The Future Of Warfare

Thomas Barnett gave this talk in 2005 when Iraq was falling apart. If you listen closely he discusses the mistake President Present is about to make in Afghanistan. The video is quite funny and full of salty language. It...

Song Of The Warrior

This is in honor of the fallen at Fort Hood and for the wounded who will need our ongoing help. Here is one way to help: Project Valour-IT helps provide voice-controlled/adaptive laptop computers and other technology to support Soldiers,...

Belief In Global Warming Falls Precipitously

Now only 36% believe the Earth is being warmed by manmade sources. It's really not surprising at all, though. AGW rests on some very shaky evidence, which has only recently come to light because the "scientists" involved have been assiduously...

"You have to eliminate it"

While I can't believe that anyone would take another movie by America-hating hypocrite Michael Moore seriously, apparently some people are. The film has been gushingly praised by Arianna Huffington, who wants President Obama to see it, and I find it...

Bring It On

In the above video the ACORN outers, Hanna Giles and James O'Keefe, say about potential suits from ACORN, "Bring It On". Well ACORN has brought it on. Community activist group ACORN is suing the makers of a hidden-camera video...

Desolation Row

I originally wrote Desolation Row in January 2007. I also posted it at Classical Values then. It is a companion piece to one I posted here a few days ago:Decline and Fall. So that is why you are seeing it...

Decline And Fall

Here is a bit I did in December of 2006. It is especially relevant given Eric's post on how the world is going to the dogs. === Commenter Karridine alerted me to this interesting piece by Orson Scott Card on...

MegaNarratives to you all!

In what I think was understatement, Glenn Reynolds observed that the 88-year-old nutjob who murdered a guard at the Holocaust Museum doesn't fit the narrative. That is certainly true. (Rand Simberg explains why in far more detail.) But like many...

Today's bigots

While Janeane Garofalo's charge that the Tea Party Movement consists of racists attracted a great deal of attention, I'm fascinated by the way she slipped in an admission that not all of the participants were white. It's almost pathological or...

"Will this put a stop to the idiotic rumors? Of course not!"

I have one of the most liberal comment policies in the blogosphere. No authentication or sign-in is required, and I almost never delete comments for offensiveness. (See these gems if you doubt me.) I have on rare occasions edited a...

Getting up to speed with the eyelashes and backlashes

Abe Greenwald has a post titled "Oprah Windbag" -- the gist of which is that Oprah Winfrey is (surprise) putting politics ahead of her purported tear-driven concerns about children with Down's Syndrome. Apparently, her concerns are so tear-soaked that her...

the phobia of my phobia is my philia!

At the risk of sounding like a bitter asshole, I want to make another stab at explaining my ongoing fascination with the synergistic relationship between McCain Derangement Syndrome (MDS) and Obamaphobia. (See "Real conservatives want their party to lose, but...

How far off base can the "base" get?

Yesterday, Glenn Reynolds remarked that Alan Keyes is getting nasty and linked this report about Keyes' announcement that he is leaving the GOP, apparently to seek the nomination of the Constitution Party. While I share Glenn's skepticism about the Keyes...

Closing The Deal

When it comes to customer satisfaction the rule of thumb is that every satisfied customer will influence five others and every dissatisfied customer will influence ten. You had better keep your customers happy. So how has Mr. Happy, the glorious...

Be a victim! Or else!

Bruce Bawer looks at the Islamization of Europe and sees the rise of gay bashing by Muslim youths as a barometer: As the number of Muslims in Europe grows, and as the proportion of those Muslims who were born and...

RINOs and MDS

No, I am not talking about a struggle involving physicians in the Republican Party; I'm talking about the McCain Republican third rail phenomenon which is being called McCain Derangement Syndrome. While I supported Fred Thompson and Rudy Giuliani before that...

A Dr. Schaub Christmas Sampler

First, here's a little bit about her... Dr. Schaub earned her bachelor's degree with highest honors from Kenyon College in 1981. Her master's degree and doctorate are from the University of Chicago. Prior to entering academe she was assistant editor...

