A Geek for God

A woman, days away from giving birth, smokes crystal meth. It gets into her bloodstream and, naturally, into the bloodtream of her baby, who’s still in her womb. The baby is born alive, but with a lethal concentration of methamphetamine in his body; he dies two days later. The mother is prosecuted for manslaughter in […]

Well, the Coburn amendment (to kill a $220 million pork project in Alaska and redirect the money towards hurricane relief in Louisiana) failed by an 82-15 vote (3 not voting). The good guys:
Allard (R-CO), Yea
Allen (R-VA), Yea
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Burr (R-NC), Yea
Coburn (R-OK), Yea
Conrad (D-ND), Yea
DeMint (R-SC), Yea
DeWine (R-OH), Yea
Feingold (D-WI), Yea
Kyl (R-AZ), Yea
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Sessions […]

The difference between living frugally and being poor is that when you live frugally, you’re choosing to spend little money. When you’re poor, you have no choice.
I suspect that John Scalzi and I differ widely in our political opinions on certain subjects. But I believe we agree on the goals, we just disagree on the […]

After the 2004 elections, we’ve all seen the state-by-state results maps:

But the other day, it occurred to me that I’d seen this kind of political process before on a certain T.V. show. Everyone sniping at the other side, unwilling to listen to reasoned arguments, insults flying everywhere… That map had the wrong colors. Here’s a […]

I’ve gotten into a few arguments over the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and whether there was any possible justification for them, so I was fascinated to read this article in the Weekly Standard. The author discusses transcripts of radio intercepts from 1945, some of which were only released fifty years later in 1995, […]

I was listening to an interview segment on NPR today, and one of the interviewees said something that caught my attention. He was making an argument for why one shouldn’t tie the concept of sacrifice to citizenship because, he said, “Different groups, including some privileged or relatively-privileged groups, are going to feel that “we’ve made […]

Remember the Fifth Amendment? It wasn’t just about the right to remain silent. It also said, “… nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”
Are you wondering why I’m writing about it in the past tense? Because the Supreme Court just threw it out the window, that’s why.
That’s it. There’s nothing […]

The pie-throwing student who hit William Kristol with a pie on March 29 said he did it to protest “superficial dialogue with no real chance for debate.”
Throwing a pie… superficial… check.
Throwing a pie… dialogue… well, no. It’s less than dialogue.
Throwing a pie… no real chance for debate… check.
If he believes that “superficial dialogue with no […]