Justin Katz
Keep an eye out for my piece in the Providence Journal today, “Lynch: Rhode Island’s Activist General?,” which addresses Attorney General Patrick Lynch’s response to an op-ed by Joseph Cavanagh and Lincoln Oliphant, objecting to Lynch’s finding that Rhode Island would recognize same-sex marriages from Massachusetts. The heart of the matter is that those pushing…
Mark Patinkin’s recent piece, “18 Things To See In R.I. Before You Die,” highlights one of the ways in which a small place like Rhode Island can grab you: When people talk about places (or events) around the state, you’re likely to have something to add to the conversation. For example, the second thing on…
On the spot… after a trial… whatever. I don’t think a 5% reduction is worth taking the step of granting a police officer with a tube the power of judge, jury, and executioner. If we’re serious about curtailing drunk driving, let’s not revoke licenses at all, or at least without multiple warnings (unless death or…
Contra the dogged rhetoric of the president’s domestic nemeses, the Big Lie of the war in Iraq has been the insistent obliviousness to the arguments on which the war was founded. The case for the war consisted of three mutually supportive notions, and all have largely been borne out — with the complications attendant to…
It probably won’t be HIV that brings the push for microchip injection in the West, but then again, it probably won’t be “right wing” homeland security initiatives, either: Lawmakers in Indonesia’s Papua are mulling the selective use of chip implants in HIV carriers to monitor their behaviour in a bid to keep them from infecting…
Katherine Gregg’s piece in the Providence Journal about state contract employees has a bit too much of the editorial page aroma. Her opening line, a construct intended to tell the reader how to feel about the information being conveyed, is in keeping with the execution of her “gotchas.” The employee list appears “in the blink…
I just wanted to take a moment to thank Governor Carcieri for this: Gov. Don Carcieri has vetoed a bill requiring health insurers to cover infertility treatments for unmarried people, saying they shouldn’t be forced to subsidize out-of-wedlock births. The Republican governor, who opposes same-sex marriage and civil unions, warned that eliminating the marriage restriction…
Some fruits of the surge: The sewage-filled streets of Doura, a Sunni Arab enclave in south Baghdad, provide an ugly setting for what US commanders say is al-Qaeda’s last stronghold in the city. The secretive group, however, appears to be losing its grip as a “surge” of US troops in the neighbourhood — part of…
Mark Steyn’s comments on the Iran hostage non-crisis are, as always, worth reading: How do you feel about the American hostages in Iran? No, not the guys back in the Seventies, the ones being held right now. What? You haven’t heard about them? Odd that, isn’t it? But they’re there. For example, for two months…
Having a respectful and patriotic opposition can be valuable during wartime as much as during peacetime, helping to ensure that ineffective policies are changed and that excesses are not allowed. Still, the constant signals of a willingness to abandon Iraq prematurely — which factions in the United States have been sending around the world for…
