The League of Ordinary Gentlemen

Summer Movies

by Mike Dwyer May 10, 2012

The kids and I went to see The Avengers last night. This was the official beginning of the summer movie season for us. The movie itself was a perfect start. It was big. It was loud. It was fun and it had a happy ending.

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Lugar and Mourdock

by Guest Authors May 10, 2012

~by Sam Wilkinson This was the quote that got me: “If the GOP is going to win elections, it’s going to win them fair and square with real Republicans, not fake ones.” That’s from (the apparently controversial) Tom Van Dyke. referring to Senator Richard Lugar’s loss in Indiana’s Republican primary. Lugar was beaten soundly by Richard Mourdock, a Tea Party favorite who is far more conservative than Lugar. This thrills Van Dyke, as Mourdock is the “real Republican” in the ...

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It’s Time to Do This Thing

by Tod Kelly May 10, 2012

And now finally, after so many years, maybe we can finally just have it out. For the past decade, the professional right has succeeded in the neat parlor trick of stoking anti-gay sentiment to turn out votes and wallets while simultaneously handing their prejudiced flock focus-group tested soundbites that allow them to hide their bigotry under the bushel of religious tolerance. “It’s not about gay people,” I’ve been told over and over. “It’s about religious freedom. It’s about the sanctity ...

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The Knock Down, Part 2

by David Ryan May 9, 2012

The Knock Down, Part 1 ended here: “Is everyone sure their okay? Sometimes you don’t notice at first that you’ve fallen or banged yourself, or been cut.” She looks up at me. The left side of her face is distended by swelling. “I think I’m having an allergic reaction,” she says. Here’s what I didn’t know. During our gentle scoon across the lake, my guests had been fooling with their phone. I had presumed they were texting friends about how ...

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A Song for Tom

by David Ryan May 9, 2012

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Just Because She Has Crazy Eyes Doesn’t Mean She’s A Traitor

by Ryan Noonan May 9, 2012

Setting aside some of the obnoxious partisan rhetoric (seriously, how is it the left’s fault that Michele Bachmann has dual citizenship?), this post by Mark Krikorian at NRO has some interesting nuggets buried within. First, and maybe less interesting, this is what happens when our news cycle becomes politics 24/7. We become incapable of seeing the world as anything other than a game of tribes and loyalty. Everything you do becomes about which team you’re on, who you’re pledging allegiance ...

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It’s About Time

by Burt Likko May 9, 2012

Fellow Ordinary Gentleman Elias’ earlier erudite essay has indeed been OBE, exactly as he predicted. In the linked video, the President describes undertaking a personal journey of opinion not unlike mine, which was one of thinking of that civil unions were just as good to realizing that indeed they were not, that nomenclature and the social prestige associated with the word marriage matters. And it’s pleasing to see the President finally modifying his position to one which conforms more closely to my ...

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On The Origin Of Barack Obama And Same-Sex Marriage

by Elias Isquith May 9, 2012

Update: Well, consider this post as something of an explanation for this. [Note: There's a chance that this post is imminently going to become OBE, but what the Hell…] I don’t think anyone in their right mind who has paid any attention to his career believes that the President is opposed to same-sex marriage (SSM). His famous claim to be “evolving” on the issue has been rightly and thoroughly mocked by both the Left and the Right, both for its cravenness ...

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Big Time Democratic Donors To Get Out Their Wallets

by Elias Isquith May 9, 2012

Everyone knows that an unfathomably large sum of money will be spent this year in service of either Obama or Romney. Romney’s official campaign has raised just shy of $100 million, and he’s got about 10% of that still on-hand. Obama’s raised a whopping $191 million thus far, of which he’s spent about $90 million. But, of course, the reason there’s been so much focus on spending for 2012 has little to do with the campaign fundraising apparatuses, proper. Citizens ...

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Sounds of the City

by Patrick Cahalan May 9, 2012

Right now as I start this post, out on the street, the same somebody who comes by once a week is creating the clink-clink noise of bottles being sorted out of the neighborhood recycle bins. They go back in. The cans net $1.57 a lb at one local recycling center, the bottles are under $0.10 a lb. You have to be careful sorting out the bottles to get at the cans, or the people that own the house get angry ...

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Another Country Club Republican Bites the Dust

by Tom Van Dyke May 8, 2012

This time it’s Sen. Dick Lugar [R-IN] getting the Tea Party ax in the primary. Dick Lugar is the type of Republican who Democrats love although seldom actually vote for. If you’ve got a spending bill, cut it by 5% and you have Dick Lugar’s vote. He’s a “moderate,” you see. Want to blame Republicans for spending like drunken Kennedys during the GWB era? Dick Lugar’s your man, what was wrong with the GOP, except he’s a “moderate,” so he ...

