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The Prevent Defense Is For Losers?

Ross Douthat writes something that strikes me as very right (well, he often does that.) Romney’s speech last night was extremely vague on policy. If you went into the night not knowing what Romney wanted to do, you left the night not having learned much of anything. It was all personality . . . . Continue Reading »

Russian Honey Trap (Not the Sexy Kind)

The Moscovore has the buzz : Beekeepers throughout Russia are up in arms over the move of Moscow’s high-profile honey fair from prestigious Manezh Square in the capital’s downtown to a shopping mall on the outskirts of the city: a ruling that would appear to be yet another attempt by . . . . Continue Reading »

Triple Parent Custody

The San Francisco Chronicle reports that California’s Assembly has passed a bill allowing “more than two” individuals to have legally recognized claims to the parenthood of a child: Lawmakers approved SB1476 by Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, on a party line vote, . . . . Continue Reading »

Thoughts On Last Night

1. Romney gave a win by default speech. The theory seems to be that what is holding the marginal voter(s) back from supporting Romney is that they think he is a guy who doesn’t care about anything but making a buck for himself and that “humanizing” (I hate that word) is the key to . . . . Continue Reading »

On the Square Today

Peter J. Leithart on the dark side of gratitude : In The Gift, first published in the 1920s, the French ethnologist Marcel Mauss describes several Pacific Rim “gift economies.” Mauss argues that exchanges among these tribes are radically different from exchanges in money economies. In . . . . Continue Reading »

George Romney—Rose Murderer!

I just saw a funny Tweet from @jimnorton, in which he “condemns” Mitt Romney’s father for “murdering roses” when he placed one on his wife’s bedstand every night. (Romney scored emotionally in last night’s speech when he recalled that his mother found . . . . Continue Reading »

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