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Resign or Be Killed, I Guess

In case you haven’t been paying attention, the press has been attempting for over a week now to find something—anything—that mentions the pope in the context of the bishops’ deplorable and disgusting failure to act, for decades, on sexual-abuse charges. The attempt to draw the . . . . Continue Reading »

You Can’t Handle the Truth

No, that’s not one of my all-time favorite movie lines. Those are listed below. But it is one of the Top 100 movie quotes of all time as determined by—well, I’ll let them tell it: AFI distributed a ballot with 400 nominated movie quotes to a jury of over 1,500 leaders from the . . . . Continue Reading »

Alphabet City

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal, Norman Podhoretz emerged from semi-retirement to express his approval for Sarah Palin . No, I don’t propose to revisit the Sarah, pro- and con- debate, which will remain sterile and tedious until she actually, like, runs for something (or not). But I . . . . Continue Reading »

LOST, God, and the Justice/Grace Problem

While it’s still unclear how LOST will ultimately end up, some recent developments seem to provide a good illustration of one way people have chosen to resolve the problem that has plagued humanity throughout history: Deep down, we know we deserve justice from God, but we want grace. How can . . . . Continue Reading »

On the Square Today

Sean Curnyn reviews the new, posthumously-released Johnny Cash album, American VI: Ain’t No Grave : We may forget, because of his tremendous presence, both on stage and in the arena of memory, that he was a man practicing a profession. If anyone ever seemed like the proverbial force of nature, . . . . Continue Reading »

Is the Health Care Law Unconstitutional?

Randy Barnett at the Volokh Conspiracy makes presents a solid case that the recently passed health care legislation should be deemed unconstitutional (though the Supreme Court likely won’t overturn it): The individual mandate goes far beyond these previous acts. Congress has never before . . . . Continue Reading »

The Tournament of Novels – Round 4

Blowouts and nail-biters—in Round 3 there was no in between. Blowouts: The Brothers Karamazov sailed past Moby-Dick , The Lord of the Rings not-so-humbly beat Pride and Prejudice , and Pilgrim’s Progress swept away Charlotte’s Web —each by a margin of 2 to 1. One Hundred Years . . . . Continue Reading »

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