At ThinkProgress, the website of the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund, Matthew Yglesias made an eyebrow-raising assertion about America’s founding principles: The United States was founded fairly explicitly on a set of liberal ideals—pragmatic egalitarian cosmopolitan . . . . Continue Reading »
In James Davison Hunter’s To Change the World, Stanley Hauerwas is quoted as follows:It is alleged that by definition a pacifist must withdraw from political involvement. ...I refuse to accept such a characterization because it implies that all politics is finally but a cover for violence. . . . . Continue Reading »
Insanity. The Controlled Substances Act—a federal law—states explicitly that marijuana has no medicinal uses. It is therefore outlawed for every purpose throughout the USA.Yet, the Veteran’s Adm., part of the federal government, is now going to allow patients to use MM in . . . . Continue Reading »
1. Facebook as a Nation-State The world’s largest social network announced that it had reached 500m members on Wednesday July 21st. If Facebook were a physical nation, it would now be the third-most populous on earth. And if the service continues to grow as rapidly as in the three months to . . . . Continue Reading »
Yesterday I posted some thoughts about Byron Williams, a wannabe Right Wing revolutionary, pointing out that a false rhetorical urgency in political discourse is likely to contribute to the unbalanced thoughts of people like Williams. I want to clarify the obvious. In no way should we pin the blame . . . . Continue Reading »
The only aspect of the Shirley Sherrod controversy that I find interesting is related to a phrase she used in explaining her dealings with the poor white farmer. She said, “So I figured if I take him to one of them, that his own kind would take care of him.” . . . . Continue Reading »
Awhile back I supported a plan to kill geese in and around New York City to protect aviation safety. (Recall that flying geese were sucked into an airliner’s jet engines, which would have killed more than a hundred passengers—and perhaps many more on the ground—but for an . . . . Continue Reading »
Just in case you missed them, “On the Square” today offers another double feature: Father Edward Oakes’ E.T., Phone Here and Archbishop Charles Chaput’s Fire on the Earth . Father Oakes begins with Fermi’s Paradox about the possibility of life on other planets and . . . . Continue Reading »
Rod Dreher, one of my all-time favorite bloggers, recently took a job as the editor of the Templeton Foundation’s new webzine, Big Questions Online . The new site “aims to ask and explore the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality, with a focus on science, religion, markets, . . . . Continue Reading »
We apologize for the absence of Second Links the last two days. The compiler was down with a stomach bug and finding out that why “feeling like a wrung out dish cloth” is such a good metaphor. In Florence, parts of Galileo have been put on display . “‘He’s a secular . . . . Continue Reading »
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