Archive | June, 2004

Maybe it’s because I’m originally from Virginia, where they don’t have an initiative process. Or maybe it’s because I was reared an Episcopalian, since Episcopalians are not known for populist enthusiasm. All I can say is that I seem to have an inbred skepticism about direct democracy. As a California voter, I put a pretty […]

Clayton Cramer faults the dissenting judge in the Ninth Circuit decision that I point to below (Marsha Berzon) for her interpretation of Lawrence v. Texas: For all that supporters of Lawrence talk about love, commitment, and relationship, the fact of the matter is that by scrapping all notions of sexual morality between adults, Lawrence is […]

One more thought, triggered by a reader who mentioned an incident where the sex seemed clearly exploitative. Imagine that a mentally competent 40-year-old has sex with a mentally retarded 19-year-old. Exploitive or not? After you answer this, please click below for the follow-up questions: (Please click here.)(1) When you were answering the question, did you […]

A just-released Ninth Circuit opinion has a fascinating debate on this difficult issue. See especially pp. 7264 and 7278-84, which should be quite accessible to laypeople. I’ve long been interested in this issue (as a purely academic matter, I assure you). Sex with the mentally retarded is generally treated as statutory rape — just as […]

I’ve noticed that real estate agents here in Arlington, Virginia, are increasingly moving from typical puffery in their listings to outright misrepresentation. A house around the corner from me was listed as “two blocks from metro.” I count five and a half long blocks, a ten minute walk (the house, an old bungalow without much […]

Jeff Jacoby has a good column on the subject in the Boston Globe: . . . Consider how the illegal procedure was identified in news accounts of last week’s [abortion law] ruling: . . . National Public Radio: “Partial-birth abortion is a term used by opponents for what doctors call intact dilation and extraction.” Washington […]

Has Brown changed? Two years ago, after the Brown Daily Herald published a David Horowitz advertisement opposing slave reparations, a group of irate students reacted by stealing the entire issue. Rather than condemn the thieves, the University condemned the student-run newspaper for running a “deliberately and deeply hurtful advertisement.” A faculty forum was convened at […]

The eulogies for Ronald Reagan are already abundant, but I cannot resist offering my own. I believe that Ronald Reagan was the greatest President of the 20th century. The only competitor is Franklin Roosevelt, who gets credit for leading the country during World War II and for helping the US persevere through the Great Depression. […]

Sorry about not posting a song lyric last Sunday. I was unexpectedly out-of-pocket for several days. In any event, here’s an index of all of the song lyrics I’ve posted to date: – May 23 – P.O.D., Alive – May 16 – Something Corporate, If I Were a Terrorist (I’d Bomb Your Graduation) – May […]

I had thought a song honoring the late President Ronald Wilson Reagan would be appropriate for today, but there are not many positive songs about Reagan (and, no, nothing by Reagan Youth would fit the bill). But there are songs about President Reagan’s most important legacy: the fall of Communism. Reagan’s policies directly contributed to […]

Cathy Young has a very good column on this in the Boston Globe. “When secularists go after a tiny cross on a county seal or Christmas decorations at a firehouse, they lend substance to the ‘religious persecution’ complex — and play right into the extremists’ hands.” Indeed.

Is it just me or does this make your stomach turn? Evidently, some of the folks at Ernst & Young made a presentation at the State Government Affairs Council entitled “Turning Your State Government Relations Department from a Money Pit into a Cash Cow.” In it, they instructed the audience, consisting of representatives of major […]

Reagan dies.

Brian Leiter quotes Noam Chomsky: “Among Western intellectuals, it is a virtual axiom that the US goal — sometimes Bush’s ‘messianic mission,’ as the elite press puts it — is to bring democracy to Iraq, the Middle East, and the world. [In Iraq, however, the great majority believe] the obvious answer, dismissed with some hysteria […]

There seems to be some confusion as to the “correct line” on the urgent public question of obesity. On the one hand, Time magazine devotes most of this week’s issue to the “obesity crisis”. ABC News and Ralph Nader put the blame where you might expect, i.e. on greedy corporations — aka fast food — […]