Nick Baumann

"Paisley wants to know how he can express his Southern Pride. Here are some ways. He could hold a huge party on Martin Luther King’s birthday, to celebrate a Southerner’s contribution to the world of democracy. He could rock a T-shirt emblazoned with Faulkner’s Light In August, and celebrate the South’s immense contribution to American literature. He could preach about the contributions of unknown Southern soldiers like Andrew Jackson Smith. He could tell the world about the original Cassius Clay. He could insist that Tennessee raise a statue to Ida B. Wells."

"Delaying the debt ceiling crisis until some time in 2015 as part of a larger bargain merely institutionalizes the idea that the debt ceiling is a bargaining chip and entrenches the idea that the president will cave."

"I dare say that presiding over the destruction of 88 percent of the value of an enterprise is a job many of us could probably pull off. And yet Pandit managed to earn tens of millions of dollars for his trouble, so obviously he’s a much sharper businessman than the average person."

"There’s a saying, “Science is not a democracy.” It doesn’t matter how many millions of people there are on the other side. There’s one right, and it’s perfectly possible for all the rest to be wrong."

"[T]he default assumption should be that if an able-bodied, law-abiding person wants to move here to get a job that’d be mutually beneficial."

"There is an alternative available. That alternative says that Palestinians deserve independence by virtue of their humanity and their nationhood. The modalities of their independence ought to be worked out with Israel as part of a process moving toward that goal, since the security of both states on the day after independence is a legitimate concern. I believe Zionism, which advanced precisely this argument to establish the first principle that there ought to be a Jewish state in a Jewish homeland, compels accepting this alternative."

"after the Washington Post fired Dave Weigel for having incorrect opinions"