Month: August 2004

Call me old-fashioned, but what ever happened to personal responsibility? I’ve been wondering why every soda machine on campus disappeared a few months back, and I may have stumbled onto the answer last night flipping past Teen Jeopardy (it’s painful to watch a dumbed-down show dumbed-down more). There was something about fighting obesity and the…

Yesterday I read that Arnold Schwarzenegger enjoys the highest approval rating of any California governor since 1975. This has been much on my mind as I’ve endeavored to figure out what was “behind the decision” to run Alan Keyes as the Republican senatorial candidate in Illinois. For what it’s worth, I went to the trouble…

Indeed, if people start dishing dirt about these guys instead of offering factual refutations, it will pretty much serve as an admission that the charges are true. — Glenn Reynolds A number of days into this major uproar in the blogosphere, I see that the dirt digging on Unfit for Command author Jerome Corsi and…

She wasn?t really my aunt, but rather my great aunt, my grandmother?s sister. But she was always just ?Aunt Margie? to us, and she was always our favorite. She died years ago, but we all still remember her. She was there at my christening, dressed to the nines, clowning and laughing. We used to have…

I’d rather not beat the horse of questioned timing as it lay dying (it’s taken us a long way lately and has long deserved a decent burial) but I couldn’t help noticing that within the final five minutes of PBS’s awkardly-titled “Watergate plus 30: Shadow of History” (re-aired last night) there were repeated reminders that…

I just happened to notice that Talk Left had some kind words on the occasion of Glenn Reynolds’ bloggiversary: Instapundit was one of the first blogs we began reading regularly, and Glenn was an especially gracious, early and frequent linker to TalkLeft. You’d be surprised at some of the important issues we agree on….but not…

Is this anti-Pagan blasphemy? ATHENS ? They are getting more bad press than the Olsen twins and worse reviews than the latest Spike Lee flick. Olympic mascots Phevos and Athena, siblings named for a pair of Greek deities, are catching an ungodly amount of abuse around Athens. They were derided in various news articles, described…

This morning, after the President announced Porter Goss as his pick for CIA director, NBC titans Matt Lauer and Jim Miklaszewski wondered whether Goss, as a former army intelligence officer, CIA agent, and member of a House intelligence committee, might not be part of “the problem” in America’s intelligence agencies. That’s a fair question. But…

Glenn Reynolds links to a comprehensive summary of Kerry’s Cambodian Christmas links here. The whole thing is getting surreal. I know I’ve speculated earlier about whether lies become true with age. Some do, but they have to be believable, and classy. This one was just never subjected to genuine national scrutiny and now it’s unraveling.…

….[T]here are two major moral issues that confront this country today. They both of them are issues of life and death. And they both of them are issues of life and death, not only for the body, but especially for the soul, for the spirit. And that is abortion, in which we kill the body…

I’ve seen a PDF preview of chapter three from the forthcoming Unfit For Command, and it seems pretty damning. Now, for those who would instantly discount it as lies I humbly offer my friend’s defense of Fahrenheit 9/11: “if it’s not true why isn’t he being sued?” Libel laws aside, let it suffice to say…

I have not read the new book about Kerry, but I am fascinated that so much attention is being paid to various comments made by one of the authors, Jerome Corsi. While I certainly don’t agree with many of the comments as reported, I am not sure how relevant they are to the debate on…

Regarding the man who faked his own beheading, while I share Kevin’s (and Michele’s) assessment of the hoaxster, I am a bit concerned about First Amendment implications. According to this story, the FBI is treating the matter as a crime: SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – A San Francisco computer expert duped international media on Saturday into…

NEWSFLASH! According to today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, historians are now speculating over whether or not President Nixon may have held off withdrawing from Vietnam in order to improve his chances of winning the 1972 election: “We also have to realize, Henry, that winning an election is terribly important,” Nixon told his national security adviser. “It’s terribly…

I visited the New York Museum of Natural History today, and took a few pictures. It wasn’t easy, because if you use the flash the reflections on the glass cases look terrible and spoil the shots. So I had to hold my camera against walls, posts, rails — anything to keep it still. First is…

Looking for something to do? Want to be horrified? Then Read This. “Death by Government” by R. J. Rummel. Be sure to scroll down for the reader reviews. It makes a nice companion piece to “Carnage and Culture“. It also makes a nice counter balance to “War before Civilization“. Here’s just a snippet of editorial…

I first heard of Leon Kass through the good offices of Virginia Postrel, under whose editorship Reason magazine became one of my favorite periodicals. Back then, I never missed an issue, and wouldn’t you know it, it just hasn?t been the same since she left. Come back, Virginia!! Please? I felt a little bit the…

Speaking of the “ range of hands-on actions” to combat “misinformation in the media,” here’s Atrios (opining on the “retraction” of part of Shift Boat veteran George Elliott’s story that we now hear wasn’t really a retraction after all): Obviously, Kerry sent his goons after the guy’s family. Hmmmm…. Does this mean (if it turns…

My reaction to this unbelievable nonsense? No monkeying around; I bought one of the “racist” T-shirts. While I’ll try to be polite to the people who do it, I have nothing but contempt for the tactic of engaging in name calling instead of logical argument. Atrios, or Duncan Black, or whatever his name is, has…

Let’s move from long-dead Kerry hamsters to today’s pets….. Justin Case was asking me the other day whether I would clone my dog Puff, and now I see that for those who can spare $50,000, pet cloning is not only available to anyone, but they’re using a new, more effective method: The company used a…