NevadaGayAtheist

Dispatches from the Culture Wars: Sandefur Reviews Barnett: "When conservatives ask 'where in the constitution does it grant such a right?' we must demand to know where in the constitution it grants to government the authority to violate it."

Individual-i
A symbol of individual rights
Today, the rights of individuals are being eroded: by government, by corporations, by society itself. This icon — the Individual-i — represents the rights of the individual.

It represents the right to privacy and anonymity in the information age. It represents the rights to an open government, due process, and equal protection under the law. It represents the right to live surveillance free, and not to be marked as "suspicious" for wanting these other rights.

It recognizes that a free society is a safe society, and that freedom is founded upon individual rights.

The battle for individual rights is just beginning; our side needs a symbol.

We hope to see this symbol displayed proudly wherever individual rights are valued.

The Catholic church has a new Pope; Joseph Ratzinger is now Benedict XVI. A new theocratic dictator is the last thing humanity needs. It's 2005 for fuck sake. When will we be rid of these archaic ideas and institutions?

Pharyngula::Science is not a tolerant mistress: "That the earth is old, that evolution occurred and is occurring, that we are all descended from common ancestors, and that dinosaurs existed are all simple, indisputable facts, no matter how uncomfortable they seem to make some people."

He responds to the shitstorm it created.

Lean Left >> The Gander Declines to Say What's Good For the Goose: "Asking that question was, in fact, a brilliant piece of lawyering. Scalia's refusal to engage the issue demonstrates the bankruptcy of his attempts to put his personal phobias on a rational footing - while his claim of privileged stature as immunity from any social opprobrium attached (by him!) to 'sodomy' underscores the basic inequity at the heart of these laws. I'd say it's Scalia who has - and continues to - embarrass himself on this issue. If he doesn't like having his inconsistencies brought to light, perhaps he should stop committing them."

Josh Baltzell sums up why allowing her to die was the right thing to do and should leave clear the consciences of those who supported Michael Schaivo over her parents.
The mandatory Terri Schiavo blog post

What this guy says.
The Abstract Factory: In which Jonah Goldberg performs feats that bend the laws of space and time: "Goldberg's function is not to say things that are true, nor is his function to present a reasoned argument. Goldberg's function is to spew forth some roughly grammatical stream of words that appear to reinforce conservatarian ideology, so that his readers can listen, nod, and feel vindicated in their beliefs.

And --- this is what's really maddening, all the outrages I've brought up wouldn't matter in the least except for this point --- virtually all right-leaning commentators, running the gamut from David Brooks to Rush Limbaugh to Glenn Reynolds, whether consciously or not, perform roughly the same function, and they're wildly effective. The entire right-wing movement is like a hovercraft floating on the perpetually roaring whirlwind of sub-rational, self-reinforcing nonsense that gusts through the minds of its adherents. It goes on and on and on, and nobody stops the people who feed it; most of the time, nobody with a prominent voice even stands up to them and calls them on their nonsense. For writing this column, and numerous other pieces of garbage like it, for filling people's minds with offal, Jonah Goldberg will never face judgment; he'll die peacefully, with a fat bank account and a kid gloves obituary."