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The Knock Down, Part 1

by David Ryan May 8, 2012

“You can’t throw bull with the ocean, she won’t listen.” — Harold H. “Dynamite” Payson A couple, my nearly my age. He’s brought his Georgia peach of a wife back to Long Island for his 20th high school reunion, and to show her where he grew up. It’s mid-week, early Summer. They’re getting a private sunset charter for the walk-on price, but I don’t mind. It’s a beautiful evening, and I’m going to make about $100 to go sailing for ...

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How The Avengers Succeeds

by Ethan Gach May 8, 2012

“They’re a mash-up; they’re insane,” Whedon says. “But the beauty of that is as exciting as the problem of that is daunting.” Marvel’s The Avengers is an impressive monster. A juggernaut at the box office, Joss Whedon’s film smashed the competition in Hulk fashion garnering a cool $38 million more in its opening weekend than its nearest rival: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. However, it does seem like these records are being surpassed all the time now. Indeed, ...

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Joe Biden Says Innocuous Thing, Rightwing Media Flips Out

by Elias Isquith May 8, 2012

Oh, Lord, steel me for the next 6 months. Here’s what Vice President Biden said today to a bunch of Rabbis, defending the Obama Administration’s efforts to cease Tehran’s alleged march toward building a nuclear weapon… [Continued at Jubilee]

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A Mentsch Trakht, un Got Lakht

by J.L. Wall May 8, 2012

I was as surprised as anyone to wake up this morning and discover that Kadima had agreed to enter Netanyahu’s governing coalition. This, in case you missed it, broadens its reach to 94 of the Knesset’s 120 legislators. This certainly does not signal Bibi’s transformation into Nixon-in-China, but it is cause for a moment’s sighing in relief, if not quite celebration. Shortly after Kadima failed to form a government following* the last Israeli elections, there were, it seemed, three scenarios ...

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The Real Debate Over What Is To Be Done

by Elias Isquith May 7, 2012

Ed Kilgore makes an argument I haven’t heard before, one in service of swatting down some liberal convention wisdom. And, in a roundabout way, his post helps explain why I write so much more about the Left than I do the Right. Kilgore’s target on this one is the oft-repeated truism that as the Republican Party has moved to the right, it’s dragged the center — and Democrats — along with it. Usually you hear this in the context of ...

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Over!

by Patrick Cahalan May 7, 2012

Cross-posted at Mindless Diversions. Since Jaybird is busy bailing out the basement, I thought I’d throw together something just to provide our breathless readership with something to read on Monday, other than a post about how the guy who does all the heavy lifting around here isn’t lifting today. No games today, but it definitely qualifies as a nerd hobby. My vanity call sign came through this weekend. I’m officially Whiskey Niner Papa Sierra Charlie (W9PSC) in the FCC database. ...

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Jurisprudence Blogging 3: Dworkin

by Murali May 6, 2012

In my previous post (which few people responded to*) I described Hart’s theory of law, gave some criticisms and gave my own take on things, which all things considered is still a legal positivist account of law. From this post on, I will be discussing Natural Law theories. As somewhat of a legal positivist, I will try to give criticisms of these theories where appropriate and try to show either where they go wrong or where, even if accurate, they fail ...

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A Capitalist’s Love Ballad to Bankruptcy

by Tod Kelly May 6, 2012

In Burt’s recent FP post, he takes a hypothetical bankruptcy scenario posed by Randy Harris and teases out the personal and professional ethics of the fictional players. If you haven’t read it yet, you should do so now. Burt’s unerring ability to keep separate the strands of morality, professional ethics, and his knowledge of the law while still weaving them into a whole fabric is one of the great delights of his writing, and he does not disappoint with this ...

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Basketball Bet: Bad Bankruptcy Barrister

by Burt Likko May 5, 2012

Randy Harris won our NCAA pool this year and has selected me to write an article in response to this hypothetical, which I present here with minor editorial changes from what Randy sent me: Audrey was an employee at Major Health Insurer (MHI), through which she had health insurance coverage. She was a single parent with a troubled teenaged son. She checked her son into Calming Meadows Psychiatric Hospital. When MHI processed the insurance claim, they sent a $35,000 benefit check ...

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Can a small target be easier to hit?

by James K May 5, 2012

One of the occasional frustrations of debating policy is that it can be difficult to convey your views concisely and precisely. In the case of libertarianism one difficulty is defining exactly what you mean by “size of government”. After all government is not some 1-dimensional continuum you can just slide up or down, every specific policy is different from every other and sometimes it’s not even clear whether a policy would increase or decrease government, since it depends on what ...

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