Month: June 2005

When I jokingly mentioned “controlled demolition” earlier, I meant attending to Puff’s cremation, which happened this morning. It was terribly depressing to see Puff one last time. Then I watched him go into the furnace — an even more final event. Taking the day off strikes me as a good idea. I’m not up to…

One Morgan Reynolds, described as a former Bush administration official has finally spoken up about 9/11! The government?s collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms, but its blinkered narrowness and lack of breadth is the paramount defect unshared by its principal scientific rival ? controlled demolition. Only professional demolition appears to account for…

“Angels (of Mercy) do not enter a house wherein there is a dog or a picture of a living creature (a human being or an animal).” —Hadith – Bukhari 4:448, Narrated Abu Talha That will provide background for an fascinating news report I found via Charles Johnson, about a girl who was (allegedly) turned into…

This macro lens is making me realize what a hideously scary environment I live in. I should probably be glad I don’t read scifi. With stuff like that lurking around on a daily basis, I couldn’t take the additional stimulation! UPDATE: The above pictures might get me into trouble: ‘Whoever makes a picture will be…

The lack of interest that Steven Malcolm Anderson expressed about the Michael Jackson case reminded me of my own complete lack of interest until yesterday. What changed? Perhaps it was the realization that for once, a well orchestrated media circus backfired. Maybe “fizzled” is the right word. Picture yourself as an ordinary American on that…

Dean Esmay has a piece called “The Modern Scarlet Letter,” in which he argues against punishing people for life (long after their debt to society has been repaid): What on Earth ever happened to the mentality in this country that once you’d worked off your sentence and paid your debt to society, you were a…

I have paid almost no attention to the Michael Jackson trial circus, but I just turned on CNN to watch for the verdict. I predict it will be guilty, not guilty, or a mistrial! Betcha I’m right! UPDATE: It was not a mistrial. The jury is described as having “a verdict.” UPDATE (05:18 p.m.): And…

Philadelphia children are being killed at an alarming rate. And I mean real, little, children; not the vague “under 25” category so often cited by gun control advocates. In the past month alone, eight children were killed in Philadelphia, but no mass protests of the carnage are planned. Why, the deaths aren’t even being referred…

Microsoft censors bloggers? Can such things be? According to reports like this, Microsoft is doing just that. And it joins Yahoo and Google in cooperating with government censorship: BEIJING – Users of Microsoft?s new China-based Internet portal were blocked Monday from using the words ?democracy?, ?freedom? and ?human rights? in an apparent move by the…

This analysis of allegations that Bill Clinton raped his wife Hillary is quite interesting: ….a new book about Hillary contains bombshell allegations that Chelsea was conceived when Bill raped her. This is a scurrilous allegation that our side should steer clear from for a variety of reasons. First, because something like that shouldn’t be said…

One of the things which plagues me the older that I get is to see clear evidence that many of the issues over which people feel the most strongly (and over which they spend large amounts of time debating), are really beyond debate. I touched on this last week with the subject of pro-growth versus…

Speaking of those who like to blame America, I see that Sean Penn is in Iran. Is Penn there to help spread democracy? According to an email from Iranian activist author Banafsheh Zand-Bonazzi, one of the sponsors of his trip is an outspokenly pro-Castro activist named Medea Benjamin: Once again, the Cultural Imperialists from ANSWER…

A few days ago, I was quite amused to see Sidney Blumenthal’s comparison of Bush to Nixon. The problem, though, with recycling the same canned comparison with the same characters is that it’s as unoriginal as it is boring. And the fact is, Bush has a lock these days on being the evil Nixon. Which…

Francis Bacon is held in low esteem these days, at least in certain quarters. To hear some folks tell it, the “relief of man’s estate” that he advocated was a colossal blunder on society’s part. We may yet survive the attempt, but things are still looking pretty dicey. Feh. Bacon was a brilliant man, as…

Years and years ago I read the following lines. Lately, not a week goes by that I’m not reminded of them. “Keep clear of the dupes that talk democracy And the dogs that talk revolution, Drunk with talk, liars and believers.” Robinson Jeffers, of course. “The Stars Go Over The Lonely Ocean.” Once upon a…

This Why They Hate Us Pavilion news is depressing stuff, but it’s an inescapable fact that many Americans think of their country as a very guilty if not evil place: On my grave, please do not build a memorial to the mistakes of my neighbors and ancestors. Don’t stand on the grass above me and…

I finally splurged and got a new camera (a Nikon Coolpix 7900) with which I’m familiarizing myself: The macro feature is very interesting; here’s the center of a rose: And here’s a zoom taken from a normal non-macro shot — showing Coco’s eye (the blue one): The eye is a bit blurry, but it was…

Right now, Puff is sleeping comfortably. He doesn’t know it, but he’s waiting for the end, which will come shortly. An hour later…. The vet (who was nice enough to make a house call) arrived, and I took Puff outside for the last time. I put his bed on the front porch, and he lied…

Over a year ago, I wrote a post in which I confessed to using a men’s room which had been taken over by women, and I ridiculed the so-called “potty parity” laws. I should have kept my mouth shut, because I may have given the Philadelphia City Council ideas. Councilman Frank Rizzo (who doesn’t seem…

As of a few hours ago, the inner workings of this blog (the stuff you can’t see) have been upgraded to MovableType Version 3.17. It’s easier to use — a better interface, better SPAM blocking, better post and comment management — and it does so many more things that I feel like a kid with…