Category Archives: conservatives

Superficial Christianity on Full Display

Posted on Monday 18 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Things said at last weekend’s prayer rally, and how they strike me as unhinged from reality; Heather Cox Richardson’s take: a turning away from “Enlightenment values of natural rights, equality, and self-government to one that requires Americans to accept that … Continue reading →

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Categories, Scales, a Public Health Triumph, and How the So-Called Experts Have Been Right

Posted on Wednesday 13 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Conservatives like categories, especially binary ones: two examples. Including the claim that what makes a man gay is liberalism; NYT updates its Autocracy Index, 12 markers of democratic erosion; Conservative panic over falling reproduction rates seen instead as a public … Continue reading →

Posted in conservatives, Politics, Psychology, Science | Leave a comment

Recalling American Life Before Vaccines, Including My Own

Posted on Monday 11 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

A remembrance of America before vaccines; How the DOGE-ing of the Humanities is being reversed, fortunately; Briefly noted: Trump’s intuitive thinking is wrong about vaccines and autism; a Republican who thinks racial discrimination is a thing of the past, as … Continue reading →

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Cooperation Is the Key to Human Advancement

Posted on Sunday 10 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

A counterpoint to zero-sum thinking from Japan, and cooperation; Tennessee shows how to rig an election; Short items on Trump, the Pope, and the Bible; now RFK Jr. is worried about jello; how a Christian conspiracy theorist now admits to … Continue reading →

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Neil deGrasse Tyson, Paul Krugman, Jesse Bering

Posted on Wednesday 6 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

Neil deGrasse Tyson on aliens, and his new book; Paul Krugman explains how MAGA will kill many Americans; Jesse Bering on karma; And short items about Trump’s health, aliens, the ballroom, the upcoming cage match, and “low T”. – – … Continue reading →

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Dealing with Inevitable Change

Posted on Tuesday 5 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

How to deal with long-term population decline; Astrology, sigh; A Christian phone network to block reality; Long essay about how Paul, not Jesus, founded Christianity, as many of us already understand; Short items about Republican censorship, lies, the tests for … Continue reading →

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What Education Is For; the End of Rational Discourse

Posted on Sunday 3 May 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

The obvious reason conservatives are under-represented in universities; Adam Kirsch on Jürgen Habermas and the weightlessness of online existence; Conservatives’ double standard on speech about Trump and speech about everyone else; Short items on the popularity of “true-crime,” how Trump’s … Continue reading →

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The Law vs. Tribal Priorities

Posted on Thursday 30 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

The Supremes eviscerate the Voting Rights Act, and the partisan flexibility of the law; King Charles visits while Trump claims America is not an idea but an inherited Anglo-Saxon culture; Heather Cox Richardson on the same point; Brief items about … Continue reading →

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Dead Scientists, Fine-Tuning, and the Vacuum of Space

Posted on Wednesday 29 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

PolitiFact on the mystery of the missing scientists; AMV on the fine-tuning argument and the limitations of academic credentials; Idiotic arguments from Facebook folks who think the Artemis mission was faked. – – – A couple follow-up items today. This … Continue reading →

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The Origins of Conservative Values

Posted on Monday 20 April 2026 by Mark R. Kelly

MAGA wants more teen births (!), with reflection on why most human societies postpone children until adulthood; How Red State restrictions against abortion only stopped the lifesaving ones; Two items about Pete Hegseth and his Christian Nationalist leader, and guns. … Continue reading →

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