"Don’t get me wrong — I’m still an atheist."

"But I will no longer be dragged into debates with theists who make a ludicrous claim, then base their evidence on the very book from which their ludicrous claim originates."

There is no point in it. All this back-and-forth sniping serves to do is to make us feel a sense of superiority to the person making the claims and does nothing for them except leave them with a smugness about their assumption that “atheists are all mean.” Faith overrides knowledge and truth in any situation, so arguing with a theist is akin to banging your head against a brick wall: You will injure yourself and achieve little.

Why must an atheist bother with the subject of religion at all? If you think you're so rational, be rational about the reasons why people are religious, including many reasons that you could be empathetic about.

By the way, even in that little quoted squib, the guy is still being a jerk, likening religious people to a brick wall and being a bit of a brick wall himself about the possibility that religious people are seekers of knowledge and truth.

You think: "What a good-hearted, mellow person I am," I think: "Inside the Madison cocoon."

"Barely a third of U.S. senators pay their interns — and embarrassingly for Democrats, a party focused on workplace welfare, most of them are Republicans."

Under the heading "EXPLOITATION," Instapundit links to this piece in The Atlantic.

No pay is the ultimate defense against the accusation of low pay.

It's the difference between a girlfriend and a cheap prostitute.

If you don't have the money to buy something at a price that won't offend the seller, you should try to get it for free. Then the seller is flattered.

This is the way the world works. Not everything is commerce, or — I should say — not everything is always usefully portrayed as commerce. The only hypocrisy I see in Congress here is that whenever they want to use their Commerce Power, they'll argue that their regulatory target is commerce.

The Democrats dream candidate to oppose Scott Walker next year.

Here's a long, long article in the Wisconsin State Journal. I'll just do a short excerpt:

a multimillionaire... who could self-finance....

From the comments:

I can easily see why the Huffington Post deemed her the "democrat version of Mitt Romney". I can't wait to find out how much she makes from dividends per year. I wonder how many tax havens she has? It will be interesting to see how the dems treat her, we all know she would be crucified if she were a republican. Heck, in her professional life she's driven by profit but since she has a 'D' next to her name she'll be thought of as brilliant, if she were a republican she would be evil.

Let the hypocrisy begin!!

And:

So let me get this straight, the Dems are thinking about shamelessly and hypocritically putter up as a candidate someone who:

1) is a 1%-er

2) comes from the Private Sector

3) relied on nepotism to succeed.

Are people that selfish, hypocritical, and willfully ignorant that they will really sacrifice their beliefs to serve their own self-interests?

And:

Run Brett Run

That refers to this.

By the way, whatever happened to the "Occupy" movement? Maybe it's taking a break out there somewhere with the Coffee Party.

"Is it possible to accept lucrative subsidies from dictatorships, operate campuses on their territory and still preserve the values that make American universities great, including academic freedom?"

"The schools all say yes, pointing to pieces of paper — some of them undisclosed — that they have signed with their host governments. The real answer is: of course not."

"Academic freedom and a reasoned debate are essential to our academic community."

"However, the Harvard Kennedy School cannot ethically stand behind academic work advocating a national policy of exclusion and advancing an agenda of discrimination."

A petition with 1,200 signatures collected by Harvard students, who seem to want an investigation targeting this one case, because the conclusion offends them. It seems to me the investigation ought to be much broader, into what the general standards are at the school. The students have a big interest in whether the degree means what it's supposed to mean, but the one dissertation they loathe ought to be presented as evidence that the school has low standards, and the investigation ought to range across the political spectrum. But the students are speaking in terms of which policies are ethical, and that sounds like they want a political standard to restrict research, which, ironically, would not be an ethical policy.

In "In the Reign of the Gay Magical Elves," Bret Easton Ellis — author of "American Psycho" — complains of his victimhood, as a gay man...

... at the hands of "The Culturally Correct Gay Elite," who enforce a strict stereotype of gay men as victims, to be coddled like children and who punish any gay man who — like Ellis — "makes crude jokes about other gays in the media (as straight dudes do of each other constantly) or express their hopelessness in seeing Modern Family being rewarded for its depiction of gays, a show where a heterosexual plays the most simpering ka-ween on TV and Wins. Emmys. For. It."

Within the clenched world of the gay PC police there has been a tightening of the reigns. It’s as if in this historic moment for gay men we somehow still need to be babied and coddled and used as shining examples of humanity and objects of fascination—the gay baby panda—and this is a new kind of gay victimization. The fact that it is often being extolled by other gays in the Name of the Good Cause is doubly stifling.

Okay, Bret. Much as I agree with you about the problems of infantilization and political correctness, I've got to further victimize you. Not you, the gay man. You the writer.

1. A "tightening of the reigns"? Especially when writing under the title "In the Reign of...," you need to know your metaphors. There's a difference between what kings do in their domain and the leather straps a rider uses to control a horse.

2. If you're offering to be the cutting critic and what you're criticizing is putting gay men into the victim role, don't whine about your own victimhood. It's incoherent. Be cuttingly critical and take the consequences.

