I hate to pile on the New York Times op-ed page, but I figure they’re big boys and girls; they can take a little blog-needling. This morning they saw fit to turn over a chunk of their pulpy real estate to Allison Glock, kvetching about the dire cultural peril of… sexy Halloween costumes. Apparently the […]

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Neighbor and New Republic scribe Spencer Ackerman has finally succumbed to peer pressure.

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Thank the gods for the “Times Select” firewall for once; it will prevent your eyeballs from being seared by the full text of this David Brooks column—proof that the 800-words-twice-a-week format can’t possibly be healthy for anyone. (Unless, dear reader, you’re Arthur Sulzberger. In which case: Only fooling, feel free to drop a line.) Pitching […]

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The Mark Foley scandal has afforded an opportunity for social conservatives to revive the old canard that gay men are unusually likely to be pedophiles, with the Family Research Council touting an old study by Timothy Dailey “Ph.D.” (in theology) purporting to show just this. Andrew Sullivan links a sound scholarly response which gives the […]

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In one further thump on a drum the New York Times has been beating for a while, a Friday editorial calls for routine HIV testing for all patients entering clinics or hospitals. Maybe this is ultimately a good idea—the CDC seems to think so. But one thing I feel pretty sure of is that the […]

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Columbia Teacher’s College responds to the critique from the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education I mentioned below, and they’re at least claiming the case is essentially what I’d suspected: The business about social justice and appreciating the effects of discrimination is about, in practice, being able to tailor your teaching style to respond to […]

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AntiRiddle is another series of puzzles to solve—some of these are pretty easy, others pretty fiendish.

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So, I’m not superstitious, but someone broke in very early this morning, making off with my iPod, a housemate’s iPod, and my girlfriend’s laptop (containing weeks worth of work on a feature article she’s doing). So, yeah, expect light posting—I’m turning over this machine to her while she tries to reconstruct it. Addendum: If, by […]

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There’s a number of interesting revelations in an MSNBC preview of a forthcoming tell-all book by the former number two man at the Office of Faith-Based Initiatives. Author David Kuo, himself a conservative Christian, is apparently peeved that Karl Rove’s inner circle would overtly court—and exploit—prominent Evangelicals, then refer to them behind closed doors as […]

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Ampersand of Alas, a Blog has been catching serious flak from his large feminist audience for cutting a deal with pr0n websites to boost their Google rankings via links from his own highly-linked site. Brandon Berg at Catallarchy explains why, even if you think pornography is teh evil!!!, the rage is misplaced: Search-engine optimization is […]

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