Keith Burgess-Jackson

If you’re at home right now, find the Discovery Home Channel on your television and watch Holmes on Homes. I love that show.

Pat Buchanan tells some hard truths about John McCain. I hope Ralph Nader runs for president again, because if he doesn’t, I won’t have anyone to vote for.

Here is Peggy Noonan’s latest column. Here is Peg Kaplan’s latest post.

Hey Keith,

I found this article to be a good read. You might too. I’d be interested to see what you think. Enjoy.

Armin

Note from KBJ: Thanks, Armin. I enjoyed reading it. It’s an empirical question whether theists are more violent than atheists. Richard Dawkins et al. are simply guessing when they say (or imply) that theists are more violent. If I had to bet my life on it, I’d wager that atheists are more violent.

Here.

What is the problem here? If Congress doesn’t like the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the statute, it can amend it.

In modern ethical treatises we find hardly any mention of God; and the idea that if there really is a God, his commandments might be morally relevant is wont to be dismissed by a short and simple argument that is generally regarded as irrefutable. ‘If what God commands is not right, then the fact of his commanding it is no moral reason for obedience, though it may in that case be dangerous to disobey. And if what God commands is right, even so it is not God’s commanding it that makes it right; on the contrary, God as a moral being would command only what was right apart from his commanding it. So God has no essential place in the foundations of morals.’

The use of this argument is not confined to a recent or narrowly local school of philosophers; it was used by the British Idealists when they dominated British philosophy, and . . . it was used much earlier than that. Nor is its use confined to people who do not believe in God; on one occasion when I attacked the argument, my chief opponents were not atheists but professing Christians. This is not surprising; for the argument was used by Christians of an earlier generation, the Cambridge Platonists, as a stick to beat that dreadful man Hobbes with. . . . And they in turn got the argument from Plato’s Euthyphro.

(Peter Geach, “The Moral Law and the Law of God,” chap. 5 in Absolutism and Its Consequentialist Critics, ed. Joram Graf Haber [Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 1994], 63-72, at 63 [italics in original; ellipses added] [essay first published in 1969])

I’ve been watching the Tour of California with rapt attention the past few days (on Versus). Yesterday’s stage was brutal. The riders covered 134.8 miles along the coast in cold, rainy, windy weather. The winner, Canadian Dominique Rollin, finished in just under seven hours, at an average speed of 19.44 miles per hour. I felt sorry for the riders. It’s one thing to ride in conditions like that for two hours, but seven? Here is a scene from the stage.

I got a telephone call from Barack Obama this morning. He wants me to vote for him on 4 March. Should I?

Here.

To the Editor:

I am a liberal Democrat. I admire Barack Obama and have been rooting for him to get the Democratic nomination. I’ve also been a longtime admirer of John McCain. I am truly undecided about whom to vote for in November.

I intend to use the next nine months to read everything I can, watch all the debates and talk to as many people as possible as I decide whom to back for president.

I want to learn about Senators Obama and McCain and their stand on domestic and international issues. I want to see their concrete plans, not hear pretty rhetoric. I want a campaign of ideas based on a shared love of this country and a desire to see it move forward.

Both Senators McCain and Obama are worthy candidates. I honestly do not care if Mr. McCain had a romantic relationship eight years ago with someone other than his wife, nor do I care about Senator Obama’s personal life. These issues are between them, their families and their God.

Michael A. Ginsberg
Philadelphia, Feb. 21, 2008

Note from KBJ: Inquiring minds want to know.

John Hawkins of Right Wing News polled conservative bloggers. Here are my answers to his questions:

1. No
2. Yes
3. No
4. Yes
5. No
6. No
7. Yes
8. Yes
9. 4

You?