Keith Burgess-Jackson, J.D., Ph.D.

Here.

Here is Scott Adams's latest blog post. Adams and I were among the few who foresaw Donald Trump's victory. If you're still wondering how Trump won, remember what I have been telling you: He is five steps ahead of everyone else, including you.

Here.

Philosophers often disagree about what is absurd and what is not. Consider the sentence "Beliefs are brain states." Does this sentence express a category mistake or a brilliant insight into the nature of the mental? Philosophers disagree. So it is not always easy to say whether some philosophical thesis constitutes a great philosophical insight or a laughable grammatical blunder.

(A. P. Martinich, Philosophical Writing: An Introduction, 4th ed. [Malden, MA: Wiley Blackwell, 2016], 3)

Here.

Here is Ann Coulter's latest column.

Here is Conrad Black's latest column.

Thank God we have a president-elect who knows the difference between science and politics. Forget the wall between church and state; we need a wall between laboratory and state.

Draw the Line (1977).

To the Editor:

Re “Pope Extends Priests’ Ability to Forgive the ‘Grave Sin’ of Abortion["] (news article, Nov. 22):

There could be no better or more appropriate conclusion to Pope Francis’ Year of Mercy than the permanent extension of the power to forgive the sin of abortion, which the church has always regarded as involving an intrinsically evil action, to all priests, always and everywhere.

Although this dispensation is already widely observed in the United States, the importance of the decision to extend it universally, itself an act of mercy, can hardly be overstated. It offers respect and compassion to the penitent without delay, and shows again Pope Francis’ extraordinary ability to privilege the pastoral, while remaining attentive both to church teaching, and to the interests and needs of his fellow Christians.

This quality, and teachings like this one, are at the heart of his papacy, and although they have sometimes sparked opposition from putative traditionalists, particularly in the United States, their focus on love rather than on condemnation is itself an overdue restoration of past teaching and past practice.

JOHN C. HIRSH

Washington

The writer teaches medieval literature at Georgetown University.

Note from KBJ: The thing to keep in mind is that abortion remains both a "sin" and an "intrinsically evil action."