We’re accustomed to the discourse of democracy with the primaries, but the truth is that this really isn’t popular democracy. They are party contests that have acquired a patina of democracy, in that they are competitive elections. But they do…
Monthly Archives: April 2016
Dan Scotto: The Republican Nomination and the Language of Popular Democracy – Ordinary Times
Posted in Noted & Quoted, Politics
Sean Trende: Your Republican Nominee Straight Outta Compton – RCP
Trump’s worst-case scenario probably leaves him with around 1,158 pledged delegates (assuming Kasich stays in), while his best-case scenario probably leaves him with 1,283. We also don’t know what the 130 or so unbound delegates will do; at least some…
Posted in Noted & Quoted, Politics
Hubble captures birthday bubble – Deepstuff
This year’s anniversary object is the Bubble Nebula, also known as NGC 7635, which lies 8 000 light-years away in the constellation Cassiopeia. This object was first discovered by William Herschel in 1787 and this is not the first time…
Posted in Noted & Quoted, Science
Philip Gordon: Obama Should Have Bombed Assad… – The Atlantic
Goldberg: But you still believe a limited strike would have been the right thing to do? Gordon: I believed it, and I said so at the time. And this is what I thought the president thought as well. The president…
Tevi Troy: How GOP Intellectuals’ Feud With the Base Is Remaking U.S. Politics – POLITICO
[T]he rapprochement scenario is unlikely, especially since the GOP intellectuals are disconnected not only from Trump, but also from a significant portion of the GOP voter base. Some think tankers have spoken “reform conservatism”—a new mix of issues designed to…
Posted in Noted & Quoted, Politics
David Frum: Hillary Clinton’s Polarizing Path to Victory and the Republican Party – The Atlantic
Some will outright deny the legitimacy of the Democratic win; all will expect it to be a briefly passing thing to be resisted at all costs until normal politics reasserts itself. While the same people who wrote the “party autopsy”…
Posted in Noted & Quoted, Politics
Jan-Werner Müller: Behind the New German Right – The New York Review of Books
Here is where German intellectuals come into the story. Journalists and academics have had a hard time understanding why the Pegida movement emerged when it did and why it has attracted so many people in Germany; there are branches of…
Posted in Noted & Quoted, Political Philosophy
Matthew Dallek: In defense of the unfair, messy presidential nomination process – The Washington Post
Yes, just because this system is an improvement over the past doesn’t mean it couldn’t bear further reform. But any changes should at least start with the acknowledgement that, for both parties, there’s no such thing as a purely democratic…
Posted in Noted & Quoted, Politics
Lee Smith: A World Unmoored – The Weekly Standard
The purpose of America’s post-WWII foreign policy was to clarify a complicated and often dangerous world for the leaders of a large republic responsible for the life, liberty, and prosperity of its citizens by ensuring a degree of stability abroad.…
New Evidence Points to Personal Brain Signatures – Scientific American
…[I]n a major development within the field researchers have begun documenting how brain activity differs between individuals. Such differences had been largely thought of as transient and uninteresting but studies are starting to show that they are innate properties of…
Posted in Noted & Quoted, Science