Brookhiser is judicious as ever:
Ron Paul clearly holds the honorable views mentioned above, and everyone who knows him testifies that he does not hold the wicked ones. But it requires eternal vigilance in Further Right World to keep the two apart, and he has not exercised it.
An historical inquiry.
Dog shoots man. Fatally.
Send your message of love via graffiti on the Israeli-Palestinian wall.
I’m not an expert on this, but is there an obvious explanation for why Obama had a 7.5 percent advantage over Clinton in New Hampshire votes counted by hand and Clinton had a 5.5 percent advantage in votes counted by machine? I presume that it’s a function of differing locations, with the more urban Clinton districts relying more on machines. Is that the right inference?
"I was laughing because you know in that debate, obviously Sen. Edwards and Sen. Obama were kind of in the buddy system on the stage. And I was thinking whoever’s up against the Republican nominee in the election debates come the fall is not gonna have a buddy to fall back on. You know, you’re all by yourself. When you’re president, you’re there all by yourself," – Senator Clinton on her two rivals for the nomination. Notice another subtle use of the gender card. We really are headed back to the 1990s.
Thanks: over 400,000 page-views yesterday for the Dish: smashing all previous records. I’m also delighted to have a new Dish prepper, Patrick Appel, who replaces the irreplaceable Jessie Roberts who has returned to, yes, college. Welcome also to Ben Carlson, Conor Friedersdorf, Herschel Nachlis, and Sara Dabney Tisdale who joined the Dish team as Atlantic interns this week. They are this blog’s eyes and ears. After you guys, of course.
A reader writes:
Uh, no. Your original commenter had it closer to right. I got lots of nice degrees so I’m going to call this one, sorry. "Gravity" isn’t a law — that is "stuff falls" doesn’t quite cut it. There is a "law of gravity" or more precisely a "law of universal gravitation" which can be expressed mathematically, basically saying, that there’s a force between two objects proportional to the products of constants associated with each object (their "gravitational masses"), divided by the square of the distance between their "centers of mass". _That’s_ the law. And you don’t really do much to prove it when you drop a penny to the floor unless you have super-super-bitchin’ measuring devices. Mostly (not entirely) it’s been proven by astronomical observations, also with something called a torsion balance: go Google it.
"Evolution" doesn’t have a law because there’s just not a nice mathematical expression of it to call a law.
No matter how well you back up the theory — and lots and lots and lots of us no have been in labs doing biochemical directed evolution experiments so it’s backed up — it ain’t going to be a "law," because I can come along and ask you, so what’s the law? and all you can do is go, "uhh….uhhh…y’know, evolution." It’s a complicated set of ideas not (yet, if ever) describable as a set of equations. Indeed, as originally described, or commonly described in those science textbooks, it’s also wrong. Bacteria, for example, can undergo some types of Lamarckian evolution — the giraffe stretches its neck — under conditions of nutrient starvation or infection with viruses. And as Stephen Jay Gould and others pointed out it’s not quite right to separate environment and genetics the way the theory of natural selection invites us to. But there’s a core set of ideas — a theory — about variation and selection and randomness, and it’s well validated. It can’t (at least now) be a "law" no matter what you get in a lab: but it may well have more datapoints then, say, universal gravitation.
A reader writes:
You’re right to note that Obama, too, "has plans," but frankly, when it comes to electing a president, I don’t care so much about that. Congress will have a legislative agenda, and they will (or they won’t) implement it. The president’s agenda too often is set by someone else, like al-Qaeda. And when that time comes, I want a measured, principled, reflective president with a rigorous intellect who will capably work with people on either side of the aisle to ensure that the right decisions are made. What I don’t want is a partisan warrior for whom political power and public service have become all but indistinguishable. That’s why I’m backing Obama. It’s also why I’ll make McCain the first Republican ever to get my presidential vote if the race comes down to him and Senator Clinton.
My feelings entirely. My leaning toward Obama has a lot to do with his even temperament, his ability to listen, his powerful persuasive faculties and his judgment. Those are the qualities I look for in a president.
The Dish 