Factoid about Ellis: "Feminist activist Gloria Steinem was among those opposed to the release of Ellis' book ['American Psycho'] because of its portrayal of violence toward women. Steinem is also the stepmother of Christian Bale, who played Bateman in the film. This coincidence is mentioned in Ellis' mock memoir Lunar Park."

More recently, Ellis got in trouble with the "gay elite" for tweeting that "openly and famously gay Matt Bomer who is publicly married to his partner seemed a weird idea for the role of the very straight BDSM freako Christian Grey in the movie adaptation of Fifty Shades of Grey." Ellis needs people to understand — and he's hurt that he was disinvited from the GLAAD awards —  that he "never said Gay Actors Can’t Play Straight Roles." Rather, he "thought this because of Matt’s easy openness with being gay... and with baggage that I believe would distract from the heavy sexual fantasy of that particular movie."

A key exchange in the first section of the book is Anastasia’s open questioning of Christian’s sexuality and his insulted denials—with Bomer in the role, it becomes a very META scene. Right now, in this moment, this particular casting would be a distraction—the public/private life of the actor mixed-up with playing a voracious het predator.

Interesting insight... from a gay man who wrote about the ultimate "het predator" in "American Psycho." 20 years ago, when Steinem registered her complaint, we didn't know that Ellis was gay. He sat back and let the feminists develop all our theories about the violence in the hearts of heterosexual men:

A designer serial killer, ["American Psycho"] Bateman knows from Tumi leather attache cases and wool-and-silk suits by Ermenegildo Zegna and wing tip shoes from Fratelli Rossetti....

But his true inner satisfaction comes when he has a woman in his clutches and can entertain her with a nail gun or a power drill or Mace, or can cut off her head or chop off her arms or bite off her breasts or dispatch a starving rat up her vagina.

Can we go very META on that?

"Crunchy Cons took a pretty hard line against suburban living..."

Rod Dreher, reconsiders suburbia. 

"Crunchy Cons: The New Conservative Counterculture and Its Return to Roots" is the name of a book he wrote, back in 2006. As the italics indicate, the quote above refers to what he said in his book, not what the people he labeled "crunchy" did — at least not directly.

In his new article, Dreher describes himself "someone who used to live in big cities, and who now lives in a small town [and therefore] more understanding of why someone with a family would choose to live in the suburbs." The same old reasons people move to the suburbs affected him and his family, so now he sees the point.

While I still believe there are serious objections to the way our suburbs are designed, and ways to design them to be more aesthetically pleasing and human-scaled, I appreciate very much Keith Miller’s critique, and how he urges us to think about whether we are not simply baptizing and moralizing aesthetic preferences. Don’t get me wrong: I do believe that the material order in some real sense reflects, or should reflect, the sacred order. Aesthetics are rarely completely divorced from metaphysics or morals. On a more practical level, though, I think we ought to all give more grace to each other. Not everybody who moves to the suburbs wants to build a gargantuan McMansion and live the full-consumerist lifestyle. Not everyone who chooses to live in the city is driven by morally pure motives; they could be refusing one kind of consumerist narcissism for the sake of embracing a more attractive version of same.

What aesthetic preferences have you tricked up as moral imperatives?

"The Chief of the Sexual Assault Prevention and Response branch of the U.S. Air Force..."

"... was arrested and charged with sexual battery in Arlington over the weekend."

"Obama’s insulting salary stunt."

WaPo's Richard Cohen writes:

I once had a boss who was independently rich, and when I asked him for a raise, he turned me down, adding that he, too, had forsaken a raise that year. A surge of anger, resentment and sheer hatred welled up in me, and were it not that I needed the job, I would have gone for his throat. His unthinking and unthinkable attempt to make common cause with me brought to mind Anatole France’s observation that “The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.” Now it brings to mind Barack Obama.

Okay. Yes. But: It's been noted many times, when rich people like Warren Buffet beg to be made to pay their fair share, that when you pay your taxes you can make a voluntary additional payment to the federal government. So why don't they just chip in some extra?

Obama's tossing in 5% is a way of saying, that's the additional amount that seems fair to ask. I can't change the tax law on my own and make all rich people pay 5% more, but I will voluntarily do what I think all should do. It's basically the golden rule. You can't make everyone do what you want them to do, but you can be the example of what you think all should do.

But Obama didn't portray his 5% contribution as an example for all rich people, a reminder, as we approach April 15th, that you can jack up your own tax payment because you see that's your fair share or just because you have plenty of money and you'd like to be generous and try to help with the many good and necessary things the government does.

No, Obama characterized his 5% as sharing the sacrifice that the sequester is forcing some public sector employees to make. It's just not the same kind of sacrifice. He won't even feel his sacrifice. And if he does, he can ease his tiny pains with another deluxe vacation and a few more concerts at the White House performed by whichever pop stars his daughters are enthusing over this month.

"Bill Althouse, a Colorado activist who identifies himself as executive director of the Campaign to Regulate Alcohol Like Marijuana..."

"... offers some modest proposals for alleviating this disparity, including..."