Accusing Galileo of bad faith (while tap dancing with Torquemada)

Some things are incredibly tedious for me to go through, and I'm afraid that Dinesh D'Souza's "He didn't suffer all that much" is one of them. It is D'Souza's position that because of a false atheist claim that the elderly...

First they came for my dog's ovaries....

I hate it when patently crazy ideas become respectable. But they do -- especially when they're promulgated as morality. (Even scientific morality!) Anyway, I found this John Feeney guy (linked in a Mark Steyn column that Glenn Reynolds had linked...

Remembering the day they attacked the Enlightenment

A year ago (on what was the fifth anniversary of September 11), I felt the need to italicize what people seemed so eager to forget: We are at war. Nevertheless, 9/11 Truthers were (then as now) being hired to actually...

homeless veterans are everywhere, but who's counting?

"Hey man, would you help a homeless veteran?" Have you ever been asked that question? I have, and sometimes crosses my mind that the guy who's asking might not be homeless. However, I'm not about to demand that every panhandler...

"when is enough enough?"

Actually, I'm having a hell of a time finding what I guess has to be called a news report with that headline. It's on page two of the Philadelphia Inquirer, but (surprise!) it does not appear at the Inquirer's web...

Guilty opiate of the rich asses

Clayton Cramer (not a Communist, nor even a socialist) makes what I'm pretty sure is a sarcastic suggestion that the government confiscate all wealth exceeding one million dollars: I've long been of the opinion that most of this countercultural stuff...

Realpolitik is one thing, but this is ridiculous...

Former CIA Director James Woolsey has co-authored a piece in the Wall Street Journal that I think ought to be read by everyone. Basically, he says that the British finally get it, but the Americans don't.On the eve of his...

A sudden emergency to legalize millions

Today's Inquirer has a great op ed from Victor Davis Hanson in defense of the critics of the immigration bill: Washington pundits and Beltway politicians are furious at critics of the bill, from radio talk-show hosts and writers for conservative...

Where have all the eunuchs gone?

The mystery of Western thought is how a term that originally meant the manliness of a man came to mean the chastity of a woman. -- Leo Strauss In an interesting review of Mathew Kuelfer's "The Manly Eunuch: Masculinity, Gender...

Shaky base to build on

I don't like illegal immigration, and for a long time now, I have believed that the border should be closed, that a fence should be put up, and that no amnesty should be granted to illegal border crossers. I've even...

Where the bees are

(Sorry if the title sounds imitative of the Connie Francis song, but occasionally I'm stung by spontaneous outbursts of nostalgia.) Perhaps I should have titled this post "where the disappearing bee stories aren't" because the more the bees don't disappear,...

(Yeah, another post supporting the war...)

Much as I'm glad that M. Simon is posting here, I'm afraid he's spoiled me with his Iraq war blogging. My view of the war is that I support it, I have always supported it, and I will continue to...

Screw incandescence! I'm screwing in my fluorescents!

Just as I am no Christian theologian, nor am I an electrical engineer. So this contentious Wiki argument over potential hidden costs of CFLs is largely lost on me. All I know is that my crackpot artistic side was fascinated...

Hillary's favorite opponent?

Newsmax.com is very impressed (if not enamored) by Newt Gingrich, and declares him the winner of their recent online poll: An Internet poll sponsored by NewsMax.com reveals that an overwhelming number of Americans -- nearly 7 in 10 respondents --...

Oil Outlook

This is a really long piece by A. Jacksonian. He wrote this as a series of e-mail exchanges with me and I edited it making some minor corrections which A. Jacksonian has approved. It covers the outlook for oil production...

Desolation Row

American Thinker has an interesting piece up about American Imperialism. In it J.R. Dunn looks at the difference between American Imperialsm and the Roman version. Much in the way of criticism of the United States comes in the form of...

