A blog about negative liberty, because it's nobody's business if nobody gets hurt.
On Sunday, for the second week in a row, the police rounded up scores of parishioners [of the Beijing-based Shouwang Protestant Church] who tried to pray outdoors at a public plaza. Most of the church’s leadership is now in custody or under house arrest. Its Web site has been blocked. Even after years of economic …
Continue reading “Freedom to worship, not freedom from worship”
“An Orange County Republican Party official is defending an email she sent that portrays President Obama’s face superimposed on a chimpanzee with the words: ‘Now you know why — No birth certificate!’ “ You stay classy, Marilyn Davenport.
I love Tim Minchin’s highly irreverent songs, especially his faux-beat-poet philippic Storm in which he goes toe to toe with an incredibly annoying hippie-dippy dinner guest. I literally yelled with glee the first time I heard it, about a year and a half ago. But now, via Andrew Sullivan, I find there’s a brand new …
Behold the perils of auto-abbreviated links.
• Flying cleric sexually assaults airline passenger. • God-loving student, intent on disproving atheist talking points, gets stabby with a pen. • Bible inspires devout Seattle mom to attempt a circumcision with a boxcutter and pliers. • Allah being a wicked prude (I guess), British Miss Universe contestant must die for the intolerable crime of wearing a torso-covering one-piece …
Continue reading “From the Superior Moral Compass Department”
• What, no taser? • Guess whose shitlist you get put on when you dare complain about the TSA. • Speaking of crap: If your mailman is anything like this mailman, you might want to wear latex gloves when you open your bills. • Police in New Hampshire charge man with unlawful “interception of oral communications” …
2008: Then-Sen. Obama said he would “not use signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law.” 2011: President Obama uses signing statements to nullify or undermine congressional instructions as enacted into law. * [link]
Johann Hari sounds off on the royal wedding that has Britain’s monarchists abuzz with excited deference, and slays one feeble pro-monarchy argument after another. Our head of state is decided by one factor, and one factor alone: did he pass through the womb of one aristocratic Windsor woman living in a golden palace? The US …
It’s tax day tomorrow, so let’s look at just one of the people we are forced to entrust with our money. Take Cindy Dunton, a former deputy clerk and treasurer of the town of Newburgh, Maine, pop. 1,500. Take her, please. You see, Cindy thanked the town and the constituents who gave her a nicely-paid job …
Continue reading “Robbery by checkbook: the devil made me do it!”
For years, Bill Hillar made money by giving speeches about his exotic counter-terrorism exploits as a colonel and a Green Beret. It recently emerged that Mr. Hillar made the whole thing up. The report in Army Times says that …he accepted thousands of dollars in speaking fees from the likes of the FBI Command College. Gosh, …
To Mark’s welcome comments about the focus and direction of this brand new (or is that reinvented?) blog, I want to add something about my own preferences. Actually, preferences isn’t really the word. I’d prefer not to write about pretty much any of the topics that move me to blog. That’s because, in my ideal world, …