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It is as though a new System of the World has been drawn up. And not by us but by some strange Natural Philosophers in a smoky room in London. Now we must live by the rules of that System.… Continue Reading →

Now, I know what you’re all thinking. “Why is Burt, of all people, not commenting on the Constitutional Amendment thread? He loves that sort of stuff!” And I do. But as it happened, my mother in law was in Las… Continue Reading →

What counts today isn’t engaging the other side with reasoned arguments; it’s building a rabid fan base by demonizing the other side and stoking the audience’s collective sense of outrage and victimization. And that’s a job best performed not by… Continue Reading →

The CHurch likes to point out that the cult of relics had been active in other cultures and religions long before the birth of Christ. Five centuries earlier and thousands of miles from Bethlehem, for example, the Buddha took his… Continue Reading →

A lot of people are saying that the HHS ruling is not a big deal because 28 states are already doing this. Then I saw someone say that actually, that number is closer to 8 because a bunch of those… Continue Reading →

When a big case is released, I want to read it right away. But unfortunately, courts release big cases at precisely the time lawyers are working. So it’s taken me a day to digest this latest and possibly penultimate round… Continue Reading →

Gods die. And when they truly die they are unmourned and unremembered. Ideas are more difficult to kill than people, but they can be killed, in the end. – Neil Gaiman

At 9:53 a.m., I received electronic notice of the posting of the opinion in Perry v. Brown, and noticed that the Ninth Circuit’s website with links to the opinion crashed every time I tried to get at the opinion. Some… Continue Reading →

…[W]hy is it that when one man builds a wall, the next man immediately needs to know what’s on the other side? – George R.R. Martin

Like a blogbuddy, or two, I’m returning to my regularly scheduled life after an emotionally-straining hiatus, one which was sprung on me suddenly and unpleasantly. I’m reticent to disclose a great many details as they inherently involve a medical condition of a close… Continue Reading →