Decline and Fall

Here is a bit I posted at my place a few days ago. It fits in with the themes often seen here at Classical Values. === Commenter Karridine alerted me to this interesting piece by Orson Scott Card on the...

Inconvenient rays

Afternoon sunlight in late Fall can do some very strange things. I was out until the sun had almost set, and when I returned and got out of my car, I saw that one of my favorite evergreen trees had...

Mountain of brokeback identities

I think Iowahawk was really onto something with his open letter from Howard Dean, as the "outing" of gay Republicans is clearly a condescending attempt to confuse and aggravate religious conservatives -- especially those living in rural areas and in...

Orchestra of shame?

Music is weird, and writing about it is always troublesome. That's because musical taste varies, as do the personalities of musicians. With classical music, we don't think too much about the personalities of particular musicians, because most of the composers...

Kick him in the head -- but in which direction?

There are ad hominem attacks, and then there are ad hominem attacks. And I am fascinated by the latest, full-blown all-out assault launched by the free leftist Philadelphia Weekly against local talk show host Michael Smerconish. Here's the cover: Because...

The peril of ignoring the plight of the ignored

I hate to ruin a nice rainy day by straining Michael Corleone and the Sopranos' quotation again, but EVERY time I engage in satire, reality draaags me back in! In this case, maybe it's the other way around, but no...

Neopaleotancredoism?

. . .[P]aleoconservatism is simply the faith of our fathers before we built that shelter for the neocon homeless booted out of their own house by the McGovernites, who appear, in retrospect, to have been more savvy than we thought....

Googling for more video Gore!

Via Pajamas Media, I found myself drawn to John Carroll's remarks about the so-called "net neutrality" issue: Where faster tiered access might affect things, however, is in Google's new video service, the revenue for which will mostly be paid by...

Conspiracy to cover up hysterical delusions?

I heard about a strange new disease today: If diseases like AIDS and bird flu scare you, wait until you hear what's next. Doctors are trying to find out what is causing a bizarre and mysterious infection that's surfaced in...

Polyandrous political paradigm?

In a comment the other day, Justin complained that I was "too nice" to an anonymous anti-gay commenter who thought homosexuals should be imprisoned. Being nice is one of my shortcomings, and it may eventually be my undoing. As a...

Is it really a gay rights issue?

A brief word about Rumsfeld v. FAIR (Supreme Court holding that ROTC and military recruiters cannot be barred from universities despite sexual preference discrimination). While Orin Kerr and fellow Volokh conspirators have, in my view, done an excellent job analyzing...

"fearful fatalistic apathy"

By making a "raghead" remark , Ann Coulter has managed to do what she does best (and which I do poorly), which is to generate traffic, interest, publicity. Via Ryan Sager, here's what she said: "Rag-head talks tough, rag-head faces...

Taking a crack

Rick Moran has written the best serious essay about the cartoon issue that I've seen so far. Excerpt: The hysteria being whipped up by Muslim religious leaders against the west (and shamelessly exploited by Islamic political leaders) is a glimpse...

The film review that changed my mind

"Brokeback Mountain" was not my favorite movie. Although it was a good (if artsy) film, I thought it a bit slow for my tastes, and as I complained in an earlier post, I saw it as being unfair to the...

Politicizing self hatred?

Reflecting on the "all-gays-must-see-this" hype surrounding the release of "Brokeback Mountain," Sean Kinsell demonstrates why he's one of the most honest voices in the blogosphere: ...those of us who don't see our story in it have to be allowed to...

Death by sexual disorganization?

In arguing against same sex marriage, Maggie Gallagher makes a very puzzling statement I am unable to ignore. Here's a long version of the quote, to keep it in context: But fundamentally marriage is sustained by culture, not biology. Why...

How far will denial of denial go?

Considering the lack of any new information (and the near total media blackout), I expected to find nothing new about Joel Hinrichs or the Oklahoma University bombing today. But surprise, surprise! This morning, first I found an editorial opinion by...

Teach your children (about where they don't belong . . .)

