Month: December 2004

The movement to regulate blogs (also called “regulating Internet speech”) is growing rapidly, as evidenced by remarks like this: ?The question is: What are the appropriate regulations on the Internet?” asked Kathleen Jamieson, an expert on political communication and dean of the Annenberg School for Communications. ?It?s evolved into an area that we need to…

We are foolishly polite when we need to be fiercely determined. To give this vaunted “war on terrorism” legitimacy and determination and purpose, we might recall the words of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” written in 1861, during a time of national crisis like none we?ve seen till now. The Civil War was waged…

Former Clinton official Sidney Blumenthal has compared President Bush’s new Homeland Security head Bernard Kerik (along with Condeleeza Rice and Alberto Gonzales) to Caligula’s horse. In line with other second-term cabinet appointments – Alberto Gonzales as attorney general, Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state – Kerik will be an enforcer, a loyalist and an incompetent.…

Dean Esmay has a fascinating discussion and thread about a pet cause (if not obsession) by some leftists and feminists: It looks like some well-known left-wing bigots are now attacking Michelle Malkin for keeping her maiden name for legal purposes, but using her married name for most other purposes. This reminds me of when another…

I should have read InstaPundit before I went to bed last night. Ought to be a ritual like brushing my teeth. Seriously, I’m not saying this to compliment Glenn Reynolds, but he has a way of spotting the really important stuff — things that Drudge misses, and things I’d certainly miss. Had I seen that…

Eugene Volokh, who has been documenting what appears to be highly partisan demagoguery at Slate, highlights another out-of-context quotation in one of Slate’s many columns deriding “Bushisms,” and makes Slate an offer: If you’re going to criticize someone, it seems to me that you should do it fairly and aptly. Many of the Bushisms strike…

The 116th Carnival of the Vanities is hosted this week at Vik Rubenfeld’s The Big Picture. Vik is a fine blogger who does a great job with too many posts to mention, but the following stood out for me: Josh Cohen has an excellent, passionate states’ rights argument supporting plantiff’s position in the famous Raich…

According to today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, the culprit responsible for the recent Delaware River oil spill has been identified as a large (3-4 feet wide and 15 feet long) submerged pipe, possibly a sewer pipe. The Army Corps of Engineers seems to have missed it during inspections last summer, and if that turns out to be…

Drudge links to a Times UK article on confirmation that Viktor Yuschenko was indeed poisoned: MEDICAL experts have confirmed that Viktor Yushchenko, Ukraine?s opposition leader, was poisoned in an attempt on his life during election campaigning, the doctor who supervised his treatment at an Austrian clinic said yesterday. Doctors at Vienna?s exclusive Rudolfinerhaus clinic are…

This article by David Brooks reminded me of some wonderful neighbors I once had: Natalists are associated with red America, but they’re not launching a jihad. The differences between them and people on the other side of the cultural or political divide are differences of degree, not kind. Like most Americans, but perhaps more anxiously,…

As today is the anniversary of Pearl Harbor (and others are remembering the occasion) I thought I should do some remembering. How about a couple of quotes that will live in infamy? I read in the Times this morning an interview with Jeanette Rankin, who was the one member of Congress to vote against the…

Why is the idea of treating SUVs like guns (or guns like SUVs) so preposterous that it can only be written about in satirical terms? And what is it about shame that makes the whole thing so incapable of logical analysis? I’m wondering about similarities between the shaming SUV owners (scolding them about wasted fuel,…

“How many funerals, how many marches, how many hospital visits does it take before people say it’s time to take action?” asks Shelly Yanoff, executive director of Philadelphia Citizens for Children and Youth. — Philadelphia Inquirer, December 5, 2004 Damned good question! How many times have we been told SUVs were dangerous and evil? That…

HumanEvents is reporting that Julian Bond (a Marxist in the vein of Dubois, himself a supporter of Stalin) forced Kweisi Mfume from the NAACP for reaching out to the Republican Party. The two began feuding after Mfume nominated National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice for his 2003 NAACP Image Award. Furious that Mfume was reaching out…

Joe Gandelman links to James Wolcott’s colonoscopy post, appropriately titled “Too Much Information is Never Enough.” ….don’t let anyone deter you from a colonoscopy with their icky anecdotes. The Demerol drip is divine, the test can nip trouble in the bud, so to speak, and once you’ve had it, you won’t need another for five…

James K. Glassman offers ten suggestions to help the Democrats save their party. 1. Nominate Hillary Rodham Clinton for president in 2008. A Northeastern senator will be a big advantage this time around as Americans tire of Southern hicks. Sure, her negatives are already 44 percent, but Hillary will resurrect government-run health care, a sure…

Not long ago, a young man wearing a baggy T-shirt with an image of the German Iron Cross knocked on my door while twitching and sweating. While he appeared to be high on drugs, he was waving a little plastic sheet which said something about “American Community Services.” Perhaps because he noticed the NRA sticker…

If you’re tiring of Christmas kitsch, and you’ve heard Burl Ives played one time too many in shopping malls, be thankful your town isn’t displaying icons like this: I’ve criticized the statue before, but it’s still there. Now they’re saying it isn’t about Lenin, but about inspiration — and art: Lisa Perry, owner of the…

Two classical columns adorn an entrance to Valley Forge National Park, and here’s one of them, taken while the sun was setting. Obviously evocative of a Roman legion standard, I’d say. [Also the mace.] More evidence that Classical values are deeply rooted in the country’s history. Traditional, even? Here’s a tree which appears to be…

If you live in Philadelphia today, it’s time to be scolded in a front page Sunday sermon about how guns are killing children: Philadelphia has a thriving market in illegal handguns, often purchased legally by people who resell them on the streets. In some neighborhoods, gun trafficking is barely hidden, experts say. “On Saturdays, the…