
I recently came across an interesting comment in an examination of the influence of Voodoo on Haiti’s culture.
Part of the allure of idol worship is if you just perform the right ceremonies you can behave as poorly as you want without consequence.
Do you notice the interesting parallel with Progressivism? If a Progressive makes the right [...]
Free speech? Not with knuckle-draggers on campus and the Israeli Ambassador speaking. The left tells us all cultures have equal value. Hmmm….really?
Give the faculty member who speaks up credit. He doesn’t hold back. Hat tip to Power Line.
Coming on the heels of multiple huge snow storms, with another whopper on the way (to say nothing of the ClimateGate scandal, a now steady stream of revelations of errors in the IPCC plus potential ethical and legal problems among climate priests), the geniuses in the Obama (mis)administration are proposing to create a Climate Change [...]
There is just nothing I can say to prepare you for this. Enjoy.
I have seen repeatedly in the healthcare debate an argument from the left along the lines of “someone who is sick and uninsured isn’t really free”. I always thought that was a bizarre assertion. Well I recently read an article on the Progressive giant, John Dewey and that very formulation played a big role in [...]
Not really, of course. This is a case of correlation not causation but there is a very clear pattern to state-by-state happiness data published recently in Science. The Wall Street Journal published a summary (here is their chart). The happiest states overwhelmingly voted for McCain in the 2008 election and the least happy states unanimously [...]
Every now and then I wonder if I over think things a bit. For example, I was working on the post below and started to wonder if it was a little too speculative. Then I came across this. It turns out, I’m not so crazy.
It’s tough sometimes to write about these things without sounding like [...]
The CRU hacking case just keeps getting better. Here is a detailed discussion of how the IPCC’s chart for 20th century temperatures in Australia completely contradicts the raw data. I’ll stop short of calling it fraud because that requires knowledge of motivations.
But I think the time has come for us to demand that all climate [...]
As I was writing the previous post on the craptastic legacy media, I realized there’s a remarkable parallel with the unfolding CRU hacked email scandal. When true believers (leftwing journalists in one case vs climate researchers in the other) control the input (reporting vs climate data) and the “unbiased” check on quality (editors vs peer [...]
In keeping with tradition, a few things for which I am thankful…
*The beautiful and charming Mrs. Manifesto, always my supporter and friend
*That amazing, wobbly, bundle of joy and enthusiasm, Baby Manifesto
*Our loving and merciful God
*A gradual return to good health
*The rekindling of our nations’ resolve despite, even because of, the trying times we face
I read a NY Times article titled Fathers Gain Respect From Experts (And Mothers). The basic idea is that research is making two things clear:
1. Fathers matter
2. When parents have good relationships, children benefit
I was preparing to make some derisive comments about how many PhDs it takes to figure out something this blindingly obvious when something jumped [...]
Today’s WSJ correctly identified the motivations behind Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize. Yes, there’s an element of hope, change, peace and all that unattainable nonsense. The real story is an end to American Exceptionalism.
What ideals are those [promoted by Obama]? Well, the Nobel citation declares that Mr. Obama’s “diplomacy is founded in the concept that those [...]
This is one of those pieces that just leaves me so cynical about the left and the media. Paul Krugman writes that we are shortchanging education in the US. He offers no actual evidence, of course.
Education, as one of the largest components of public spending, has inevitably suffered.
Oh, really? Take a look at this. We’ve [...]
Alex Tabarrok, in discussing business cycles, made an interesting observation. He wrote:
In the United States, for example, sales of the top 100 firms account for about 30% of GDP. (The share is even larger in most other developed economies.)
What caught my eye was that the 100 largest corporations represent a higher percent of the economy [...]
When William Beveridge laid out his blueprint for the modern British welfare state in 1942, his goal was the “abolition of want,” to be accomplished by “cooperation between the State and the individual.”
In attempting to insulate the citizenry from the vicissitudes of fate, Sir William has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams: Want has been all [...]
The left is taking up the argument that opposing Obama is self-evidently racist. If it weren’t so serious it would be silly. They offer no evidence of racism but they can just feel it in their bones that all those protesters are racists. Hey, they don’t need evidence…they’re leftists and they are smarter than the [...]
I can’t help but note a few things that illustrate the sad state of the left…
George Bush can be interrupted giving a speech but His Majesty Obama shall not be interrupted. We are not amused.
Obama accuses his opponents of lying (“It is a lie, plain and simple”) and that’s fine but Joe Wilson’s shout of [...]
At what point does it become reasonable to describe the left as adhering to an ideology that is not supportive of freedom? I think the time has long since passed but it is difficult to press the case without sounding like a bit of a lunatic.
A couple reminders of this crossed my screen recently. First [...]