Month: February 2005

I should have posted these last month, but when I went to California I left behind my camera’s CompactFlash memory, so only just now have I stumbled across some previously unpublished photos of what can only be called neoclassical archaeological masterpieces. The following pictures were all taken at a excellent Italian restaurant Dennis discovered. Because…

I’m glad to see the issue of takings of private property for private use is finally before the U.S. Supreme Court: In New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere around the country, public officials are increasingly moving to seize property through eminent domain. The idea is to let private developers bulldoze the property and erect upscale condos,…

Federal crime seems to be going mainstream. Illegal cell phone jammers are selling like hotcakes: Unsuspecting cellphone users may find themselves saying that more often now that cellphone jammers ? illegal gizmos that interfere with signals and cut off reception ? are selling like hotcakes on the streets of New York. “I bought one online,…

….it’s good reporting! And the latest spin on Jeff Gannon’s sins is that he was apparently too good of a reporter — because his stories (such as his amazing prediction that War In Iraq was about to begin) were always right: According to my source, Gannon’s insider tidbits were always on the mark. “Gannon’s stuff…

From Eurekalert, an observation on May-December conjunctions… Any older person can attest that aging muscles don’t heal like young ones. But it turns out that’s not the muscle’s fault. A study in the Feb. 17 issue of Nature shows that it’s old blood that keeps the muscles down. The study, led by Thomas Rando, MD,…

Via Glenn Reynolds, here’s a quote I am unable to resist: some bloggers are just self-important ranters who seem to wake up every morning convinced that the entire Free World awaits their opinions on any subject that’s popped into their heads since their last fevered post. — David Shaw Funny, but all these years I…

I’m not sure whether this post is about the power of language or the language of power. Maybe it’s about the language “infrastructure” itself. (God, another weasel word I hate!) Anyway, there’s an innocuous-sounding word floating around which, because it seems to have taken on emotional (if not quasi-religious) implications, has gained more and more…

While on the road I received an email update from HarkonnenDog about gay penguins. It seems their homosexuality is so entrenched that zoological attempts at conversion therapy have proved useless: Trying to get three gay penguin couples back on the straight and narrow, zoo officials in the northern German town of Bremerhaven hoped Swedish penguin…

I am a total failure at avoiding snow! In fact, by going what I thought was out of my way to avoid snow, I ran into more snow — and more dangerous driving conditions — than I can remember seeing during any of my numerous drives across the country. The drive from California was largely…

Daniel Henninger says out with Modernism and Post-Modernism and in with respite. For the sake of argument, I am willing to agree that Duchamp’s urinal was the most influential artwork of the past century. If this is even close to being true, we may declare the modern art movement dead. Why? For one reason: It…

The state wants to wash your dirty little mouth out with a $500k bar of soap. But really, who doesn’t want to make “radio more suitable for family viewing?”

I’m in Indianapolis and driving fatigue is starting to set in. This is what it all starts to look like after awhile….. Road gets inside you, so that sleep is clouded by moving roads and vice versa. Nor does it help much that the cops have been banging on the door to the room next…

That last post was my first ever on-the-road-while-driving post. Literal moblogging. Not a good idea safety-wise, although the traffic jam was so bad that I managed to do it about as safely as I could eat lunch. (The hardest part was getting the SIM card out of my cell phone and into the laptop.) Anyway,…

UNBELIEVABLE TRAFFIC JAM IN ALBUQUERQUE! 2 LEFT LANES CLOSED….. ENOUGH!

I’m almost hesitant to do this because it seems cruel, but wade through the awkward prose of this piece on tyranny and idiocy if you’ve the stomach. It’s got all the makings of an undergraduate essay: politics filtered through poets (bonus points for non-Anglo-Americans), tangential connections and sweeping generalizations, poor grasp of grammar and syntax,…

… when told of the exact text of the First Amendment, more than one in three high school students said it goes “too far” in the rights it guarantees. Ah, the value of a non-classical education.

Here’s Rumsfeld on the changing realities of 21st century warfare: “Bloggers and hackers and chat rooms!” Rumsfeld exclaimed Saturday during a question-and-answer session with defense and security officials and experts from around the world. “E-mails and cell phones with global reach!” “It alters how you have to behave… it adds a level of complexity” to…

This is something you’d expect to read of the Religious Right on the Onion: Saudi Arabia’s morality police are on the scent of illicit red roses as part of a clampdown on would-be St Valentine’s lovers in the strict Muslim kingdom. The Committee for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Saudi Arabia’s powerful…

Posting has been light and will continue to be light for the next few days. Today I finished up an enormous amount of work on the house here and I am long overdue to return to the East Coast. But first I need to make a couple of stops in Southern California. Will try to…

Via InstaPundit, I see that Eason Jordan has resigned. Jordan said he was quitting to avoid CNN being “unfairly tarnished” by the controversy. Tarnished? Considering that Jordan’s predecessor Richard Kaplan was fired after another heinously anti-military story, I don’t think Jordan needs to worry. What’s tarnish on top of tarnish? Supertarnish?