This post grew from I comment I posted at Pandagon.

Reading closely is a bad habit. It makes it hard to keep polite company.
Anne Applebaum writes an opinion piece in the Washington Post that is completely void of any factual claims to back her opinions. The facts she does produce argue against the point that she [...]

The House Appropriations subcommittee on labor, health and human services and education has voted to reduce annual federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to $300 million from $400 million. The Washington Post has a typical story.
It isn’t clear from the Post article, but reporting this afternoon on NPR makes it clear that the [...]

If Bush’s theory of the Unitary Executive (link) is correct, what is to stop the next President from sending Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Woo and their co-conspirators to Gitmo for the duration of their term?

Another pet peeve of mine is adults riding their bikes on the sidewalk.
It is one thing to do ride on the sidewalk with an acknowledgement that it is illegal and therefore the rider should be circumspect and cautious. This I can understand and appreciate. “There was some road construction that blocked the bike lanes, [...]

Yesterday the House of Representatives passed a bill to allow stem cell research involving embryos that are in frozen storage at fertility clinics. (link)
President Bush has promised to veto this bill because it “would take us across a critical ethical line.” “Every embryo is unique and genetically complete, like every other human being. And [...]

Microsoft and Bill Gates are in the news lately. Microsoft has opted to withdraw support for bill in the Washington state legislature guaranteeing civil protections for gays, possibly after being pressured by the Reverend Ken Hutcherson of the Antioch Bible Church. Of course, Microsoft denies that the good Reverend had anything to do with the [...]

There is no moral argument against nuclear proliferation that can be made by the Unitied States. Arguments based on power, arguments based on potential terrorist threats, arguments based on the stability of the governments involved, all of these are plausible, but if the US, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel, can maintain stocks of nuclear [...]

From Slate about the House hearing on performance enhancing drugs is baseball:

The strangest moment of the day comes when Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski, D-Penn., asks Canseco what he would do if scientists invented a “smart pill” that would make you a genius but take five or ten years off your life. “The Chemist” pauses for [...]

Michiko Kukutani has reviewed of The Torture Papers: The Road to Abu Ghraib edited by Karen J. Greenberg and Joshua L. Dratel in the NY Times.
I had heard the editors interview (on Fresh Air?) so I knew some of the story before I saw the article. The article itself stayed around for a [...]

Response to Nicholas Kristof’s column.
To the Editor:
Before wading in and advising Liberals how to play poker, Nicholas Kristof would be wise to learn whether a straight beats two pair. In his column, “Social Security Poker,” he has confused the terms “life expectancy” and “life span.”
He writes, “The Social Security Administration estimates that U.S. life expectancy [...]