Jun
30
Shea Memories - September 30, 2000
June 30, 2008 | 1 Comment
For the first time in my life I got to enjoy a “meaningless” baseball game. The Mets had alrady clinched a wild card spot, and so for the first time in three years they played a few games that really had no ability to impact the pennant race. Glendon Rusch got to make one last [...]
Jun
27
Theocracy, they cried
June 27, 2008 | 8 Comments
I’ve always thought the petulent moaning about “theocracy” to be overdone, but then maybe that’s because I am one of those socially conservative neantherdals that wants to take us back into the Middle Ages (as though the Middle Ages were bad). But I have come to realize that there are certain individuals who do have [...]
Jun
27
Changing the balance of power
June 27, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Courtesy of Jonah Goldberg come two immensely insightful pieces of wisdom about the aleration in the constitutional balance of power. The first comes from the pen of Goldberg himself:
Have you ever had a boss who treated you like a child, second-guessed you, reworked whatever you did so that you felt no ownership of the final [...]
Jun
27
In the mail today . . .
June 27, 2008 | 7 Comments
The mailman was off by an entire block the other day and delivered to us some of our neighbor’s mail. Included in that batch was The Nation magazine. Curiosity getting the better of me, I decided to thumb through it.
The first thought that occurred to me was: how many boxes of Crayola do the editors [...]
Jun
26
The final three
June 26, 2008 | Leave a Comment
The final three decisions of the Supreme Court’s term were handed down today. If I didn’t know better I would suggest these particular decisions were announced last to mollify angry conservatives annoyed at some of the recent decisions.
District of Columbia v. Heller is the one that will grab the most attention, and rightly so. In a [...]
Jun
26
Heller affirmed
June 26, 2008 | 4 Comments
Scalia writes the 5-4 opinion. The Court declares that the 2nd Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. Monumental decision. SCOTUS blog should have the opinion up soon.
Jun
25
Rethinking . . . the death penalty
June 25, 2008 | 2 Comments
It’s altogether fitting that the Supreme Court should have rendered a decision today on a death penalty case. I had been thinking I was going to do a “rethinking” post on the death penalty this week, and I had completely forgotten that the Court was deciding Kennedy v. Louisiana.
Anyway, my feelings on the issue have [...]
Jun
25
Evolving standards of lunacy
June 25, 2008 | 2 Comments
Sane people with heart conditions should stay away from reading Anthony Kennedy’s Supreme Court opinions. Kennedy is resposible for several of the worst decisions in the history of the Court, and today he manages to top himself with this abomination in Kennedy v. Louisiana.
In a 5-4 decision, the Court ruled that the Eight Amendment bars [...]
Jun
25
Massachusetts Rep: “Draconian” sentencing guidelines will force me to make little girls cry
June 25, 2008 | 3 Comments
There are low forms of humanity, and then there is Massachusetts State Representative James Fagan. He took the floor of the State House in order to attack a law that would mandate a 20-year sentence for anyone convicted of raping someone under the age of 12. It’s bad enough that Fagan opposes the bill, but [...]
Jun
24
When stubborness comes in handy
June 24, 2008 | 1 Comment
David Brooks has a good column today - something that is becoming rarer nowadays - on how George Bush’s stubborness has paid off when it comes to the surge.
In these circumstances, it’s amazing that George Bush decided on the surge. And looking back, one thing is clear: Every personal trait that led Bush to make a hash of the [...]
Jun
23
Shea Memories - September 27, 2000
June 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Fourteen years before this game I was at Shea Stadium on the night the Mets clinched the Eastern Division title. Now I was there to witness them clinch . . . the Wild Card. Not nearly as exciting, but it was something.
It would be an exaggeration to say that there was the same palpable excitement [...]
Jun
23
Not even close
June 23, 2008 | Leave a Comment
More evidence of why the New York Post isn’t even good enough to line birdcage.
What Jerry Manuel said.
How the New York Post reported it.
Granted it was a slow news day, but perhaps there are other ways to sell newspapers.
Jun
20
Random Observation
June 20, 2008 | 4 Comments
It’s widely accepted that blog comment sections can get ugly. There are many reasons why: we all get passionate about issues we care about, we can vent our opinions in an unfiltered manner without time to stop and cool down, the veil of relative anonymity, etc.
But is it me, but are the online comments sections [...]
Jun
20
Willie talks
June 20, 2008 | 1 Comment
Or writes, as the case may be. Willie Randolph has written an article in the Daily News explaining how everything went down with his firing. It is, as is everything about the man, completely classy. He doesn’t badmouth his former organization, he accepts blame for the team’s poor performance, and he wishes the Mets well. [...]
Jun
20
Party affiliation and 527 groups
June 20, 2008 | 4 Comments
I wanted to get back to this issue of 527 organizations and Obama’s complete distortion of reality. Just to repeat what Obama said:
But the public financing of presidential elections as it exists today is broken, and we face opponents who’ve become masters at gaming this broken system. John McCain’s campaign and the Republican National Committee [...]
Jun
19
Obama: A liar or a hypocrite, or maybe both
June 19, 2008 | 5 Comments
Barack Obama has opted out of the of the public financing system, the first major party nominee to do so since the system was established. Not only has Obama reneged on a promise he made some months ago to stay within the system, his reasons for doing so show that he is completely, utterly, and [...]
Jun
19
Is Juno a pro-life movie?
June 19, 2008 | 4 Comments
MZ Forrest writes today about the movie Juno and ponders whether it is really the best pro-life message we can send.
With it’s embrace of out-of-wedlock birth, some questioned whether Juno was really a pro-life movie. The argument was that just because someone didn’t choose abortion doesn’t mean we should be celebrating their choice. Thanks to [...]
Jun
18
Burke!
June 18, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Fellow Burke-philes, Jonathan Jones has written a fascinating post on Burke’s “Anti-Ideology.” I highly recommend it. It seems this is the first part in a series, and I’m looking forward to seeing more.
Jun
18
Serious rethinking
June 18, 2008 | 15 Comments
Normally today I would pen another edition of my Rethinking series, and in a sense I am going to do that. This is a weighty topic that I have given a lot of thought to, and I feel I should just come out and say what’s on my mind and in my heart.
As someone who [...]
Jun
17
Unrequited love
June 17, 2008 | Leave a Comment
Dale Price, as usual, adds a little bit of levity to the Catholic blogopshere vs. Doug Kmiec ongoing circus.