Month: July 2005

James Doohan, who will forever be known as Scotty, has died: The publicist for James Doohan says the actor who played Scotty on “Star Trek” has died at his home in Redmond, Wash. He was 85. The cause of his death was pneumonia and Alzheimer’s disease. In Doohan’s biography on the official Star Trek Web…

Does this sick phenomenon called “outing” know no bounds? I mean, it’s bad enough to go after a politician for “hypocrisy” when his personal life runs afoul of his stated political views. But to go after a family member? This was the kneejerk reaction of certain Daily Kos regulars, who wasted no time in calling…

I’m sorry to report that in spite of my best efforts to encourage her, my dog Coco doesn’t think blogging beats being inactive. At least not right now. As someone who believes in rugged individualism, I refuse to blame outside influences for Coco’s mental state. Even when leading bloggers give up blogging entirely (Say Uncle…

Just yesterday, I was worried about the ineffectiveness of blogging as a way to accomplish anything. But I thought it over, and then this morning I saw a post by Say Uncle titled “Is Blogging Activism?: Gunner, in a must read post, figures he spends more time uncovering piles of dog shit than actually cleaning…

Via The Llama Butchers’ link to Michael Graham, I found something so vile, so ominous, that the seemingly innocuous nature of its “good intentions” made my head spin with rage. It shouldn’t have, really, because it’s just one more of many examples of bureaucracy run amok. Just a report that in the name of safety,…

I notice that in my haste, I have used the word “terrorist” repeatedly — even to the point where it appears in the title of my last post! I am chagrined, and at a loss for words. The BBC (and other like-minded progressive forces of the world) have decided that words like “terrorist” are judgmental,…

In a perfect example of how the fear of terrorism combines with anti-technology prejudice, some “experts” have been calling for restrictions on cell phone technology: mobile telephones have a lot of features that make them attractive to would-be bombers. Making them unable to send or receive calls helps, but it doesn’t disable the precise timers,…

As if I needed another reason to dislike those who would define people by their penises, today’s Philadelphia Inquirer features a “scientific” study which is undermined by a basic inability to define terminology, and which I suspect is grounded in opposition to true sexual freedom. Research on bisexuality is sparse, but a few intrepid scientists…

These days, crackpot conspiracy theories don’t take long to spread! Try googling the phrase “Tony Blair Ordered The London Bombings”. Right now I get 3,570 hits, although by tomorrow it will probably be more. What are they saying? Oh, here’s some typical tripe: Former MI6 operative: The mainstream media ignores vital evidence of an inside…

Via Glenn Reynolds, here’s Jeff Jarvis with some excellent questions about tiptoeing tolerantly around murder: Tolerance is good and necessary and civilized. Multiculturism is good; I’m so multi-culti I don’t know how mult-culti I am. But tolerance for criminals is always dangerous and wrong-headed. See the post below on the angry young men. We would…

Just as I’ve seen a lot of it here, I saw a lot of graffiti in Europe. Some of it is ugly, and some of it is beautiful. While I’ve touched on this before, naturally, this subject always makes me wonder about the definition of art. According to this expert, it comes down to consent:…

Justin’s post on the complexities and difficulties of life extension (who ever thought such a thing would be simple?) reminds me of a related issue: those who have made it their job not to extend lives, but to shorten the lives of ordinary people selected wholly at random. It has been all too easy and…

I?ve got to wonder how Eric does it. Blogs on a daily basis, that is. Considering that he produces about 99.5 percent of the output here at Classical Values, and seemingly without effort, you would think that I could pick up the slack for just a couple of weeks without burning out. Sadly, you would…

Or wanted to… On June 24, 2005, space-related industry leaders invited non-space industry executives to a dialogue exploring how lunar commerce could help achieve the economic growth foreseen by the national Vision for Space Exploration… To keep the event small and informal enough for genuine dialogue to begin, the invitation-only executive roundtable was held to…

Word from the complaints department has it that my recent post ?What Bioethicists Don?t Do? was so long and turgid (ahem) that it was well-nigh unreadable. The problem was duly noted, and is being addressed, right here and now. I?m going to run it past you again in an even more severely whittled down form…

I see that I attempted to write a blog post while sitting on a Baltimore runway yesterday, so I probably should start by getting that out of the way. Here’s yesterday’s no-longer alive post: While I know that traveling is supposed to be fun, there’s something very un-fun about air delays — especially the one…

Or perhaps “The Philadelphian” would be more appropriate? Wish I could work in some Tolkien. Anyway, I have it on the best authority that Eric is nearly back from his extensive travels. Huzza! Mere hours from now, you can all sink your incisors into the rich, creamy goodness (yet also tart, so very tart) of…

Just so you know where he’s coming from. Naturally, all italicization is mine. I rather like the effect. Testimony Before United States House of Representatives Committee on the Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime on ?The Ethics of Cloning? June 7, 2001 Testimony of Leon R. Kass, M.D., Ph.D.* Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee. My…

Someone has hit 25 posts here at Classical Values with comments seemingly advertising Google: i come from best search engine http://www.google.com I deleted one comment that was attached to a recent post of mine, and as I wondered why someone would flood a site with comments like these it hit me: could it be to…

Glenn Reynolds has more on the reluctance of the press to use the word terrorist, specifically the BBC which has infamously whitewashed its reporting on the recent terrorist bombings. Confused by my title? Read Glenn’s excerpt from the telegraph.