Posted in Cats, tagged Cats on February 29, 2008 | No Comments »
I recently wrote about Patch, the Hemingway cat we adopted when she had serious medical problems after giving birth. She had two kittens. This is one of them, Jean, a quiet cat who loves the warmth the satellite TV receiver produces. Like her mother, she has very soft, rabbit-like fur. She [...]
Posted in Politics, economics, tagged dollar, inflation, money supply, taxes on February 28, 2008 | No Comments »
I’ve worried before about the similarities between the present and the 1970s. Allan Meltzer sees the parallels, and worries that the Federal Reserve is duplicating the errors of the 1970s that led to stagflation. He foresees significant inflation, as do I. Rich Karlgaard prescribes the cure—slowing the growth of the money supply, [...]
Posted in Politics, liberty, philosophy, rights, tagged Locke, political philosophy, rights, Rousseau on February 28, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Jonah Goldberg captures the political half of the course I’m now teaching precisely:
I think the fundamental difference, the difference that defines the difference between American, Anglo-American conservatives and European welfare states, leftists or liberals, is Locke versus Rousseau. Every philosophical argument boils down to John Locke versus Jacques Rousseau.
Locke holds that we have natural rights, [...]
Posted in Politics, tagged Politics, responsibility on February 28, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Victor Davis Hanson talks about the forgotten Americans, people who take on mortgages they can afford, don’t borrow against the value of their houses, don’t go deeply into debt to buy cars, boats, vacation houses, etc., and, in short, live their lives responsibly. These are the people Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to [...]
Posted in Education, economics, tagged economics, Education on February 27, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Ilya Somin makes the case against government subsidies for college tuition at the Volokh Conspiracy. His point is that the higher-than-inflation increases in the cost of college over the past forty years are justified by the even greater increases in expected returns on a college education. According to a 2002 Census Bureau study, [...]
Posted in Religion, tagged interpretation, Islam, reformation on February 27, 2008 | 1 Comment »
…may be one step closer. BBC reports (HT: Jihad Watch):
Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam - and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion….
Its supporters say the spirit of logic and reason inherent in Islam at its foundation 1,400 years ago are being rediscovered. [...]
Posted in Uncategorized on February 27, 2008 | No Comments »
Legendary Pittsburgh Steelers broadcaster Myron Cope died today in Mount Lebanon.
Posted in Uncategorized on February 27, 2008 | No Comments »
William F. Buckley, Jr., has died at his home in Connecticut.
UPDATE: This makes me feel a bit better about the condition of my own office.
Posted in Equality, tagged discrimination, Islam, medicine on February 26, 2008 | 1 Comment »
Muslim medical workers in Great Britain are refusing to sanitize their forearms for religious reasons. To wash according to guidelines, some Muslim women say, forces them to bare their forearms up to the elbow, which, they think, is forbidden by Islam. (HT: Lydia McGrew) Dr. Semmelweis discovered the significance of sanitizing hands [...]
Posted in Politics, tagged Obama on February 26, 2008 | No Comments »
Paul Mirengoff points out that, if Barack Obama is a centrist, he’s one with no one to his left. He recounts a number of instances in which Obama has sided with the most extreme of the Senate’s Democrats. Here are ratings from a variety of activist groups, indicating that in 2005 Barack Obama, [...]
