Keith Burgess-Jackson

[S]cience has been able to explain observable phenomena (e.g. lines in photographs of cloud chambers) in terms of unobservable causes (the movements of such fundamental particles as electrons, protons, and positrons). The science of the last two centuries has told us of fields and forces and strange entities such as quarks and gluons underlying and causing observable phenomena. The grounds for believing the claims of science here are that science postulates entities in some respects simple, whose interactions lead us to expect the observable phenomena. Granted that the scientist has given good reason for believing in the existence of the entities which he postulates, there is no reason in principle to suppose that knowledge cannot advance so far as to explain the whole physical world, observable and unobservable, e.g. in terms of the action of a Creator God.

(Richard Swinburne, Faith and Reason [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981], 83 [footnote omitted])

Here is a fascinating story about Russia, the people of which prefer security to liberty. They deserve to be ruled with an iron fist.

Here is a New York Times story about Hillary Clinton. By the way, is anyone besides me surprised that Howard Dean isn’t running for president? I hardly hear a peep from him. The man has at least as much ambition as anyone else who’s running, and he did well (until this speech) during the 2004 campaign. You would think that his anti-war position would resonate with progressives.

Addendum: Did you notice the subtext of the Times story? Hillary is a male-basher. When she speaks to women, the message she conveys to them is that men are bullheaded and difficult. There’s the wink, the nod, the knowing smile. “I’m one of you,” she seems to be saying. “As president, I will put your interests first.” Perhaps she’s counting on men not picking up on the male-bashing, male-belittling subtext. If so, she’s in for a rude surprise come 2008.

Here is Joshua Muravchik’s review of a new book on human rights.

And now you know why journalists have lost authority. There are three possibilities. Either (1) Keith’s Law is false (i.e., not really a law); (2) Keith’s Law is true, journalists know it’s true, but they prefer being partisans to being authoritative; or (3) Keith’s Law is true but journalists are too stupid to realize it. Which do you think is the case?

Here.

To the Editor:

Re “Bring Back the Politics of Personal Destruction,” by Frank Rich (column, March 4):

I would depart a little from Mr. Rich’s theme that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton failed in her judgment about the war. I think she failed most of all in her judgment about the Bush administration.

She has said that she took the president at his word and that her vote was not a vote to go to war, per se. I would say that if she did not see that the Bush administration was intent on going to war, then her judgment did in fact fail her in a very big way.

If she was conned to this extent by this president, I don’t want her negotiating on behalf of the United States with world leaders who are considerably more cunning and crafty than George W. Bush, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

Joseph Turner
Portland, Ore., March 4, 2007

Note from KBJ: Shame on Senator Clinton for giving President Bush the benefit of the doubt! Doesn’t she realize that, as a progressive, she’s supposed to give him the detriment of the doubt?

Here.