Month: February 2005

I want to take a closer look at Scott McClellan’s extensively reported comments. His question is a good one: what is a journalist? In this day and age, when you have a changing media, it’s not an easy issue to decide, to try to pick and choose who is a journalist. It gets into the…

According to a recent medical study, broken hearts can kill: Confirming the wisdom of the poets and philosophers, doctors say the sudden death of a loved one really can cause a broken heart. In fact, they have dubbed the condition “broken heart syndrome.” In a study published just in time for Valentine’s Day, doctors reported…

Just how long can a whale live? And how does one find out? You can’t just saw one in half and count the rings. That would be wrong. I suppose you could get all scientific-like and measure chemical changes in the eye, or something. Or, you could try and date the beast by the hundred…

Rand Simberg asks an interesting question. Would Bill Clinton have survived the blogosphere? Well now, Bill had a certain, shall we say, rapport with the MSM. But as Mr. Simberg helpfully points out, Kerry had it too… Despite Evan Thomas’ estimate that MSM support was worth fifteen points in the election, the MSM failed in…

Is Glenn Reynolds shilling for Phil Bredesen (by writing favorably about him in the Wall Street Journal)? Under the circumstances, I hope so. Consider the following from the National Review’s Jim Geraghty: Phil Bredesen is a Democrat who has won in the South, obviously. By 2008, will Democrats be seriously seeking a member of their…

A brief post on bilious young fogey has led me to Vietpundit. This post in particular struck a nerve. John Moore, in an email to me, wrote that “It is amazing to me that you don’t harbor resentment of the US, because we betrayed you, costing your family horribly.” Old Patriot, in a comment below,…

Glenn Reynolds has taken a bit of abuse from time to time regarding his fascination with nanotech. And not just from Mark Modzelewski. I’ve read comments on other blogs indicating that some of his most loyal readers find that aspect of his interests, well, unreadable. The more fools they. Some of the things that drew…

Here’s another reminder (via InstaPundit) that gay conservatives will not be tolerated. A White House Press Correspondent named Jeff Gannon has been forced to resign because lefty bloggers discovered he was gay and outed him. While I don’t approve of outing, this just shows that if you have (or have ever had) the slightest homosexual…

It never ceases to amaze me how many times the same idea will strike more than one person, and now I see that the same principle applies to photography. I’ve previously mentioned that anti-Bush sentiment reaches psychotic proportions around here, and yesterday I happened upon one particularly despicable “political” sign pasted onto a mural on…

I see that the film “Team America” has finally upset North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il: The caricature of North Korea’s “Dear Leader”, Kim Jong-Il, in the film, “Team America: World Police,” is striking a discordant note among North Korean officials, and probably their supreme leader himself, despite his well-known love for private viewings of foreign movies.…

Have meddlesome humans started an Exodus movement for gay penguins? Or is it a sexodus movement? I don’t know what to call it, but via Glenn Reynolds’ link to this Reason article, I found yet another wicked attempt by mad scientists to interfere with nature: A German zoo has imported four female penguins from Sweden…

The 125th Carnival of the Vanities is now posted at Coyote Blog. Warren Meyer (who got his blog name from Wile E. Coyote) does a great job of editing the posts, and they’re grouped by category — making it easier to find the ones to your liking. So go read them.

The other day I described the Albany Waterfront Park as “uncontrolled” and “undefended”. There’s a certain innocence in uncontrolled and undefended things, but in light of General MacArthur’s maxim that “undefended wealth” is the most frequent cause of war, I’m now wondering about the relationship between control and defense. In one sense, to defend is…

Probably because it’s so much warmer than the East Coast, I’ve been working outside without wearing warm enough clothes, so I caught something (so, it seems, has everyone else around here) and now I’m stuck with a disabling cough. While there are cough “remedies” like Dextromethorphan, the symptoms are worse than the disease. Anyway, what…

Bill Barnes, described as the principal architect (via Jeff Soyer) of the proposed ordinance to ban handguns in San Francisco, is a man destined to go far in politics. Consider this dazzling display of statistical talent in his discussion of the District of Columbia gun ban in the San Francisco Bay Guardian: Meaningful gun reform…

Would I buy a used car from this man? That’s Eason Jordan, the guy whose World Economic Forum remarks (that U.S. troops targeted journalists in Iraq) have generated a feeding frenzy in the blogosphere. Not only were his remarks unsubstantiated, but as of today, CNN is stonewalling the blogosphere by refusing to release them. Eventually,…

A couple of more photos taken at my local beach, the Albany Waterfront Park. Here’s tonight’s sunset: And here’s some art in the ruins: So far, it remains wild, uncontrolled, undefended.

Speaking of triangulation, this morning I went to the shooting range with a group of friends. My shooting skills are always in need of improvement, and I felt especially inaccurate today, because I was firing a .380 Walther PPK/S, a concealable semi-automatic pistol with a nasty little kick (from which my hand is still sore).…

According to John Leo, the likely 2008 Democratic presidential nominee is religious, wants to seal the borders, and now speaks in favor of abstinence. (Ask Michael Moore about makeovers.) The bottom line, of course, is whatever it takes to win. Socialism with a human face is still socialism, though.

Here’s another example of what happens when environmentalists run cities: perfectly good roads are deliberately ruined: Many astounded Berkeley residents pleaded with City Council members Tuesday, asking them not to interfere with Marin Avenue, slated for reconfiguration of lanes in Albany and proposed for the same in Berkeley. But an equal number applauded the city…