stcynic
Posts by this author
July 15, 2005
Some of you may remember the story of Chris Buttars, the Utah state legislator who submitted a bill to require the teaching of "divine design" in public school science classrooms in that state. That led to a couple of long exchanges between myself and John West, associate director of the Discovery…
July 15, 2005
Chief Justice Rehnquist issued a statement yesterday that he was not going to announce his retirement and that he intended to continue on the court as long as his health permits:
Squelching rumors of his retirement, Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said Thursday he will continue heading the…
July 14, 2005
Today is Bastille Day, the French equivalent to our 4th of July, and the crew at In the Agora decided to dedicate the entire day to bashing France. I have very mixed feelings about the whole thing, since there are many things I love about France. But like all nations, France has its absurdities and…
July 14, 2005
Well, the World Series of Poker is down to 27 players and things seem to be falling right into place for ESPN to have a compelling storyline for their broadcast of it. The three biggest names left in the field are all in the top 5 in chip stack. Mike Matusow is in first place with $5.1 million;…
July 13, 2005
Wendy McElroy has an interesting post on the History News Network blog about famed civil libertarian attorney Alan Dershowitz and his attempt to prevent the publication of a book that is critical of him. The book, written by Norman Finkelstein, accuses Dershowitz, among other things, of plagiarism…
July 13, 2005
Raymer took a couple big hits late last night, losing to a rivered inside straight and taking KQ up against AQ, but he's still in the hunt with a little over $750,000 chips. With 58 players remaining, that puts him just below the average chip stack. Phil Ivey is still in the top 5 with just over $2…
July 12, 2005
This has the makings of a truly incredible story in the poker world. As play began today, the chip leader was none other than last year's winner, Greg (Fossilman) Raymer with just over a million chips. Should Raymer win again this year, that would almost certainly rank as the greatest achievement…
July 12, 2005
In my appearance on the Harry Browne show, we focused a lot on how to respond to the Kelo decision and what could be done to protect property rights. I urged the listeners to organize at the state and local level by putting propositions on state ballots to require that eminent domain be invoked…
July 11, 2005
Today, the 5th day of the World Series of Poker, begins the 3rd day of the World Series of Poker. How is that? Well there were so many entries that they had to divide them up into three groups for the first day's play. 1/3 played their first day last Thursday, down to about 600 players, then the…
July 11, 2005
Florida State Attorney Bernie McCabe, the prosecutor that Gov. Jeb Bush urged to do an investigation of possible criminal wrongdoing by Michael Schiavo the night Terri collapsed, has concluded that there is no evidence of anything criminal. Even Jeb Bush says that's the end of the matter now, by…
July 11, 2005
Jonathan Chait has an essay in Friday's LA Times about Robert Bork and the myth of his unfair demonization and martyrdom. Among the partisan and pedestrian right (though in many cases not the intellectual right), Bork is still viewed as The One Who Started It All, the Supreme Court nominee whose…
July 9, 2005
I have uploaded the mp3s of my appearance on the Harry Browne Show from July 2nd. It's a two hour show and I was on part of each hour, so there are two mp3s, one for each hour. I came in around the 15 minute mark of the first hour and leave after the first segment of the second hour. Herb Titus is…
July 9, 2005
Okay, I finally got to see the Pink Floyd reunion from the Live8 show. That was just great to see those guys together again. Floyd is the only band I would pay to see in a big stadium show, if they're all together again. I hope they put out something new and tour with this lineup again. Dave…
July 9, 2005
Ouch. I've been watching the Live8 concert on MTV (yeah, I think the event is mostly puff, but there are some great bands performing). And I'm right now listening to Audioslave with Chris Cornell ruining Killing In the Name Of completely. I loved Rage Against the Machine, I liked Soundgarden and I'…
July 8, 2005
The World Series of Poker main event started yesterday at the Rio in Las Vegas with the first flight of over 1000 players. Last year's field of over 2500 has been more than doubled to 5600. Paul Phillips, poker player and raconteur extraordinaire, is keeping a daily diary for Slate magazine. The…
