tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-62283272011-04-21T14:19:34.143-07:00A public development of my political and philosophical musings. Occasional thoughts on current events. Primarily for personal satisfaction.tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.comBlogger161100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1144952197067977432006-04-13T11:02:00.000-07:002006-04-20T12:17:03.026-07:00

There's a saying: nothing is more frustrating then seeing your own position argued poorly.I find liberals much more annoying then conservatives in part because I care about liberal issues. And it's my opinion that most self-proclaimed liberals don't. I think Progressives have to put "progressive" in their name because nobody would conclude it from their beliefs.BUT, today I read an essay that

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1084476144601277452004-05-13T12:15:00.000-07:002004-05-13T12:22:24.600-07:00

Media Stupidity and Bias If I want to be more like other bloggers, I have to spend some time reporting bias and stupidity in the media. So here's today's entry: The Independent has a story about the movie The Day After Tomorrow entitled "Ice age movie is realistic, says Britain's chief scientist" But what he actually said is that it is realistic in parts. And the part that isn't realistic? The

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1084469954753943372004-05-13T10:37:00.000-07:002006-04-14T14:21:17.740-07:00

The Abu Ghraib photos.I'm looking back on this much later and feel the need to point out, in case anybody looks at it, that this is an initial reaction to the first photos, before the full scale of abuse became known. I considered taking this post down as it appears to make light of what has turned out to be a serious violation, but decided not to. This post isn't really about the torture as a

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1084462490027547242004-05-13T08:28:00.000-07:002004-05-13T08:34:50.026-07:00

In an earlier post, I declared that I was changing English by adding non-gender specific third person singular pronouns because the contortions of good writers and silly cheats of bad writers to deal with this hole in our language have been annoying me for too long. But as I look back on the one post where I used the new words, I find them distracting and weird. So I’m backing down—the change

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1083974370605787022004-05-07T16:54:00.000-07:002004-05-07T17:06:59.670-07:00

So I'm just about done with lawschool. One more paper that I hope to have done by Sunday. I'm sitting in the library at 8:00 Friday night procrastinating. Then I'm done. Graduation May 23. I'm trying hard not to look past this paper, but it's getting harder all the time. It's a little scary. Law school has been my life for three years and all the other parts of me have rusted away. I recently

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1081983613598119032004-04-14T15:58:00.000-07:002004-04-23T11:40:54.170-07:00

One thing I’ve noticed in the 18 or 20 years I’ve been following politics is that people’s opinions about a particular politician have virtually nothing to do with that politician or hes policies. For instance, Bush strikes me as a fairly decent man and moderate president (a little incoherent, maybe, where he doesn't have something like a war on terror to focus him, but it's been a long time

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1081019454728925032004-04-03T11:10:00.000-08:002004-04-03T11:20:39.326-08:00

In this day and age, it’s ridiculous that there is no non-gender specific third-person singular. Grammatically, you use ‘he’ or ‘him’ when you don’t know or it is a generic person. But political correctness puts the kybosh on that. Careful writers avoid the situation, often by pluralizing the sentence and using “them” or “they.” Careless writers just use “they” or “them.” Writers with a tin ear

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1079993202579764062004-03-22T13:58:00.000-08:002004-03-22T14:11:51.640-08:00

Lately I’ve been in a battle with Eugene Volokh (well, I’ve been in a battle with him, he probably doesn’t know I’m alive) over the reach of gay rights. He’s generally supportive but, in my opinion, far too accommodating to those who are not supportive. For instance, a couple weeks ago, he argued that it is legitimate to oppose gay marriage because one man and one woman have the potential to be

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1078179379642473922004-03-01T14:13:00.000-08:002004-03-27T14:47:23.780-08:00

In my opening post, I confessed my status as an anarchist. This blog is in large part an effort to fully describe what I mean when I say that. I also claim that most people, choosing freely, would see anarchism as the best choice. Unfortunately, few choose freely. We are so manipulated when searching for answers to life’s various questions that we don’t even know what questions to ask. For

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1076634812163321212004-02-12T17:12:00.000-08:002004-02-12T17:19:49.043-08:00

My brother and I have been having a very mild back and forth over the years because I tend to vote for third-party losers and he votes for a Democratic candidate he may or may not particularly approve of under the theory that, if you vote for someone who has no chance of winning, then you’ve wasted your vote. This is part of an e-mail I wrote to him today, but I decided to post it as well

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1075738026034489092004-02-02T08:06:00.000-08:002004-02-02T08:21:52.233-08:00

It’s hard to imagine time being relative. You’d think if anything was independent of the physical world, that would be it. But what is time? Where is it? The future exists only in our imagination, the past only in our memory. We assume the future because we experienced the past, we assume the past to explain what’s around us and the images in our heads. Neither has a real, physical existence. Of

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1075306118818952942004-01-28T08:05:00.000-08:002004-01-28T15:03:52.903-08:00

I've been horrifically busy with school, but hope to have a couple things up in the next week. Meanwhile, this travel map is making the rounds of the blogs. So here's where I've been: create your own visited states map or write about it on the open travel guide I tried to limit it to states I've actually had as a destination--I did not include states I've simply driven through or where I've

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1074013398358202272004-01-13T09:03:00.000-08:002004-02-12T17:43:46.873-08:00

What I mean when I talk about the United States of America The first thing to be clear on when discussing this country is that there are two Americas. There’s the America made up of the dirt that sits between the Atlantic and the Pacific, between Mexico and Canada, and there’s America the idea that government is subservient to the people and the people have rights that are independent of

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1073686895440781082004-01-09T14:17:00.000-08:002004-01-09T14:21:55.660-08:00

It was not my intention to make this a personal blog, but I feel obligated not to go too long without posting something. Unfortunately, I’m still not up to doing any thinking or writing. Physically, I’m more or less back to normal, but I still have trouble focusing, I can only engage in passive mental activities. I can't even control my brain enough to calm it down and let me sleep a few hours a

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1073329416192490162004-01-05T11:03:00.000-08:002004-01-05T11:09:07.496-08:00

Two things: First, my next post is proving a lot harder to write than I expected. I’m unsatisfied; it needs a lot of revision, but I’ll have something before the week is out. Second, and more interestingly, I’m starting to feel bad that I haven’t stuck to my plan of posting one substantial essay and a few smaller pieces each week. I’m not disappointed in myself, but for my readers—this despite

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6228327.post-1072102943589011402003-12-22T06:22:00.000-08:002003-12-22T06:23:53.793-08:00

Introduction Hello and welcome to my web log. As with most blogs, I established it and now write it because I want to find out if I have anything worthwhile to say. A somewhat vain and probably vain attempt to help develop and organize my political and social thinking and get your feedback to polish it. I used to be much more informed about issues I care about and had well developed thoughts on

tim maguirehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13362216359107589053noreply@blogger.com0