She’s having server trouble, so you can temporarily find her at http://janegalt.wordpress.com/

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Yet one more object lesson in the perils of science writers mucking about in philosophy is this bizarre, muddled article about studies identifying the “spark of free will” in… fruit flies. This seemed implausible for a variety of reasons, and no less so upon closer reading. Scientists wanted to see how flies would respond to […]

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Ezra is shamefaced that the United States, alone in the industrialized world, has no legally mandated minimum vacation time or paid holidays. Which is why, as we all know, such things are wholly unknown to American workers.

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So, Chris Hitchens was just on Hannity and Colmes debating the legacy of Jerry Falwell with Ralph Reed and the hosts. Predictably, Reed and (especially) Hannity were not so much concerned with the substance of Hitchens’ scathing attack on the late rev than with its impropriety, its insensitivity to Falwell’s family and loved ones, and […]

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I’d meant to say something earlier about this odd article in the weekend’s New York Times about how some people generally supportive of abortion rights are voicing discomfort about the combination of abortion with genetic testing as a mechanism of filtering out fetuses with serious congenital defects or disabilities. But the article is awfully vague […]

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Given the amount of abuse that’s already been piled on Christina Hoff Summers’ Weekly Standard cover story on “ The Subjection of Islamic Women: And the fecklessness of American feminism.,” I’m sure someone has already done this. But since AEI conveniently lists scholar publications, I figured I’d go check out the many pieces Summers herself […]

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Mark Thoma has posted a imaginary dialog between a moderate pro-trade economist and a worker negatively affected by globalization. One segment of the exchange covers the familiar suggestion that, since trade creates more net winners than losers, it should be possible to compensate the losers with a portion of the winners’ gains—and equally familiar riposte […]

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My friend Todd Seavey, who recently launched his own blog, has a post up rehearsing some oldie-but-goodie atheist arguments, and while they’re all pretty familiar, something stuck me on this read-through about the phrasing, the specific assertion that belief without evidence (faith) is “irrational.” Maybe this sounds less than compelling to lots of people because, […]

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Before the somber beatification begins in earnest, let’s look back at some of the rev’s “greatest hits” as compiled by Voices of American Sexuality: * “AIDS is not just God’s punishment for homosexuals; it is God’s punishment for the society that tolerates homosexuals” * “It appears that America’s anti-Biblical feminist movement is at last dying, […]

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In response to last week’s gay-incest anti-pot ad, a friend reminds me of this classic PSA, which proves that drug warriors are becoming more savvy, overtly gearing their “Just Say No” messages to people who are already stoned out of their fucking gourds:

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