July 8, 2005
We had the craziest poker game last night. We play a $1/$2 pot limit hold em game. Not really a big money game, and usually the pots get bigger toward the end of the night as people loosen up, try to push people around with a big stack, or try to recoup their losses. Well last night was insane from…
July 7, 2005
Jonathan Bunch has an excellent post at In the Agora about the whole silly Live8 concert last weekend. As a series of concerts, I'm sure it was interesting. I'd love to have seen U2 and Sting and, especially, the reunion of Pink Floyd, but I was busy and didn't get to see it. But I'm not sure it…
July 7, 2005
The media has been reporting that President Bush fell off his bike in Scotland, sustaining only a minor scrape or two. But just to show you how the liberal media protects Democrats, they aren't reporting that Dick Durbin was the one who took the training wheels off the President's bike. And now you…
July 7, 2005
Jeff Shallit has issued a response on Panda's Thumb to accusations made (in lieu of a response) by William Dembski to his criticisms of Dembski's work. Dembski's response to the criticism of Shallit and Wes Elsberry is pretty standard stuff for him. Those of us who have followed his work and the…
July 7, 2005
A reader sent me this link to an article in the New Republic (he thought he'd be the millionth person to send it to me, but in fact it's the first I'd seen it, so thanks!) about how many prominent conservatives feel about evolution. The good news is that many of them were strongly supportive of…
July 6, 2005
I've long thought that the Constitution Party - which postures as being libertarian-minded - was quite badly named. They're really a far right - and I mean far right - social conservative party with a very disturbing vision of what the constitution means. And here's more proof of that. Their…
July 6, 2005
The New York Times reports that over the last few days, the White House has been making calls to religious right groups asking them to tone down their rhetoric on Alberto Gonzales' potential nomination to the court:
The White House and the Senate Republican leadership are pushing back against…
July 6, 2005
Reason magazine asked a group of libertarian legal scholars who they admire on the federal courts, who they think should be nominated to replace O'Connor and a couple other questions. Here's the stunning part to me - they actually list Larry Klayman as a libertarian legal expert! Larry Klayman? A…
July 5, 2005
I have uploaded the full mp3 of my appearance on the Jim Babka Show from June 26th, 2005 for anyone interested to download. On that show, we discussed the Kelo eminent domain case. I hope to have the full mp3 of my appearance on the Harry Browne show from this past weekend up soon as well.
July 5, 2005
I am back after a few days away, and while I was gone there has been some discussion in the comments about judicial activism. I don't wanna go back and answer all of those comments individually at this point, having written a great deal on the subject in the past. Let me give a brief overview of my…
July 1, 2005
I'm going to be on the Harry Browne show tomorrow night between 10 and 11 discussing the Kelo case with guest host Jim Babka. This time, Herb Titus really will be on along with me and I'm told he has an interesting take on this issue so it should be a fascinating discussion. I'm actually going to…
July 1, 2005
Another blogger named Doug who comments frequently at In the Agora has summed up perfectly what to expect over the next few months:
The left will cherry-pick all of the worst bits from the nominee's background such that I won't really be able to trust their assessment of whether this guy (or gal)…
July 1, 2005
Orin Kerr makes a couple of interesting points in his post on Volokh about O'Connor's retirement:
9. O'Connor's retirement may shift the Court a lot less than people think. In the big ideological cases of the last Term, Justice Kennedy was the swing vote as often as (or maybe even more often than…
July 1, 2005
Radley Balko reports:
Here's a wildcard for you: I have it on reasonably good authority that an unlikely retirement might be on the way, too. A Supreme Court insider told me several weeks ago that Souter may well retire. He apparently told friends and family that he has always planned to step down…
July 1, 2005
Looks like Bill Kristol was right. Justice O'Connor is retiring from the court, which just ramps up the intensity on this summer's confirmation fight even higher than it would be if Rehnquist retired. Why? Because Rehnquist is solidly conservative, while O'Connor is the key swing vote on the court…