Mother Jones flags as “Racist Outrage of the Day” a report from a Philadelphia swim club that rescinded a deal to let minority kids from an inner-city summer camp use their pool, apparently in the wake of complaints from members. From the original report: “I heard this lady, she was like, ‘Uh, what are all […]

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Via erstwhile debate compatriot turned awesome academic Steve Maloney, I discover the “weak man” argument, which actually seems far more prevalent than the better-known straw man. Making a straw-man argument, of course, involves misrepresenting a position opposed to your own so that you can beat up on it easily. The Internet makes it somewhat harder […]

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I was expecting to have turned on Barack Obama more strongly by now. I knew for the first few weeks—perhaps even a couple months—I’d just be reveling in the thought that George Bush was no longer president. But soon enough, I felt sure, I’d be attacking Obama almost as vigorously for a totally different set […]

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An attempt to downplay the potential for backlash against perceived U.S. “meddling” in Iran: Maybe some obscure event that happened fifty years ago can explain why Egyptians would want U.S. support and Iranians wouldn’t. I realize that it’s an obscure bit of trivia for most Americans that the CIA orchestrated a coup against Mohammed Mossadeq […]

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Is learning unpatriotic? The question itself might seem vaguely offensive, but one has to wonder given the howls about Obama “apologizing for America” anytime he publicly intimates that any past foreign policy of the United States might have been mistaken—or, heaven forfend,  even be the source of some degree of international animus against us. Bracket […]

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The federal government’s first Chief Information Officer, Vivek Kundra, used to be the District of Columbia’s top geek. He caught the Obama administration’s eye by, among other things, finding innovative ways to put public data online, and especially to make it more easily accessible through the use of third-party apps. A prime illustration of the […]

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While I expect it’s cold comfort to Publius, I suppose Ed Whelan should get some modicum of credit for realizing—however belatedly—that his “outing” of his pseudonymous interlocutor was wrong. I might have gone with something stronger than “uncharitable”—”crass” and “petty” spring to mind—but let’s face it, a second-thought and an apology are so rare in […]

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I’m somewhat heartened to see a near-unanimous chorus of disapproval, across ideological lines, for Ed Whelan’s petulant, adolescent “outing” of the (formerly) pseudonymous blogger Publius.  Though he complains about “smears” and “misrepresentations” and “irresponsibility,” Whelan’s real beef seems to have been that Publius—now revealed as associate law prof John Blevins—said some unkind things about him.  […]

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I’ve been binging on TED talks these past few days, among them a 2002 lecture by Daniel Dennett on memetics. Most of what he has to say is by now pretty familiar to anyone with a scintilla of interest in the topic, but I was intrigued by the analogy he offered up between contemporary globalization […]

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How is it that there are so many soi-disant liberal guys who think that the rules against being a sexist asshole are somehow suspended so long as you’re attacking a conservative woman? Megan has put up with a metric ton of the kind of abuse that would’ve prompted me to shut down comments long ago. […]

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