I’m nowhere near at Joe’s level when it comes to linking, but here are a few good things I’ve stumbled across today.
The New Republic has a great article on how Israel’s efforts to preserve the safety of journalists let baseless rumors of a massacre in Jenin spread out of control–and the lessons they’ve learned in the aftermath.
An excellent overview of the Jewish perspective on abortion, which does not fit neatly inside either the pro-life or pro-choice camps.
Eugene Volokh defends the ACLU, then defends his defense—twice.
Commenting on John Roberts’ aid for gay rights activists in the Romer v. Evans case (the first major judicial victory for gay rights activists in modern times), Hillel Levin succintly and accurately writes: “I wouldn’t make much more of the story…other than to say that it speaks well of him as an advocate and suggests that he is a person of principle. That’s the most that can be said; and it is good enough.”
…But if brevity isn’t your thing, both Althouse and Jim Lindgren have more. Lindgren closes with this observation:
This is another example that very well educated conservatives rarely fit the public stereotypes assigned to them. While very high educations tend to make liberals more consistently liberal, very high educations tend to make conservatives less consistently conservative (and thus less extreme) on social issues. For this reason, those presidential nominees targeted as “outside the mainstream” are very probably not extreme at all. While they would be likely to be conservative on some issues, on some other issues they would be likely to take the liberal side of things.
This is a bit like highly educated bloggers: while supposedly “conservative” bloggers might support Bush’s court nomineees and the War on Terror, such “conservatives” often take the liberal side on some issues, such as perhaps abortion rights, gay rights, assisted suicide, and stem-cell research, and they might also believe in evolution, oppose mandatory school prayer, or favor the right to burn flags. Such a diversity of views among the highly educated left is much more rare.
I leave it to the readers to a) comment on the factual accuracy of Lindgren’s position and b) deduce whether this means that certain conservative positions are only held by idiots, or that conservatives thoughtfully consider opposing views whereas liberals bleat “diversity” in unison (Armchair Capitalists has already begun).
Pseudo-Polymath wants suggestions regarding political science books for her daughter (for reference, she’s 10 but has read Odyssey).
Marty Lederman argues that the Bolton recess appointment was unconstitutional. For a position I thought was open/shut the other way, he makes a good argument.
Dan Drezner marvels at how the world responds to coups nowadays.
Alan Stewart Carl is leaving D.C.. We’ll miss you! I personally live in Bethesda, a suburb, which may have something to do with why I take a brighter view of my home metropolis than he does. Of course, it also might be because I’m a Democrat.
And that’s it! Everything else blogged on today is worthless. You can skip it.