A Thinking Reed

"Man is but a reed, the most feeble thing in nature, but he is a thinking reed" – Blaise Pascal

War & Peace

  • Meet the new boss…

    “[W]hen it comes to shaping future foreign policy for either party, hawks and internationalists are in, doves and realists are out.” Read more

  • Not your typical Mormons

    Via Reason’s Hit and Run blog, this has to be the most interesting link of the day: The Mormon Worker, which appears to be just what it sounds like – a Mormon version of Dorothy Day’s Catholic Worker, “devoted to promoting Mormonism, Anarchism, and Pacifism”! Maybe we can get Russell Arben Fox to comment on Read more

  • Christopher Hitchens: bridge-builder

    Unfortunately the bridge he wants to build is one between militant atheists and rabid right-wing warmongers. From the sounds of this report from a recent atheist/agnostic/freethinker conference, most of them ain’t buyin’ what he’s sellin’, to their credit. Read more

  • Freedom by cluster bomb

    Michael Gerson scolds critics of “President Bush’s democracy agenda” (he doesn’t mean Bush’s commitment to transparency and accountability here at home, by the way) and manages to write an entire column without mentioning the means supported by proponents of the “democracy agenda,” namely maiming and killing large numbers of people in foreign countries. See here Read more

  • Should we stay or should we go?

    A debate at the Commonweal Magazine website between Matthew A. Shadle and Andrew Bacevich. I haven’t had a chance to read it yet, so caveat lector and all that. Read more

  • Skeptical of the skeptical environmentalist

    The Washington Post Sunday Outlook section ran a lengthy piece form “skeptical environmentalist” Bjorn Lomborg (based on his new book), arguing that we need to avoid the “extremes” in the climate change debate – those who deny that human-caused climate change exists on one hand and those who see it as an extremely serious and Read more

  • The angry American

    The Washington Post Style section had a short interview with Merle Haggard this morning, with Hag sounding off about the current state of the USA. (He also has a new bluegrass album out.) The interviewer refers to Hag’s politics moving to “the left” from the days of “Okie from Muskogee” and “The Fightin’ Side of Read more

  • Is Ron Paul crazy?

    Well, maybe. But he also manages to combine uncompromising rhetoric with political savvy, according to Jeremy Lott (via). This may help explain why Paul is doing better than anyone expected (his campaign reportedly now with more cash on hand than John McCain’s, for instance). One of the interesting thing about Paul is that he’s able Read more

  • The need for enemies

    Conservative columnist Steve Chapman writes on the inflation of the Islamist threat and the way some people thrive on being part of a grand ideological crusade. Normal people, meanwhile, prefer to live in relative peace and freedom. Read more

  • The “preventive paradigm”

    “In isolation, neither the goal of preventing future attacks nor the tactic of using coercive measures is novel or troubling. All law enforcement seeks to prevent crime, and coercion is a necessary element of state power. However, when the end of prevention and the means of coercion are combined in the Administration’s preventive paradigm, they Read more