Month: February 2012

The Ninth Circuit will issue its panel decision in the same sex marriage case tomorrow. It will, of course, be appealed almost immediately. But we’ll have fodder for discussion for quite some time thereafter.

Contemporaries were well aware of the absurdity of the ostensible reason for the protest. ‘Will not posterity be amazed’, wrote one sceptic, ‘when they are told that the present distraction took its rise from the parliament’s taking off a shilling… Continue Reading →

Here are the probabilities, based on past performance. Our shot sheet has twenty entries, to split between four players. Patriots win coin toss 50% Giants win coin toss 50% Brady-Gronkowski TD pass 111% Brady-Welker TD pass 56% Brady-Ochocinco TD pass… Continue Reading →

More than the divides of race, class, or gender, more than rural or urban, believer or nonbeliever, red state or blue state, our culture has been carved up into radically distinct, unbridgeable, and antagonistic entities that no longer speak the… Continue Reading →

I used to say that when I die and go to hell, I’ll have to make a connecting flight in Atlanta, which would make my destination that much more bearable. These days it seems that after discarding my belief in… Continue Reading →

Mastery of the art of quenching red hot iron in water to make steel weapons and tools about 3,000 years ago made possible construction of qanats and aqueducts, which reliably conveyed enough freshwater to sustain the rise of the great… Continue Reading →

 I’ve been in Huntsville, Alabama for most of the past week. I’ll write about the medical issue that brought me here later; suffice to say that things are significantly better right now, although there are still issues to resolve. If… Continue Reading →

The “propensity to truck, barter and exchange” identified by Adam Smith is not a natural instinct that will simply flourish unless quashed by the heavy hand of the state. It requires support from a wide range of social and political… Continue Reading →

True beauty is to be found in natural forms. The more we magnify, and the closer we examine, the works of Artifice, the grosser and stupider they seem. But if we magnify the natural world it only becomes more intricate… Continue Reading →

I’m away from my regular life right now, attending to a very serious illness within my family. I don’t know if I’m getting a good feel for northern Alabama on this visit, but then again maybe I am. From what… Continue Reading →