Gene Edward Veith Jr.'s Blog, page 314
July 28, 2014
Where’s the opposition to legalized marijuana?
Our nation’s capital is gearing up to join Colorado and Washington state in legalizing marijuana. Already about half of the states have legalized the drug for medicinal use. Journalist Richard Leiby has noticed what would seem to be an odd fact: Despite our supposed political polarization and our alleged culture wars, pro-marijuana initiatives are attracting [Read More...]
The new world disorder
British journalist Peter Foster, writing in the London Telegraph, sees the shooting down of the Malaysian airliner over the Ukraine as just one symptom among many of the global order coming apart. And with the disengagement of the United States and the timidity of Europe, conditions are starting to resemble the way things were just [Read More...]
Democrats hold big lead in PAC fundraising
Democrats make a big show of bemoaning the influence of big corporations in elections and the Supreme Court ruling that allows for the formation of super-Political Action Committees that threaten to buy elections. But guess what? Democrats currently hold a 2 to 1 advantage when it comes to super PAC contributions. The biggest such fund? [Read More...]
July 25, 2014
What happened to summer movies?
Summers are usually the season to go to the movies, when studios released their fun pop-corn flicks for the out-of-school and summer vacation crowd. But what happened to this summer? I haven’t gone to the movies once because there haven’t been any that I’ve been interested in. Sure enough, according to the article excerpted after [Read More...]
Rise of the Conservatarians
There is a new word in the political lexicon, gaining currency as Rand Paul builds a following in the high-tech crowd: Conservatarian. A combination of “conservative” and “libertarian.” So would any of you describe yourselves as Conservatarians? What are its tenets? How is it different from regular old “libertarian”? Or regular old “conservative”? Might this [Read More...]
Do kids raised by same-sex couples really fare better?
The media has been trumpeting an Australian study that purported to show that children raised by same-sex parents actually fare better than those raised in traditional families. That’s quite a claim. Until you look more closely at the study. From Katrina Trinko, That Study Showing Kids With Same-Sex Parents Fare Better? Yeah, the Media Left [Read More...]
July 24, 2014
Louisiana court challenges seal of confession
We blogged about how Anglicans in Australia are doing away with the absolute “seal of confession”–that is, the pastor’s pledge of total confidentiality when they hear penitents confess their sins. Now an American court is trying to do the same thing, forcing a Roman Catholic priest to testify about what he heard in the confessional [Read More...]
Elizabeth Warren’s 11 tenets of Progressivism
Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass), the liberal favorite, spoke to the Netroots Nation, the big convention of left-leaning bloggers and activists. She answered the question “What does it mean to be a progressive?” by listing 11 beliefs that will probably form the framework of a progressive platform. See them after the jump. Discuss. From Elizabeth Warren’s [Read More...]
The missing light crisis
We blogged about how new evidence is casting doubt on the existence of the universe. Scientists have also discovered a massive discrepancy between the amount of light that we can detect and the amount of light produced by galaxies and quasars. The two are off by a factor of some 400%. Put another way, 80% [Read More...]
July 23, 2014
Atheist PACs
Atheists are getting organized politically, to the point of forming a Political Action Committee that will endorse candidates, give them money, and organize grass-root support for their campaigns. Already the PAC, known as the Freethought Equality Fund, has endorsed four Congressional candidates. From Atheist PAC makes endorsements for Congress, USA Today: A political action committee [Read More...]