Howard Zinn (author of the People's History of the United States -- "a standard text in many U.S. high schools") was interviewed by Tom Engelhardt of Mother Jones magazine, who wanted Zinn to explain the reluctance of Americans to see...

Happy Fourth, Mrs. Lane

I've been observing Independence Day this year by re-reading "The Discovery of Freedom" by Rose Wilder Lane. And eating too much barbeque. It's an interesting little book, full of hits and misses. Lane herself was not entirely satisfied with it....

Peak Oil...Episode IV : A New Hope

Via Green Car Congress, the following fascinating article... An international research consortium has successfully built a 300-kW pilot plant that uses solar energy to reduce zinc oxide to zinc. The zinc can be used in zinc-air batteries or be used...

Geezerhood sisterhood?

There's no question that right now Watergate appears to be a gigantic orgy for the geezers of Watergate, of little if any relevance to the affairs of today. Much as I hesitate to weigh in for or against age as...

The "T" word leads to mistakes . . .

The debate over theocracy is heating up -- and not just in the blogosphere. It's reached the point where the Philadelphia Inquirer's Dick Polman now puts it on the front page of the Sunday paper, in a column titled "Right...

Merry Earth Day Mr. Kunstler

Well, Earth Day has come and gone. I suppose some sort of ecologically relevant sermon is in order, and I may actually have just the ticket. I’ve been idly musing about the impending Peak Oil crisis, a crisis that may...

Whack A Mole

Don't you wonder why practically every house built in America after World War Two is a design abortion? The answer is actually simple but a little abstruse: ugliness is entropy made visible. When you live in a high entropy society,...

How About A Game Of "Let's Pretend"?

I see that Diana Schaub’s frank admission of her Trekish philosophical influences has been winning mindshare across the blogosphere. The show has "left me receptive to the view that mortality is, if not precisely a good thing, then at least...

The irresolute disclosure of resolutions

In the long and arduous process of trying to get anything resolved, I found myself forced to look at the classical history of New Year's Resolutions themselves. I hate to be so two faced in my analysis, but the fact...

Allah hates Christmas, so feel free to celebrate!

An Islamic scholar (the elusive Misha'al Ibn Abdullah Al-Kadhi) believes that Christianity is pagan. Christmas: Let us now move on to the "birthday of Jesus," Christmas. Jesus (pbuh) is commonly considered to have been born on the 25th of December....

Birth Of A Notion

Here's hoping all Classical Values readers had an edifying, tasty Thanksgiving. We all have much to be thankful for, and in line with our holiday traditions, I'm hoping that you leave here feeling stuffed. And have I got the turkey...

Alexander takes a bath

Who invented religious tolerance? Alexander the Great? Despite the man's genuine accomplishments, people these days are preoccupied with something other than his advocacy of religious tolerance. Let's back up a little. Before Alexander the Great, there was another architect of...

Dick Cheney gets "F" grade on Fascist exam!

I just realized that in a previous post, I failed to discuss the implications of a much-reported remark by Dick Cheney. Clearly he lost his temper and he shouldn't have sworn at Senator Leahy. Telling people to fuck off or...

Estimated Prophet

The End of Affluence was published in 1974. A dark time for the Republic. Darker than many younger people, today, might credit. The reality was quite bad enough, but life is never so challenging that a little panic mongering can’t...

Civil Union or Civil War?

Is this country headed for another Civil War? And is gay marriage the last straw leading to secession? Cory Burnell thinks so. And so do his supporters, who are spearheading a modern secessionist movement to take over the state of...

Relativism and Republicanism

That was refeshing. I'm just back from lunch where I caught bits of a conversation on everyone's favorite subject: American policy. On a college campus you come to expect superficial radicalism. (And I say superficial because it's little more than...

Blood and guts?

Tonight I finally saw "The Passion," and I don't know whether this is a review, because I am not sure how I am supposed to analyze the film. (Should this be a review of politics? Religion? Or art?) Bear in...

Twelve year old stalker?

