A Thinking Reed

  • 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.

  • Just in time for Reformation Day!

    My birthday’s coming up (it actually falls on the same day as a certain Reformer’s) and my parents sent me, a little on the early side, a box of goodies including Alister McGrath’s new book Christianity’s Dangerous Idea (thanks, Mom and Dad!). Despite the title, which seems to be a jab at Daniel Dennett’s Darwin’s…

  • Newt the environmentalist?

    Apparently Newt Gingrich is seeking to reinvent himself as a conservative environmentalist. David Roberts at Gristmill is skeptical, and contends that Newt-brand conservatism will always sacrifice the environment to its economic agenda when push comes to shove. Personally, I say with the endless parade of Bushes and Clintons dominating our politics, the last thing we…

  • Unresolved questions

    A couple of questions that I continue to turn over and which I’m not at all clear on the answers to: Is it necessary to seriously restrain economic growth for the sake of the environment (and ultimately ourselves) or can growth continue pretty much at present rates but in “sustainable” ways (with the help of…

  • A little bit country, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll

    You can listen to the new Robert Plant/Alison Krauss album here (click “Listen to album” on the top left). Good stuff. (via)

  • Rudy’s brain?

    I’m not wild about anybody currently running for president next year, but I’ve been convinced for a while now that Rudy Giuliani is objectively the worst candidate of either party in the 2008 race. He appears to display all the authoritarianism and militarism of the GOP circa 2007 without any shred of pro-life restraint or…