Ben Shepard

It's time for some good news about architecture. No more sinkholes or collapsing bridges. It turns out that conservative ideology is good for one, very specific kind of public construction. See if you can guess. The answer comes after the break.

You probably heard that Jesse Helms died last week. But, unless you're knee-deep in the Big Con, you probably haven't experienced Helms-Revisionism.

Pop quiz: Who is Steve Preston?

It's fine if you've failed the quiz. Here's a primer.

When dealing with the Big Con, a little Latin goes a long way. Here's a useful phrase: cum hoc ergo propter hoc. It means, roughly, "with this, therefore because of it." Because two things happened at the same time, one must have caused another: correlation implies causation. It's a fallacy. Just because literacy and atmospheric sulfur dioxide increased at the same time, it doesn't mean that literacy caused air pollution. A recent editorial in Barron's offers a good example of the Conservative (mis)use of "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" arguments..

As you've probably read, Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. But you probably haven't read the responses to the news on right-wing forums and comment pages.

Imagine America's national morality as infrastructure. Bridges let us walk over rivers; norms let us live without hurting or annoying others. Most of this 'infrastructure' is invisible and implicit. No rule prevents you from cutting in line; you just don't do it. But some norms need to be enforced by the state. It turns out that the right has just as much respect for our moral infrastructure as it does for the physical one.

I bet you didn't know that many of the Founding Fathers were devout evangelical Christians. You probably didn't even realize that James Madison believed that American polis was grounded in the Ten Commandments. You just haven't been paying enough attention to David Barton.

The Republican War on Science has a new weapon: God. A cabal of conservative evangelical institutions have teamed up to produce the "We Get It" declaration — a manifesto for divinely-inspired Global Warming denial. Check out the declaration itself below the break.

It's time for some good news about architecture. No more sinkholes or collapsing bridges. It turns out that conservative ideology is good for one, very specific kind of public construction. See if you can guess. The answer comes after the break.

You probably heard that Jesse Helms died last week. But, unless you're knee-deep in the Big Con, you probably haven't experienced Helms-Revisionism.

Pop quiz: Who is Steve Preston?

It's fine if you've failed the quiz. Here's a primer.

When dealing with the Big Con, a little Latin goes a long way. Here's a useful phrase: cum hoc ergo propter hoc. It means, roughly, "with this, therefore because of it." Because two things happened at the same time, one must have caused another: correlation implies causation. It's a fallacy. Just because literacy and atmospheric sulfur dioxide increased at the same time, it doesn't mean that literacy caused air pollution. A recent editorial in Barron's offers a good example of the Conservative (mis)use of "cum hoc ergo propter hoc" arguments..

As you've probably read, Ted Kennedy was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. But you probably haven't read the responses to the news on right-wing forums and comment pages.

Imagine America's national morality as infrastructure. Bridges let us walk over rivers; norms let us live without hurting or annoying others. Most of this 'infrastructure' is invisible and implicit. No rule prevents you from cutting in line; you just don't do it. But some norms need to be enforced by the state. It turns out that the right has just as much respect for our moral infrastructure as it does for the physical one.

I bet you didn't know that many of the Founding Fathers were devout evangelical Christians. You probably didn't even realize that James Madison believed that American polis was grounded in the Ten Commandments. You just haven't been paying enough attention to David Barton.

The Republican War on Science has a new weapon: God. A cabal of conservative evangelical institutions have teamed up to produce the "We Get It" declaration — a manifesto for divinely-inspired Global Warming denial. Check out the declaration itself below the break.