A Thinking Reed

  • A food bill, not a farm bill

    Michael Pollan (The Omnivore’s Dilemma) writes about the unprecedented amount of attention the farm bill has been getting this year from environmental, health, and international development groups. Unfortunately, he says, the traditional interest groups have largely managed to craft a bill to their liking. They did this by adding on some programs as sops to…

  • Flew’s conversion – greatly exaggerated?

    I blogged last week about a new book published by British philosopher and atheist-turned-deist Antony Flew which supposedly details his newfound belief in God (or at least a god of some kind). Now, via Ross Douthat, I see there’s some legitimate reason to think that Flew, apparently in declining health and mental acuity, may have…

  • One more presidential candidate selector

    This one has neat graphics showing the candidates’ little heads rise or decline in status as you answer the questions. My top three were (unsurprisingly) Gravel, Paul, and Kucinich. Is it worrisome that the people with whom I agree the most are also the most personally, ahem, eccentric?

  • Greener markets?

    Gristmill ran a rejoinder to the post I linked to last week advocating a localized, greener economy. The author, Ryan Avent, takes issue with the “buy local” mantra, arguing that local economies would reduce standards of living and that international trade and markets are compatible with reducing our ecological footprint. I’m not confident in my…

  • Will on congressional spinelessness

    Also from today’s Post, George Will has a terrific column on how Congress has abdicated its responsibility for decisions to go to war: “Congress’s Unused War Powers.”

  • When waterboarding was a crime

    Excellent piece in today’s Washington Post by a former JAG in the Nevada National Guard: “Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime.”

  • About 80% Lutheran

    Here are my results from the Eucharistic Theology quiz that’s been going around: You scored as a Luther You are Martin Luther. You’ll stick with the words of Scripture, and defend this with earthy expressions. You believe this is a necessary consequence of an orthodox Christology. You believe that the bread and wine are the…

  • Friday metal – Gothenburg edition

    “Gothenburg metal,” a.k.a. “melodic death metal,” takes its name from the scene originating in Gothenburg, Sweden in the 90s. Unlike traditional death metal, the Gothenburg style features “more melodic guitar riffs, melodic solos, and acoustic guitar work than death metal. It also contains more comprehensible lyrics as well as coherent singing along with traditional death…

  • Heavy metal trivia

    Heavy metal is the Protestantism of music: it splits into ever-smaller sects, with their devotees often anathematizing all others. You have speed, thrash, death, grind, doom, sludge, glam, goth, stoner, symphonic, prog, metalcore, grindcore, deathcore, etc. ad infinitum forever and ever Amen. But did you know there’s a sub-genre called mathcore? Mathcore, according to Wikipedia:…

  • Toward a green manufacturing economy

    This is interesting and relevant to some of the stuff I was talking about here.