• If a child sees a parent consume alcohol, Protective Services may remove the child from the home.
• If a parent has one drink, it will cause loss of custody of children in a divorce case.
• No alcohol may be served by the drink anywhere in Colorado.
• All publicly viewable consumption at sporting events, backyards , political rallies, fraternal organizations, breweries, vineyards, farmers markets, and picnics, even if the alcohol is free, is a crime.
• Alcohol consumption outside a private home is a crime.
• No alcohol advertising is allowed except for adult only publications.
• All alcohol production and sales must be a monopoly selected by the State.
• All craft beer is illegal, only large brewers may be licensed as retailers
• All alcohol sales are package sales only, must be in child proof containers and placed in plain dark paper exit packaging stapled shut before leaving the store.
• Non Colorado citizens will be limited to one bottle of beer per purchase.
• Colorado citizens will be limited to a six pack per purchase.
• Home brewers must grow their hops under artificial lights in a separate locked space and brewing must also occur in that locked space. Using sunshine is a crime.
• Alcohol retailers must only sell alcohol and nothing else.
• Outside investment in beer production or hops growing is illegal.

Haven't used my "other Althouses" tag in a long time.

Remember: I am not responsible for the sayings and doings of other Althouses.

"How does raking in $100 million petrodollars fit with [Al Gore's] life’s mission?"

"Though the deal’s been widely criticized on the right..."

... most of my progressive friends have a more tolerant attitude towards the transaction: "After what happened to him," in the recount of 2000, one friend remarked, "I’d forgive him almost anything." A politically active environmentalist, too, was taking the news in stride: "I don’t think the community is too upset," he said. "My personal sense is he got a good deal."

"Gregory had no intent to commit a crime; he was committing journalism instead."

"Gun owners often say they want the government to leave them alone; why then are some clamoring for Gregory to be prosecuted?"

Asks Howard Kurtz, with amazing naivete. The implied argument is quite weird and perverse.

First, he's got this either/or premise: If you're doing one thing, you're not doing something else. If you're doing journalism, you can't also be doing something else. That might make sense if the crime in question had a required mental element that would be negated by the intent to "commit journalism," but it doesn't. Mere possession is enough. The most virtuous individuals with the best intentions get stuck with this law applying to them. If you don't like that, then you don't like this law. You've got an objection to the law, and yet, ironically, Gregory was arguing for more laws like that! That was the nature of the "journalism" he was "committing." He ought to be the first one prosecuted, not the last.

Second, Kurtz, a journalist himself, is mired the same sense of entitlement that people are objecting to in Gregory. He thinks journalists are special people who float above it all, who don't live in reality. You are the very people who are supposed to be observing reality, understanding it, and explaining it. But you don't even see that you are part of it. You have less awareness of it than the people you're getting paid to inform. Maybe you think you're just too important to have your time wasted by consequences that would befall ordinary people. You need to be free to continue to sit there mouthing outrage about the next terrible thing that befalls some ordinary person out there in the real world.

Third, Kurtz thinks he's caught others in hypocrisy. If gun owners want the government to leave them alone, why would they want Gregory to be prosecuted? It's like Kurtz wants us to laugh in his face. Yet he seems to think he's being quite clever. Why would he think that? Puzzling, isn't it? My only answer is that he does not believe in the rule of law. It doesn't occur to him that what gun owners who "want the government to leave them alone" want is for legislatures to refrain from passing laws and to repeal existing laws and for courts to declare laws null under the Second Amendment. Why should these people like it if one privileged, prominent man escapes prosecution? The laws remain, affecting everyone else, even as the oppressiveness of the laws is falsely minimized.

A "concerned sister" gets press petitioning Hasbro to put boys in commercials for Easy-Bake ovens.

"The toy has long been marketed to girls and made in gender specific colors like pink and purple. The calls for Easy-Bake to take on a more gender-neutral stance has been made numerous times in the past."

Funny that it's still okay to call some colors "gender specific." But progress comes incrementally. The day will come when we get our viral video pleading for the end of stereotyping pink and purple as girl colors.

Meanwhile, in Sweden:

Sweden's top advertising watchdog—known as Reklamombudsmannen, or RO—has taken [Toys "R" Us] to task in recent years for catalogs and ads that showcase girls playing with dolls, scrapbooks, and kitchen and beauty toys and boys with guns, cars, trains and tech gadgets....

The Swedish government has been on the front line of efforts to engineer equality between men and women....

"I think it's amazing that they've actually listened to the consumers," [said a female shopper]. "I didn't used to shop here as much before they changed, because I didn't like the way they separated between girls and boys, pink and blue."

Here's what you get with government pressure (and maybe with You-Tube and Change.org):



Somehow, I don't see that photo bringing in any boys that wouldn't have felt drawn to the activity anyway, but perhaps it's intended to make parents feel and act better when their son tells them that's what he wants.

As for the 13-year-old girl's video:



Was that little boy scripted? Leave him alone, and don't put him on YouTube. It seems to me he's already saying he likes to cook and wants a toy oven and the lack of boys in the ads wasn't perceived as a problem. Hold off on the indoctrination and let him discover his own happiness.