kevinjjones's profile

Online nowKevinjjones: Kevin is a 28 year old single guy from Arvada, Colorado, USA.; Likes 1,051 pages, 22 videos, 2 photos • 36 fans • Received 5 reviews; Member since Oct 17, 2006

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The Swamp: Obama unstained by Chicago Way: May 11, 10:39am 1 review politics
http://weblogs.chicagotribune.com/news/politics/blog/2008/05/obama_unstained_...; From the page: "Will Barack Obama's presidential candidacy serve his state and city by finally drawing national attention to the sleazy and corrupt politics of Illinois and Chicago?

Obama is a South Sider and does not hail from Camelot or Mt. Olympus or the lush forests of mythical Narnia.

I've joked that reporters feel compelled to hug him, in their copy, as if he were the cuddly faun, the Mr. Tumnus of American politics. But I was only kidding. The real Mr. Tumnus never had Billy Daley or Ted Kennedy carving up Cabinet appointments. "

Terrorist Triage | Print Article | Newsweek.com: May 8, 12:55am 6 reviews politics
http://www.newsweek.com/id/135654/output/print; Remember, 9/11 terrorists used $100 worth of boxcutters as their only weapons. It's a long way from that to nukes.

From the page: ""I reject the notion that Al Qaeda is waiting for 'the big one' or holding back an attack," Sheehan writes. "A terrorist cell capable of attacking doesn't sit and wait for some more opportune moment. It's not their style, nor is it in the best interest of their operational security. Delaying an attack gives law enforcement more time to detect a plot or penetrate the organization."

Terrorism is not about standing armies, mass movements, riots in the streets or even palace coups. It's about tiny groups that want to make a big bang."

sp!ked review of books | The cultural contradictions of consumerism: May 7, 11:27am 2 reviews books, social-criticism
http://www.spiked-online.com/index.php?/site/reviewofbooks_article/5026/; From the Page: Similarly, Barber says that we need to become civic `gatekeepers', protecting children from the video games and junk food that would corrupt them. For him, a civic mission lies primarily in controlling people's access to the unwholesome aspects of the market. This is a public ethic that is not the transcendence of individual self-interest and desire, but merely its negation.

It is part of the postmodern condition, perhaps, that all the ideas of the past can be conjured up again, to sit alongside one another. Ideas that were dealt a deathblow 100 years ago or more now return as ghosts, called back not by their own virtues but by the ideological lack in the present

Perhaps the biggest trouble with consumption is that we really are consumed by it - we can't see beyond it, but can only push it away in disgust.

SHAKSPER 2001: Re: Age of Consent: May 6, 7:44pm 1 review sociology, shakespeare
http://www.shaksper.net/archives/2001/2276.html; Useful discussion of much-misunderstood average age of 1st marriage in pre-modern era. From the page: "> > the average age of marriage was about 25 for women, 27 for men"

Welchs: May 5, 11:22am 1 review christianity, american-history
http://www.ohiosbdc-ysu.com/Location/Guide/Oscar_Mayer/Wrigley/Welch_s/welch_...; The teetotalist roots of Welch's Grape Juice. From the page: "Thomas B. Welch, M.D., the founder of Welch Grape Juice Company, was born in England in 1825. A devout Christian and staunch prohibitionist, Dr. Thomas B. Welch did not like wine being used in his church's communion service. In 1869 he decided to try developing a non-alcoholic substitution."

Catholic Rights Talk & Vox Nova: May 5, 10:17am 1 review catholic, political-science, social-criticism
http://vox-nova.com/2008/05/05/catholic-rights-talk/; From the page: "Yet despite the common vocabulary, I would argue that the concept of rights use in Catholic Social Thought is quite different from the concept of rights current in much of American political thinking."

Deroy Murdock on Federal Ethanol Program on National Review Online: May 4, 12:56am 1 review environment, politics
http://article.nationalreview.com/print?q=OTBiOTY2ZTAyMWQwYTJkMDIwMmFiZGY4YzA...; From the page: "�oethe result of these mandates is that about 100 million tons of grain will be transformed this year into fuel, drawing down global grain stocks to their lowest levels in decades. Keep in mind that 100 million tons of grain is enough to feed nearly 450 million people for a year” �" assuming 1.2 pounds of grain each, daily."

FIRST THINGS: On the Square & Blog Archive & The Role of the Priest in Public…: May 2, 10:20am 1 review catholic
http://www.firstthings.com/onthesquare?p=1058; From the page: "We�ve been deeply naive about the congeniality of American culture toward Catholic belief"

The American Conservative & No Sizzle In Contractor Abuse Stories: May 1, 3:20pm 2 reviews iraq
http://www.amconmag.com/blog/2008/04/29/no-sizzle-in-contractor-abuse-stories/; From the page: "Sen. Byron Dorgan, chairman of the Democratic Policy Committee, heard from former Kellogg, Brown and Root employees about widespread contracting abuses in Iraq. The committee heard from two people who I�m sure White House supporters would deem �oeunpatriotic” for coming forward, but they sounded anything but. And what they had to say was disturbing.

Linda Warren, a 50-year-old Marine Corps veteran with three sons in the military, worked for KBR (then under Halliburton) in 2004. She was threatened with bodily harm, and then later fired, for speaking out about the abuses she saw. She testified before the committee yesterday:"

When a chimp is more than just a chimp & Upturned Earth || John Schwenkler: May 1, 2:29pm 1 review ethics, bioethics
http://johnschwenkler.wordpress.com/2008/05/01/when-a-chimp-is-more-than-just...; From the page: "The idea that mere �oesqueamishness and unease” can�t provide sufficient justification for an ethical objection - as opposed, say, to the much more reasonable one that we ought to be careful, and sufficiently self-critical, when we ground our ethics in this sort of way - is spectacularly implausible, and it�s a paradigmatic instance of the kind of hyper-rationalistic thinking that we - philosophers, scientists, politicians, everyone - need to work to get beyond."

"And while I don't mean to minimize the seriousness of the problems that arise when disagreement is present, the fact is that in this particular situation there's just about no one, except for the scientists who stand to profit from it and of course the libertarians, who actually thinks that the creation of humanzees would be a good thing."

"it's a mistake to think that the right way to mitigate these problems is to turn to a philosopher, as opposed to a person or group of persons with an ordinary, uncorrupted moral sensibility, to determine whether the course of action in question is right or wrong. Even where "principles" are lacking, moral unease can do just fine."

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