Month: March 2005

I had just finished reading about the valiant efforts of one courageous man to spread the word about the evils of Fox News Channel (whilst turning a profit, natch), and I thought, ‘bully for him! Children might see that rot and get all sorts of bad notions about having opinions. The ignorant masses must be…

The Instapundit reminds us that yesterday was Norman Borlaug?s birthday. Happy returns! In honor of the occasion we?re going to the Classical Values Archives and pulling out an old tribute? Borlaug recalls, “We were to help Mexico solve its own food problems. In other words, alongside our own work we were to train local scientists…

Bill Quick’s post (via InstaPundit) about whether libertarianism might find a better home in the Democratic Party prompted an initial outburst from me: The problem with the Democratic Party is that Hillary Clinton will be the nominee in 2008, and I can’t support someone with far worse baggage than John Kerry’s 1971 flirtations with North…

Here’s a tidbit from the Berkeley Daily Planet: Berkeley High Teach-In Targets War and Military Recruitment By JUDITH SCHERR Special to the Planet (03-25-05) The military recruitment budget is $3 billion annually; 90 percent of the people killed in war are civilian noncombatants; 91 percent of Berkeley High students believe the war in Iraq is…

Every time these people open their mouths, they reveal their inner rot, a kind of moral halitosis. — So says A man named Justin (not our Justin). Every time? These people? I must protest the above remarks! While ostensibly directed at Glenn Reynolds (and Tim Blair), there’s a clear implication that InstaPundit belittled the name…

I see that Diana Schaub?s frank admission of her Trekish philosophical influences has been winning mindshare across the blogosphere. The show has “left me receptive to the view that mortality is, if not precisely a good thing, then at least the necessary foundation of other very good things,” she wrote in an article last year.…

As someone who still remembers the Karen Ann Quinlan case, I feel obligated to address a troubling moral issue which seems to have gotten its foot in the door as a result of the Terri Schiavo debate. Bear in mind that I think the removal of the feeding tube was wrong based on the totality…

What if I don’t see my favorite news source in Google News? We’re as shocked as you are! If we’re missing a publisher that we should be covering, please send us your ideas. While we can’t guarantee that we’ll heed your recommendation, but we do promise to review all the suggestions we receive without regard…

In an ominous development with direct implications for the blogosphere, the French news agency Agence France-Presse has sued Google Inc. for alleged copyright infringement, seeking damages for the latter’s displaying of “story leads, headlines and graphics” without permission: In its U.S. suit, the news service is seeking at least $17.5 million in damages and an…

Noting the rich irony, Glenn Reynolds links to this report about the inside funding of the McCain-Feingold campaign finance reform measure: Sean Treglia, a former program officer for the liberal Pew Charitable Trusts, claimed credit for co-coordinating a multi-year effort to secure the passage of the political-speech-curtailing McCain-Feingold campaign-finance bill. Make no mistake: Pew and…

I always enjoy it when a favorite blog does the Carnival of the Vanities, and this week Code Blue Blog has surpassed my wildest expectations. I don’t know how Doctor CBB does it, his kind words about my stamina notwithstanding…. So many posts! Each one pointedly and intelligently reviewed; it’s as if this raiologist (awarded…

Is it all about guilt? A long time ago I personally came to the conclusion that there was no way to live on earth without the stain of guilt, maybe the concept of Original Sin was a rueful recognition of this condition. Yet there is perhaps the chance that one may leave the earth forgiven.…

Here’s one of the weirdest bits of high tech news I’ve seen in a long time: Your body could soon be the backbone of a broadband personal data network linking your mobile phone or MP3 player to a cordless headset, your digital camera to a PC or printer, and all the gadgets you carry around…

From the mouths of children in the Red Lake School District, here are the top two “Winning student essays on domestic violence.” RLES Indians didn?t use violence in the olden days. It is bad. Indians only used violence for hunting and fishing. We can be non-violent by trying to make good choices. Sara Seki 1st…

Over at Bioethics blog, there’s a link to a story in Forward (registration required) regarding a controversy which involves, among other things, Orthodox circumcision customs. Let repugnance inform your wisdom? …prominent Orthodox rabbi and medical ethicist Rabbi Moshe Tendler, a bioethics expert and Talmud instructor at Yeshiva University, who was criticized by ultra-Orthodox leaders and…

22 equals 21 equals 20 in nine or eleven days or something like that. While I’m still on the subject of the Inky, here’s something else I missed: Last year there were only 11 days when no one was shot in Philadelphia. On average, more than four people a day were struck by bullets. About…

I don’t know how I managed to miss it (must be that I have Inquirer deficit disorder), but via the Glenn Reynolds/Mickey Kaus grapevine I was somehow directed to my own newspaper! Yup, that’s right. The Philadelphia Inquirer, and Dick Polman. Polman is a regular read for me, and I don’t know how I managed…

According to David Neiwert, the Terri Schiavo case has attracted the attention of some religious crackpots who call themselves members of the “Phineas Priesthood.” According to a number of websites, they consider religious murders biblically justified: The Biblical reference indicates that Phineas, a priest, killed an Israelite man who was having sexual relations with a…

If you analyze it I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism. I think conservatism is really a misnomer just as liberalism is a misnomer for the liberals — if we were back in the days of the Revolution, so-called conservatives today would be the Liberals and the liberals would be the…

If anyone had told me a year ago that Puff would make it through another year and then past this winter and into spring of 2005, I’d have thought them crazy. He’d been having seizures (which I brought under control), his hips and legs were deteriorating constantly, and the vets couldn’t figure out what was…