Month: July 2004

Back from New York state, and I am delighted to see that Varius wrote a nice, well-thought-out post! Makes it so much easier when you’re a nut like me who can’t stand to neglect things. A few pictures from the trip. First, Puff in the forest: And here’s a long, naturally formed wall which caught…

Yesterday on NPR I heard an interview with the co-author (Dana Lindaman) of a book about textbooks called History Lessons. They’ve excerpted passages from history textbooks around the world that treat of America and Americans in some ::ahem:: interesting ways. Entertaining was the portion from North Korea which called Americans “the bastards” who crossed the…

Hope someone posts something today (a hint from the Beastly Overlord), as I am driving up to New York (state) and won’t be back until late tomorrow. Already running late!

Damn, this is really good! The left today is the same as it was then. The members of the S.D.S. and Weather Underground would find welcome homes with MoveOn and DemocraticUnderground. Our Hard Hats of today are beating the Left without having to resort to using pipes wrapped in flags, crowbars or the like. Instead,…

It’s Friday, which is traditionally quiz time here at Classical Values. Last week I was not only busy with out-of-town visitors, but there’s such a dearth of online tests that it takes forever to find them. And so, because I don’t want this to be a “blogligation” I took a mini Fourth of July holiday.…

A big rape scandal at LaSalle University has edged Iraq off the Philadelphia Inquirer’s front page. It’s a typical story: athletes in dorm room plus booze plus sex equals rape and coverup scandal. As former coach Speedy Morris puts it, These things are happening at many campuses. Are they? What attracted my attention about the…

When was Stalin born? You’d think that would be an easy question to answer. A verifiable historical fact. But there doesn’t seem to be agreement among historians, although this book makes a compelling case that the conventional date of December 9 (21 modern calendar) 1879 is wrong. According to Mr. Radzinsky, Stalin lied about his…

This is outrageous. A UK government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq is expected to conclude that Britain’s spies were correct to say that Saddam Hussein’s regime sought to buy uranium from Niger. (Via Glenn Reynolds.) A central thesis of the Bush Lied doctrine has just gone down in flames.…

I’m told Vernor Vinge has just released a new short story,” Synthetic Serendipity”. It’s a companion piece to his 2002 short ,”Fast Times at Fairmont High”. If you liked one, you’ll probably like the other. The cheat sheet version can be found here. The story deals with good, fun stuff like ubiquitous computing, consensus reality,…

Forgive me for being slow. I’ve been swamped lately, and until today I had no idea how important John Kerry’s choice of John Edwards was. But then I read this: You may have also heard that the man I selected is John Edwards of North Carolina. (APPLAUSE) And I want you to know we think…

Do the idiotic bumperstickers of the sort discussed in a couple of recent posts shed light on a particular need in the human mind? Or only in some human minds? This recent article on political neuro marketing — “Looking for a ‘politics center’ in the human mind” — made me wonder…. Political campaigns have now…

Hello all. Back with another episode of the wit and wisdom of Jeremy Rifkin. Before I begin though, perhaps I should address a question Eric raised. Who the hell is Jeremy Rifkin and why should you care? To be honest, I’ve been following his career so long, I had forgotten that he might lack the…

By now it’s old news, but Pennsylvania has legalized slot machines. Governor (and former DNC chairman) Rendell was on the radio yesterday sounding like a proud father who just landed a little more bacon, letting the kids know just how much better their lives would be. His example was far from convincing: If you make…

If y’all recall my rant on a certain bumper sticker, you can now see it for yourself, with many other brilliant gems besides: Bumper sticker wisdom has, I fear, proliferated, now appearing on t-shirts as well. On the 4th I saw one the read FREADOM. And it made me think of this: LIBELTY. Which may…

I live near Valley Forge National Park, and so when people visit me I like to take them there. Each time I learn something new. A favorite Valley Forge landmark is the statue of General Friedrich von Steuben. Where others had tried and failed, he instilled order and pride into Washington’s starved and dirty Revolutionary…

So says Talk Left (via Dean Esmay) about the Wassef Ali Hassoun beheading video which terrorists have promised to release. If they execute this man (a big mistake, according to this Marine) I’ll sure as hell watch the damned thing, and to the extent that it “desensitizes” me (something highly debatable in itself), I’ll be…

We here at Classical Values try to move product on a daily basis. When we don’t, management has harsh words for us. I have been ordered to blog, and today, dammit! Well okay then. I have a dauntingly gigantic Rifkin post in the works, but it’s not…quite…ready. You may be sorry when it is. Till…

I liked the cloud patterns the other night, but they moved so quickly that by the time I ran inside, the spaces between the clouds had grown from cracks to substantial gaps. The effect was still there. Of course, I prefer the sky in this Los Angeles neighborhood, captured by an artist friend who does…

A commenter with whom I often disagree raised an interesting point about ad hominem attacks. I think confusion about the definition of ad hominem attacks is sometimes exploited for political reasons. Is stating that someone is a Communist necessarily an ad hominem attack? If so, then why? Certainly, it is not an ad hominem attack…