I am having a fascinating time with calls from what sounds like a twelve or thirteen year old boy who calls my cell phone from untraceable numbers. He leaves angry messages of a sexual nature, and just the other day...

Drugs work better than government!

After discussing recent evidence of brain changes during the "falling in love" syndrome (for example, "men tended to show more activity in two regions in the brain: ....visual.... and ..... penile...."), Randall Parker proposes a high tech solution to the...

Indigestible tidbits....

It's the end of a slow day in which I posted nothing because I was gone all day. So, rather than have a topic, it struck me that I might just ramble on about nothing in particular (a "safe" thing...

This is not original!

Every word you will read in this post (and almost every word in my entire blog) has been written before. Not one of these words was invented by me. But if I put words together in a certain order, then...

A barbarian victory?

Did the early Christian war against "heresy" help trigger the Dark Ages? Might a little bit of Christian tolerance have even kept ancient Roman culture alive? These questions are still much on my mind, and while I can't provide answers...

Would Caracalla disregard our Constitution?

Take a serious look at these remarks: In parts of the country with lots of illegal immigrants—the 24 U.S. counties that border Mexico, plus much of the rest of California—the situation is becoming debilitating. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California estimates...

Fun with Dick and Jane -- in ancient Rome?

Despite the title of this blog and my tendency to carry on about the ancients, I sure am glad I am not really an ancient Roman brought back to life in modern America. I mean, how the hell would I...

Sodomite Like Me?

When I was a kid, I was quite moved by reading John Howard Griffin's Black Like Me -- a true story of a white man who had paid doctors to turn his skin black so he could write about his...

Part Three: the Fall and rise -- of sex

Sex and prayer. At first blush, these two things would not seem to have much in common. But in the identity politics-driven world of modern America, sex and prayer have a very important thing in common. They are political. Politicization...

Part Two: A three-way Fall....

NOTE: This is a continuation of my "Fall" series. You can read Part One here. As I wrote last night, Constantine the Great's theological beliefs included the pagan god Mars along with the apparently monotheistic Jesus Christ. I say "apparently,"...

Before the Fall

It's the last day of summer and so I am trying to catch up on unfinished business. The question of whether or not a blog can have unfinished business seems a bit ridiculous even to pose, because blogging is an...

Definitely not cool!

My car conked out yesterday in a bad way. I visited a friend, then when I returned to my car and attempted to crank it over, there was a hideous noise and smoke started pouring from under the hood. I...

Rome wasn't built in a day...

Steven Malcolm Anderson is really onto something (and not what everybody probably thinks) when he says: I'm a girl. I must be a girl. Sex is spiritual. Told you.That was his reaction after reading this:Before the idea of homosexuality was...

URGENT UPDATE AND NOTICE

URGENT UPDATE AND NOTICE Apparently I must make it clear once again that this website engages in satire! I am already getting apparently genuine hate mail from people who imagine that I am a supporter of the Orange Order!...

Luck is a Virtue,

Luck is a Virtue, Not a Superstition I have now been blogging daily for one solid month. I started this blog a year ago but let it lie fallow because I thought we might have finally reached a new...

By What Objective Standard?

By What Objective Standard? This altruism stuff is really cool, because precise definitions are so evasive. One of the best posts I have seen so far on the subject is this post by Don Watkins. What most fascinates me...

Do lies become true

Do lies become true with age? My last blog about religion and politics and definitions thereof has me all worked up and I feel another rant coming on….. (Thank you once again, Blogdaddy Jeff, for giving me permission to...

[Thursday, May 29, 2003] Baghdad

[Thursday, May 29, 2003] Baghdad Bob, Don't Leave Us! Every blogger is dumping on Robert Scheer these days, and even though I'm still in the early "wannabe" blogger stages, I guess I am too. A couple of days ago I...

When you're dead, who cares if you're White or Male?

I wanted to address a concern expressed earlier (by a rather cool guy) about dead white males, but before I do that, I want to express my gratitude to Mike Silverman for two things: 1. For not complaining when I...