Month: April 2005

I wish I could quit talking about sodomy. No, really. Even though I haven’t hesitated to discuss it in the past, I honestly thought that because sodomy laws were ruled unconstitutional, it wouldn’t be all that much of an issue in the future. I guess no one really stopped to think about military sodomy. (More…

Via Glenn Reynolds, I see that Matt Drudge has the honesty to admit he does not read blogs: As he approaches his 10th anniversary as an online clearinghouse for forthcoming news stories, unreleased books, tabloid yarns, Hollywood chatter and unconfirmed, sometimes bogus, rumors, Drudge, 38, is now treated more as an amusing diversion than a…

For once, some good news! Late last night, a friend sent me a link to this fiendishly frustrating puzzle, which looks easier than it is. The idea is to jump over each ball until all the balls but one are eliminated, and the best I could do was only to get it down to two…

What happens when some companies are too big to fail, and the rest are too small to succeed? I went out of my way to defend John Bolton (twice) not because I’m hoping that Karl Rove will send me the payment I’ve been accused of taking, but because as I see it, the main reason…

Indirectly via InstaPundit, I unintentionally stumbled across an untested hypothesis: My group consisted of myself and one other classmate, Chris. We were assigned the fable “The Fox and the Grapes,” which consists of a fox jumping repeatedly for grapes that are just out of its reach, before finally giving up and declaring that the grapes…

Douglas C. Weinstein’s post about ICU psychosis (a condition brought on by extended stays in the hospital) reminded me that this can happen to the best of us. Even the best of them — and I mean the caregivers themselves. When my father — a surgeon who obviously should have felt at home in his…

Is there something degrading about ordinary job titles? You know, the kind which have been around for years? I can remember when companies had personnel departments, but someone didn’t like that so they’re now called “Human Resources.” Why? I don’t honestly know. I did find this explanation: The human resource management or personnel function of…

Since Melody Townsel complained that he put her through hell, there have been more allegations about John Bolton dressing down subordinates, and even of his “harsh treatment of intelligence analysts.” Harsh treatment of intelligence analysts? We can’t have that, can we? (Especiallly considering the exemplary analyses they’ve been providing lately….) Elsewhere, it’s been reported that…

Justin is off celebrating Earth Day today. (Hmmm…. or is that Lenin’s birthday?) But before he left, he told me about a wonderful new T-shirt site Called Little Lefties. Here’s my Earth Day favorite: I also like the one that says “You cannot shake hands with a clenched fist” except I don’t understand why the…

When I was in high school, I was taught that DDT is dangerous. That this was a scientifically proven fact. DDT caused cancer, and it caused the thinning of egg shells in predatory birds. Thus it was responsible for the near-extinction of the bald eagle, the peregrine falcon, and other raptors. Claims are now appearing…

Does anyone remember when public broadcasting featured “balanced” programs like Bill Moyers? When both libertarian and conservative critics routinely demanded an end to government funding of public broadcasting? (Well, some still do.) Unless the WaPo is wrong, it appears that this balance may be shifting in the other direction: Liberal commentator Bill Moyers is out…

Here’s more evidence that SUVs are more dangerous than we realized: A tractor-trailer carrying new Mercury Mariners struck an overpass on the Atlantic City Expressway yesterday morning in Camden County, totaling two of the SUVs and damaging two more, police said. No injuries were reported. Eastbound lanes of the highway in Winslow Township were closed…

Whose free speech is it when the speech is not yours, but that of a commenter? As more and more mainstream media outfits resort to the Internet, we’ll see more and more stories like this one, asking more and more questions: Was it ethical, then, for NYTimes.com to publish a text accusing pope Benedict XVI…

In the past 24 hours, there has been a ton of incoming traffic directed to Justin’s brilliant post about Leon Kass (“Leon and Me“), but a Technorati search revealed no immediate incoming links, so I couldn’t ascertain the source. I thought to examine the referrer statistics, and I was delighted to discover the traffic was…

As the debate between libertarian and moral conservatives shows no signs of abating, I thought I’d take another look at the drug issue, which is a frequent area of contention. I’ll start with my remark yesterday in discussing Pope Benedict: If there’s one thing worse than a conservative, it’s a conservative who used to be…

Here’s Fox News chief Roger Ailes on bloggers: “Bloggers are not only checking the accuracy of CBS, they’re checking the accuracy of each other,” he said. “We know which bloggers — within a very short period of time — are generally credible and which ones are not.” It’s nice to see talk like that coming…

I am delighted to report that that last week’s Carnival (which provoked a humorous schism) hasn’t hurt the Carnival of the Vanities one bit. The 135th Carnival is now posted at Nick Marinelli’s Conservative Dialysis. Nick has done a great job, and none of the bloggers seems to have been unfairly maligned. Says Nick: Even…

Our creation stories and languages carry information about our genealogy and ancestors. We don?t need genetic testing to tell us where we come from. We will not stand by while our ancestors are desecrated in the name of scientific discovery. — Marla Big Boy I’m not sure I needed to stumble onto crackpot racial theories…

“….one of the greatest films addressing World War II?and its personalities?ever made.” — Rex Reed Speaking of moral relativism, I don’t see why on earth I have to wait till I see Downfall to write a review of it. Besides, it’s already been reviewed by people of impeccable taste and judgment, and whose writing talents…

Reviewing the life story of Pope Benedict XVI, a couple of things stand out. First, there are his views on relativism and dictatorship: As cardinal dean, Benedict was the principal celebrant and homilist at both John Paul’s funeral and at the special Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on the opening day of the conclave. It…