So: a non-profit puts out a documentary critical of a presidential candidate. The government tries to stop it. It’s a no-brainer that what the government is doing is wrong, right? Well, that’s what the Supreme Court thought, but I’m dismayed to see a couple of my favorite bloggers disagreeing: Vjack said that this decision makes [...]
Category Archives: politics
On Geert Wilders and free speech
Posted by Chris Hallquist on January 22, 2010
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Dutch politician Geert Wilders is being prosecuted for his criticisms of Islam. This is obviously a bad thing (at least, obviously to anyone who thinks free speech is a good idea). There’s a bit of irony here: Wilders is not himself a big fan of free speech, having called for the banning of the Qur’an. [...]
A reason for liberals to hate teachers unions?
Posted by Chris Hallquist on January 20, 2010
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My old professor John Hawks has a post up highlighting an incident where it took half a million dollars to fire a single creationist science teacher. The original article isn’t clear on why that happened, only saying that “he asked for a pre-termination hearing.” But why does a lowly middle school teacher have the power [...]
Would it matter if Hitler was racist?
Posted by Chris Hallquist on January 6, 2010
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Jason Rosenhouse catches an instance of the incredibly silly claim that the Galileo affair and the current attacks on evolution are not conflicts between science and religion. Then, surprisingly, Jason finds himself responding to two of his SciBlings defending the claim. I think Jason is so obviously right here that this is barely worth commenting [...]
Terrorists aren’t rational
Posted by Chris Hallquist on January 4, 2010
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Via Cynical C, some of Bruce Schneider’s most recent commentary on terrorism prevention: If we spend billions defending our rail systems, and the terrorists bomb a shopping mall instead, we’ve wasted our money. If we concentrate airport security on screening shoes and confiscating liquids, and the terrorists hide explosives in their brassieres and use solids, [...]