I want to get a tattoo of myself on my entire body, only 2″ taller. — Steven Wright I found Isaac Asimov’s Foundation a lot less enjoyable the second time through. I’d read it I believe in 8th or 9th grade, and it was really a disappointment to come back to it. Oh well, you live and learn. First, the plots of each of the sub-stories of this book are almost absurdly contrived. What seemed ...

From WCCO in Minneapolis. Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan handed out honors to a team of officers involved in a botched raid at an innocent family’s home more than seven months ago. A few days before Christmas, the SWAT team, acting on a tip from an informer, burst into the house looking for a gang member’s guns. The homeowner, Vang Khang, was not a gang member but he was a gun owner, and hearing someone ...

We Americans may have perfected slapstick, but the Brits are the undisputed champions of satire. This comedy sketch about school choice should have you laughing no matter what side of the issue you take. Of course the fact that it’s slanted toward this blog’s viewpoint doesn’t hurt, either. [Note: For those reading this before the link is available; I am having trouble embedding the video, and Jason will, we hope, solve the problem soon.] (Hat ...

It is a cliché among many psychologists and economists that human beings behave self-interestedly. Moreover, since Adam Smith’s somewhat theological, somewhat anthropomorphic “invisible hand” metaphor, it has been almost an article of faith within the latter discipline that the collective, societal result of individual self-interested behavior is ironically salubrious. It is a faith to which I also ascribe, although like all but the most zealous of religious fanatics I season that faith with the occasional ...

NPR ran a story today commemorating the 40th anniversary of the riots police brutality at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago. The story, while generally interesting and almost informative, contained this stunning attempt to whitewash history: Michael Heaney, a political scientist at the University of Florida, says that because of 1968, “we’ve now become a ‘movement society.’ ” “What 1968 demonstrated was that protest could be an effective tactic for bringing about social change,” he ...

This exists in his 1813 letter, written in the context of Britain’s repeal of a law that made it a crime to deny the Trinity, John Adams writes this to the militant anti-Trinitarian, Thomas Jefferson: We can never be so certain of any prophecy, or the fulfillment of any prophecy, or of any miracle, or the design of any miracle, as we are from the revelation of nature, that is, nature’s God, that two and ...

He well understands the concept until he gets to the Ten Commandments. Justice Scalia, in his dissent in MCCREARY implies that “monotheism” has some type of constitutional privilege over non-monotheistic religions, at least in the context of government endorsement of monotheistic, over non-monotheistic religions. In that opinion he writes: Besides appealing to the demonstrably false principle that the government cannot favor religion over irreligion, today’s opinion suggests that the posting of the Ten Commandments violates ...

As I noted previously, I think Judge Michael McConnell of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals one of the best Establishment Clause scholars. And he shows off his talent in his most recent opinion. I’m not going to analyze the ins and outs of his Establishment Clause jurisprudence (you have Eugene Volokh for that). Rather, how the passage from the opinion well illustrates the impossibility of America being a “Christian Nation” in a civil governmental ...

Here’s a line from Charles Rangel’s National Service Act: To require all persons in the United States between the ages of 18 and 42 to perform national service, either as a member of the uniformed services or in civilian service in furtherance of the national defense and homeland security . . . . Ah, homeland security. The only excuse that permits absolutely anything. Just so we’re clear… Required = involuntary. Service = servitude. And… Neither ...

I believed that Mormons held the Constitution and Declaration of Independence to be “inspired” in a similar sense that sacred scripture was divinely inspired. Brad and Ray — American Creation’s resident Mormons — informed me that this isn’t quite true. They say Mormons believe the US Founding and its documents were divinely inspired in some sense but not at the same level as sacred scripture. I’d like them or some other learned Mormon to clarify ...

Constant Viewer caught the 12:01 showing of The Dark Knight in a theater nearly filled with some five or six hundred fellow dark knight owls, CV’s 13 year old son included. The theater almost certainly would have been filled but for a second showing some 20 minutes later. CV isn’t venturing any guesses about opening records, especially if you adjust for inflation, but The Dark Knight is a lock for this summer’s blockbuster, no mean ...

What can be said about Saint-Simon? He is little read today and even less appreciated, that much is true. And on reading the “Letter from an Inhabitant of Geneva to His Contemporaries,” one is tempted to ask: Is this what they call socialism? It is, it is. Before Marx, many notions that passed for socialism amounted ultimately to claims that this or that method of production would be more agreeable or more efficient. In retrospect, ...