Month: June 2005

Here’s James Wolcott, detector of “rubes”: Now I enjoyed reading Heinlein when I was, like, thirteen, but he’s something you outgrow once you acquire a dab of literary and intellectual sophistication. Even the teen me was more enamoured of Ray Bradbury, whose sci-fi cast a much more poetic mood of discovery and desolation than Heinlein’s…

I’ll be gone most of the day today, but I wanted to touch upon something I largely ignored in blogging about the puzzling tragedy of the death by asphyxiation of three little boys in Camden. That’s this picture of David Agosto, the father of one of the boys, shown just after opening the trunk: When…

Thanks to an annoying mailing list I somehow managed to get on, I just learned about an interesting case alleged to involve First Amendment violations and religious persecution by Allstate Insurance. (A guy named J. Matt Barber published an article which mentioned his employment with Allstate, and slammed the evil homos): Barber says the human…

Three missing boys who prompted a massive, two day manhunt (which included checking sexual offender registries) have been found — in the trunk of a car right where they’d last been seen playing: ….it ended abruptly around 7 p.m., when David Agosto opened the door of a maroon Toyota Camry parked inside Cruz’s yard and…

I don’t know why stories like this always seem to hit the press on Fridays, but the forces of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom have struck again. Working through State Senator Jackie Speier (who, BTW, has been trying to ban gun shows for years) he’s trying to get state law changed to allow San Francisco…

I probably shouldn’t obsess so much over ancient burglaries, but now that it’s one week past the Thirty Third Watergate anniversary, I didn’t want to forget this tempting tidbit from Bob Woodward: In 1970, when I was serving as a lieutenant in the U.S. Navy and assigned to Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, the chief of…

Via Jeff Goldstein, I see that Ted Kennedy is in high dudgeon over, over… Well, over a quagmire: “I’m talking about misjudgments, gross errors and mistakes. Those are on your watch. Isn’t it time for you to resign?” Kennedy asked. “Our troops deserve better, the American people deserve better. They deserve competency and they deserve…

A narrow majority of the court simply got the law wrong today and our Constitution and country will suffer as a result. — Scott Bullock, of the Institute for Justice, commenting on today’s outrage. These narrow majorities don’t stop, either. Thanks to the Gang of Five who usurp by interpretation, local bureaucrats will be tearing…

I just took a so-called IQ test which told me that I was underpaid and that I should: Demand a pay rise while you still have your faculties. (Via Tom Hamilton, who was told the same thing.) I can’t demand a damned thing — because I’m self-employed and my faculties wouldn’t help me even if…

It scared me yesterday to see blatant political indoctrination being passed off as “teaching.” Unfortunately, I soon discovered that many if not most of the people who are working against this stuff turn people off with their moralistic fervor, thus preventing many ordinary, reasonable people from seeing that there is truly a horrendous, institutionalized, problem.…

George R.R. Martin, that is. And man, have I been feeling that monkey on my back, bad. The wait for his newest book, “A Feast For Crows” has seemed interminable, in no little part because “they” keep announcing release dates, then reneging on them. Cruel they are, the lying publishers. If you like medievalesque fantasy…

As the recent demonstration against the biotech conference in Philadelphia reminded me, free speech — especially contentious demonstrations — can be a major pain in the ass. (For one Philadelphia police officer, they proved to be a fatal pain in the heart.) As I remarked in the comments, professional demonstrators who travel from city to…

Jeff Jarvis thinks Dell sucks. InstaPundit thinks otherwise. Me, I’m way too cheap to invest in a new computer, but I do have three used Dells — all running smoothly. (Two Precision WorkStation server machines — a 530, a 410 — and my laptop, a Latitude C600.) Considering that if I total up the prices…

This week’s Carnival of the Vanities is simply magnificent, and it is truly the first Carnival that I can wholeheartedly recommend even to people who would never bother to read the Carnival. I’d go further than that, and recommend this carnival even to the illiterate! That’s because host Laurence Simon (Laurence Cardinal Simon to those…

While stumbling around in an early morning attempt to research a couple of small items in today’s paper, I inadvertently struck a veritable gold mine of bullshit, and I guess because I write this blog I have a um, “responsibility” to share it with my readers. Please prepare for something as tedious to read as…

I was going to try to ignore these stupid, anti-democratic demonstrators, but now that a police officer has died, I can’t. PHILADELPHIA-June 21, 2005 ? A Philadelphia police officer who was hurt trying to make arrests during protests in Philadelphia has died. Protestors are demonstrating against a major bio-tech conference in Center City. Sources tell…

Via John at Locusts and Honey, I learned of a plan by the United Methodist Church to divest itself of “stock in companies whose dealings with Israel facilitate the seizure of Palestinian land or the destruction of Palestinian homes.” The target of course is the evil Caterpillar Inc., manufacturer of bulldozers which ran over anti-Israeli…

ItsaPundit is home to this week’s not-to-be-missed 103rd Bonfire of the Vanities. Host “Puppy Blender” (where have I heard that?) begins with a disclaimer: No actual puppies or hobo’s were hurt during this, but, it can cause carpet tracks and uncontrollable apoplexy from certain fakers. I’m at least as guilt of apoplexy today as I…

I see that Bill Gates has held talks with Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai in an effort to stop software piracy: Vietnamese Prime Minister Phan Van Khai pledged to combat software piracy during talks with Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates on Monday as he became the most senior official of the communist state to visit…

If all goes well, today should mark the launching of Cosmos 1, the first fully operational light sail propelled spacecraft. The launch will proceed SMERSH-like from a submerged Russian ballistic missile submarine in the Barents Sea , using a surplus Russian ICBM. The official site for the project is loading unusually slowly today. I hope…