A Thinking Reed

  • “The war over Waxman-Markey”

    Two helpful pieces from Mother Jones: Pass a flawed climate bill now, or wait for a better one? Environmentalists duke it out. The devil’s in the details of the new climate bill.

  • Public plan as second-best option

    Christian social ethicist Gary Dorrien argues that a publc health plan–at least one with teeth–could be an acceptable second-best option, in lieu of a single-payer plan, which he favors. I still don’t have firm views on specifically what kind of heath system reform is needed, but I am convinced that, as Dorrien puts it, “[h]ealth…

  • Creation’s travail

    To hear some anti-green conservatives tell it, you’d think that nature-worship and radical environmentalism were making major inroads into our society. Of course, the opposite is much closer to the truth: the general attitude toward the natural world that underlies most of our daily activities is one that regards nature as little more than a…

  • June metal releases

    Two I’m looking forward to: June 23–Darkest Hour, Eternal Return (DC-based melodic death metal) June 30–Killswitch Engage, self-titled (the kings of Boston metalcore; though there are worries that this album is their attempt to break through to mainstream success, suggesting parallels with a certain self-tilted metal/pop crossover circa 1991…)

  • We’re number 37! USA! USA!

    The World Health Organization ranks the world’s health care systems. EDIT: Note that the ranking is several years out of date. I mistakenly thought it was new data. Post in haste, repent at leisure, I guess…

  • The resurrection of Eastern Market

    My wife and I live about a block and a half from Eastern Market, but the fire that gutted the building happended just before we moved here, about two years ago. Since then, the butchers, fish-monger, etc. have been housed in a makeshift building across the street, while the weekend produce vendors set their stalls…

  • One sentence movie review: Revolutionary Road

    I can’t decide if it was a good movie that failed to acheive greatness due to a couple of glaring flaws, or just a really well-made, but fundamentally bad movie.

  • What GHG emissions?

    Congress exempts factory farms from reporting their greenhouse gas emissions. Related, here’s an analysis of Waxman-Markey from the National Wildlife Federation.

  • John Gray on Isaiah Berlin

    Berlin is remembered by philosophers for defending ethical pluralism – the claim that human values make conflicting claims that cannot always be rationally reconciled – and arguing that this pluralism is the true basis of a liberal society. The argument is hardly demonstrative – if values can conflict in ways that have no rational solution,…

  • More command and control please!

    Interesting dissent on the Waxman-Markey climate change bill currently being stalled by farm-state Dems in Congress: …President Barack Obama has publicly described the bill as his and the Democrats’ preferred alternative to regulation. Without the bill, he has threatened, the EPA will directly regulate greenhouse-gas emissions, a power it was given by the Supreme Court…