Month: April 2005

A comment from Sean Kinsell to yesterday’s post about “self-loathing” made me think some more about what I said yesterday: ….[A]s for “self-loathing,” you could just as easily accuse people who push their gay-gay-gayness in your face all the time (and build their entire worldview around it) of over-compensating. It’s not as if there were…

This week’s Carnival of the Vanities is written by a European blogger named Dr. Zen who seems to dislike conservatives and libertarians, and who doesn’t have a terribly high opinion of Americans in general. He’s entitled to his opinion, of course, but he spends most of his time, well, fisking the posts. Odd, because he…

I really should watch more TV. Especially today because Classical Values was mentioned on CNN. I would probably have never known about this had Graham Lester not been kind enough to leave a comment to my earlier post (asking whether it’s self-loathing for gays to oppose Hillary Clinton): Eric, you are a star! This post…

Don’t you wonder why practically every house built in America after World War Two is a design abortion? The answer is actually simple but a little abstruse: ugliness is entropy made visible. When you live in a high entropy society, as we do, the entropy manifests in many ways… Until yesterday I had never heard…

I am happy to report that the Canadian government scandal (which my local paper previously and repeatedly failed to report) has finally made it into the Philadelphia Inquirer: OTTAWA, Canada – Prime Minister Paul Martin scrambled yesterday to prevent the fall of his government amid a kickback scandal in his Liberal Party, as a new…

You have been tried by twelve good men and true who are as high above you as heaven is of hell. Time will pass and seasons will come and go. Spring will come with its wavin’ green grass and heaps of sweet-smellin’ flowers on every hill. Then sultry Summer with her shimmerin’ heat waves and…

Former president Bill Clinton thinks it is an act of self-loathing for a gay man to oppose his wife’s political candidacy on the one hand, while at the same time marrying his partner: Former President Bill Clinton wasn’t about to let just anybody attack his wife – especially a gay Republican operative. Clinton fired back…

As I was sitting alone for a couple of hours enjoying the tranquility of a Spring evening, Justin told me about his latest find: an anti-“sprawl” Chicken Little writer named James Howard Kunstler, interviewed in the current Rolling Stone. (Among other things, he hates L.A. and especially Disneyland.) I’ll leave it to Justin to fisk…

When Michael Barone’s piece about the trustfunder left caught my attention, I focused on the issue of guilt — arguing that unless wealth is inherently evil, those who inherit it should not feel any guiltier than those who earned it. (I realize those who believe property is theft would place “earned” in quotes, but I…

In light of Eric’s comments on gay marriage, specifically regarding the legal side of the question, I thought I should link to this piece by Jennifer Roback Morse at Policy Journal Online, “Marriage and the Limits of Contract.” It strikes me that the author has an agenda (she has published two books on love) and…

A college professor named Elijah Anderson has identified what he calls “the code of the street,” which he identifies closely with urban crime: The factors that give rise to inner-city street crime and violence are many and complex, but spring mainly from the circumstances of life among the ghetto poor. Among them are the lack…

It’s Dean Esmay’s Third Blogiversary! Dean’s World was one of the first blogs I found and has remained one of my favorites ever since. He’s a real inspiration to me and others. There are very few people who are consistently (literally — Dean stands by his first post) able to put out intelligent, provocative posts…

If you’ve been worried about the Loch Ness Monster, there’s reason to worry some more. An man describing himself as a college student from the Midwest claims he has solved the puzzle. “Nessie,” it turns out, is no water-bound plesiosaur, but an amphibian creature that comes ashore to prey on deer! During a trip to…

In response to my post about the Republican “Tent,” a blogger named Dignan directed my attention to his very thoughtful post on the subject. Dignan believes that libertarians (which he prefers to call “classical liberals”) are in the same tent as conservative Christians and need each other. He makes the following very cogent points: ….whatever…

If I remember correctly, Glenn Reynolds’ lawnmower culture war started with a discussion of razors. The cutting edge debate over electric versus blade razors somehow led to the virtues of power versus rotary lawnmowers. Eventually all perspective was lost and some of the moralest of the moral conservatives accused Reynolds of avoiding the Terri Schiavo…

A couple of weeks ago I saw a story in my local paper about assaults on teachers by parents: Lamberton School principal Marla Travis Jones was assaulted on the job this month. Her alleged assailants were not students, but, rather, a student’s mother and older brother – each of whom she estimates was five inches…

Someone’s come up with a new political Rube Goldberg-style contraption, and I want one! It’s a Hill-O-Meter! April 7, 2005 — WASHINGTON ? One of the nation’s top pollsters has created a new “Hillary Meter” to measure Sen. Clinton’s move to the political center for a 2008 White House run – it shows she’s made…

I took Puff to a veterinary neurologist today, and confirmed my suspicions that his inability to walk is of neurological rather than arthritic origin. Here’s the what the neurologist said: At examination today Puff seems to be in good general health except for the marked weakness and loss of position sense in the rear limbs.…

Here’s Dick Morris on the reaction of Bill and Hillary Clinton to the Sandy Berger bust: The Clintons’ reaction when Berger was caught? The former president’s comments sound just too scripted to believe: He laughed and said that it was typical of Sandy to be disorganized and forget how he handled documents. Quite a comment…

Speaking of agents provocateur, is it fair to ask precisely who the spammers might be working for? I’ve been thinking along completely paranoid crackpot conspiracy theory lines. Consider the following (slightly sanitized) trackback spam I just received: A new TrackBack ping has been sent to your weblog, on the entry XX (Xxx Xxxx). IP Address:…