Posts by Hines Brian

Over on my Church of the Churchless weblog I wrote yesterday about how religion is bad for societal health. In this post I discussed a study which found that religious democracies exhibited substantially higher degrees of social dysfunction than societies with larger percentages of atheists and agnostics. A Los Angeles Times editorial called this “The dark side of faith.” We’re seeing that side much more clearly now in the United States. The forces of darkness, masquerading as fundamentalist Christianity, are trying to get us to deny realities revealed by science, treat homosexuals as second-class citizens, get government involved in private…

In 1788 Alexander Hamilton foresaw the danger that a President might try to nominate someone like Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court. That is, someone who came from the President’s state, who was personally allied to him, who was so pliable as to be the “obsequious instrument of his pleasure” (dear God, please send me such a woman; who knew the Federalist Papers had such an erotic ring?). Hamilton thought that a President would be ashamed to do this. As Bush should be. Here’s an excerpt from the History News Network’s instructive article, “What Did the Federalist Papers Say About…

Ah, I’ve never used “duplicitousness” in a blog post, but I couldn’t resist. There just wasn’t another alliterative "d" word that I could put after “DeLay’s.” For yesterday I saw Tom DeLay interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on CNN. Now, I’m sure DeLay has some good qualities. He probably is kind to pets and loving toward his wife and children. I do my best to look upon him as a human being, flawed though he is (as are we all). Yet when he settled into his cocky, smirking, can’t-touch-me interview demeanor, I instantly loathed him. And what I heard next didn’t…

A picture is worth a thousand denying words. For several hours Fox News has been showing photos of a major breach in a New Orleans levee. Just now I watched a live news conference featuring an Army Corps of Engineers spokesman. Fox’s split screen had him on the left, with a televised image of water rushing through an obvious breach on the right. Here’s the interchange between he and a reporter: Brigadier General William Grisoli: What’s happening in the Industrial Canal is that we were able to repair in three weeks up to about a seven-foot level. We knew that…

Be a patriot. Be unselfish. Be strong. Don’t top off your car’s gas tank because you’ve heard that Hurricane Rita could bring us $5 gas and lines around the block. Panic and a “I’ve got to get mine” mentality is just going to make the gasoline situation a lot worse. Fill up when you usually do, not before. I wait until my tank is two-thirds to three-fourths empty. Please do the same. Stifle the urge to horde gas by rushing out to fill up. If everyone does this, a lot of the nation’s gasoline is going to be sloshing around…

After writing “Now is the time for finger-pointing” I’ve heard from some people who questioned the appropriateness of bashing the Bush administration for bungling Hurricane Katrina relief efforts. Here’s my considered thoughtful response: Hell, yes, it is appropriate. Let me explain. I agree with those commenters that I’ve been focused much more on pointing out the failings of the federal response in general, and of FEMA’s response in particular, than with supporting the relief efforts. Yet personally, we’ve contributed $400 to those efforts, $300 of which has gone to animal rescue organizations. So we’ve been putting our checkbook where my…