There are at least 8 different ways to interpret the Constitution

March 20, 2018

Is gun ownership a constitutional right? What about a “right to privacy” that makes it unconstitutional to ban birth control? And can the federal government really use the power to regulate “commerce among the several states” to make laws banning certain plants in cases when they are grown only for private use? I know of 8 approaches to interpreting the U.S. Constitution (and its amendments). None is obviously correct; some are more popular than others, but all are, in some unsatisfying sens...

What Seemed Like Perfect Reasoning Utterly Failed

February 1, 2014

Does warm water sometimes freeze faster than cold water when placed in the same conditions? "Absolutely no way," I said, a mere minute after I heard the claim. "People sometimes claim that NASA faked the moon landing too," I thought to myself. I pointed out why this claim is impossible. As warm water cools it must eventually reach the same temperature that the cool water started at. From that point on, the warm water will behave just like the cool water, but it will have taken the warm water a ...