Officially, the money is paid to have Iraqis clean the crucial roadway of debris, an apparent pretense because an Iraqi-American agreement bars outright payments for security.
When used selectively as a pretense, to be lauded as sublime because of verbose language suggesting superiority, Ayn Rand's principle of reason bears little distinction from the malleable rules behind any other religious belief system -- ones that are always self-sustaining, that won't tolerate doubters and that tend to favor the predispositions of the leaders making the rules.
This should not require any pretense, because professors in general are extremely knowledgeable about their own subject matters, and many have published important papers in their fields.
This is an essential pretense, because respect for the office of the President is indeed a value that should transcend the current Presidency.
Because many of the other guys created a pretense to allow them to seek their self-interest -- and, in my view, become excessive, even corrupt.
Because we're the enemy at least potentially so can there even be a pretense of trust?
The new admissions system is only a pretense at nondiscrimination.
Instead, it should be accompanied by a pretense of humility.
And permanence, by its nature, offers a pretense of truth.
I think making a pretense of civility toward Eric Alterman is like making a pretense of civility to a scorpion.
There is no sign that Iraq can overcome IS alone and yet the government in Baghdad and its friendliest neighbor in Tehran extol such a pretense; the Iraqi Army fell apart not because of inadequate training by US forces but because of its sectarian make-up, which was engineered by Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister whom Iran had backed for eight years.
