Epistemic Closure

From an interesting blog post by Julian Sanchez: One of the more striking features of the contemporary conservative movement is the extent to which it has been moving toward epistemic closure. Reality is defined by a multimedia array of interconnected and cross promoting conservative blogs, radio programs, magazines, and of course, Fox News. Whatever conflicts […]

Reforming Health Care Reform

I thought the fix was in, that Democrats in congress wouldn’t pass health care reform.  But they did.  Nancy Pelosi, you go!  Have you considered running for president some day? Toward the end, the Republican refrain was that passing HCR would hurt Democrats.  But you know what?  Everyone loves a winner, and right now congressional […]

Goin’ All Activist: the Followup

I heard this morning from Amanda, a staffer for Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, that the US Air Force had responded to my letter protesting the airing of Fox News on public televisions at USAF bases and the broadcasting of the Rush Limbaugh to military troops overseas by Armed Forces Radio. Here’s the link to everything that […]

Trolling the Waters

Politically I’m a leftist through and through, so I’m always surprised when my inner conservative rears its pointy head. I’m reading a blog entry by Phoenix Woman about right-wingers refusing to call domestic terrorism by its name, nodding along, completely in agreement, when I come upon this sentence: Republican Senator Scott Brown — who was […]

Paul’s Grab Bag

Unconnected thoughts and observations which don’t rate separate blog posts, but when aggregated together might just amount to something: Much was made of Stephen Colbert’s rescue of the US Olympic speed skating team, and the Colbert Nation patches they were wearing in practice.  Has anyone seen a US speed skater wearing one in the Vancouver […]

Repealing DADT: Just Do It

I could fill this entry with hyperlinks to news articles about Obama’s push to repeal Don’t Ask Don’t Tell, and the predictable conservative opposition, but if you’re that out of touch with current events you probably don’t read blogs either. DADT, summed up, says that being openly gay is grounds for discharge.  Therefore any gay […]

Corporate Personhood

From my post of two days ago: “And I think corporate ownership of congress is going to get worse, not better.” Boy, I’ll say.  Yesterday the Supreme Court extended free speech rights to corporations, who will now be allowed to contribute unlimited amounts of money to political candidates and parties. Some say this’ll be the […]

A Righteous Beak

Ever hear someone say he has a beak, or that such-and-such a thing gives him the beak?  We said it all the time in the USAF; “I have a beak” means I’m pissed off; “you give me the beak” means you make me angry. The beak must be secret military jargon, because when I Google […]