Justin Katz
It ought to raise suspicions about their cause when marriage advocates seek to advance it through divorce: [Karen L. Loewy, staff attorney for Gay & Lesbian Advocates & Defenders] said Rhode Island recognizes marriages validly entered in other jurisdictions, unless there’s a strong public policy reason not to, and she said there’s no such reason…
I found this line, from Ethan Wingfield, particularly interesting: Brown is one of the most relaxed institutions there is. Students can drop out of a course on the last day of the semester and get the class erased from their records. Perhaps the key would have been to pitch a grade-inflation angle to keeping the…
I wonder if you’ve fully articulated your beliefs, here, Marc: I agree that–other than their unique family structure–there is nothing that sets these folks apart from “average” people. I ask because I think your “however” is insufficiently strong to stand its own ground in the cultural arena: However, I think that the baseline structure of…
One could, I suppose, respond to Andrew Stuttaford’s prods about an intelligent designer by wondering aloud why this sort of thing isn’t an example of built-in wonder — a cold-blooded miracle, if you will: Twice within a year the brown arole lizard has evolved changes in its body and behaviour to outwit a predator —…
In the pages of the Providence Journal, Richmond, RI, resident Rod Driver encourages Rep. Jim Langevin to seal our fate and ensure war — perhaps with a nuclear component — with Iran (at least): On that date the House voted on an amendment offered by Rep. Peter DeFazio (D.-Ore.) to prohibit the administration from initiating…
Senator Reed’s “four-point plan” for resolving the Iraq conflict is reasonable — even if short on practical methodology — but he undermines his entire strategy with his statement of principle: Now the president needs to take the next step and make it clear to the Iraqis that our military presence is not open-ended and we…
A piece by Bernard F. Sullivan in Tuesday’s Providence Journal brings to light an interesting paradox. On the one hand, it’s difficult to fathom that a man with such apparent deficiency in categorical comprehension could have ever been a regional editor for a major newspaper. On the other, his expressed concept of government enables insight…
I don’t think Julian Sanchez understood what I was saying: … let me just address one qualm about the analogy between skeptical science and liberal societies. Katz doubts it will go through because while scientists have the shared goal of improving science (let this rather rosy view of actual scientists’ motivations pass for the moment),…
Perhaps I’m particularly attuned to such discussions because the past few months have brought an increase in Rhode Island progressives’ declarations that their goals are evolutionary inevitabilities, but I can’t get the ring of their proclamations out of my ear when listening to somewhat rightish rationalists. Take the following from Julian Sanchez: [Jonah Goldberg] mocks…