Month: September 2005

Leon Kass is leaving the President’s Council on Bioethics. No word yet as to why. I certainly hope it’s not for reasons of ill health. I want him to have an artificially prolonged and strappingly healthy life. Poetic justice would then demand that he clearly recognize just what a pompous horse’s ass he’s been. After…

As I’ve said innumerable times, I’m no good at math. Things went so badly for me in high school math that I only passed it in the 11th grade because my teacher (an eccentric genius, if ever there was one) allowed students to supplement their exams with offbeat historical tidbits for “extra credit” — and…

One of the reasons I came close to defending the ACLU recently is that I like to think that when the chips are down and government rides roughshod over people’s constitutional rights, the ACLU can at least be counted on to do something. (Even if it’s just making a little noise in the press.) In…

Exaggerated or false news about New Orleans is everywhere, including patently false reports of cannibalism, and a host of other things — including innumerable reports of attacks and feasting on humans by alligators. I’ve always been partial to alligators, having owned several, one of which I kept in my bathtub for years. While there’s no…

Another day, another moral lecture. Trudy Rubin, writing in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, blames problems in New Orleans on Bush’s “tax cuts for the rich,” and says we’re losing the “support” of our “friends” around the world. A trip to Paris last weekend made me painfully aware of the global impact of Hurricane Katrina. The tardy…

NOTE: THERE ARE MORE POSTS BELOW, BUT THIS ONE HAS BEEN MOVED UP BECAUSE I WANT TO STRESS THE IMPORTANCE OF

Much to my amazement, last night I saw a report that hurricane victims housed temporarily in the Astrodome were offered space on cruise ships, but that there were very few takers. Today I see a report that actually, there were no takers: Houston – A plan by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to relocate evacuees…

An announcement that people will be “saved” at gunpoint: BATON ROUGE, La., Sept. 6 – As a handful of pumps toiled to drain the water out of a sprawling city today, the New Orleans police said they would force the 10,000 or so residents left in the city to leave and Louisiana officials warned of…

Is there any way to get David Brooks to just shut up? I mean, I try to be patient, but I keep seeing his September 4 New York Times editorial being thrust into my face, but to see it recycled (with the title changed from “The Bursting Point” to “A new storm ahead”) in today’s…

Are there too many opinions right now? Yesterday I was told there are — by someone who does not care to hear another opinion about Katrina or The Government or politics. While this makes me think I should stick to comedy, the problem with that is that there’s nothing at all funny about human suffering…

This week’s RINO Sightings Carnival has been posted by one of my oldest friends in the blogosphere, One Fine Jay who does a superb job of editing. Once again, the RINOs show why they’re a force to be reckoned with. The RINO posts are all formidable, and here are a few that seemed to charge…

Via Justin, I see that Bill Whittle has an excellent essay on the subject. Excerpt: Only a few minutes ago, I had the delightful opportunity to read the comment of a fellow who said he wished that white, middle-class, racist, conservative cocksuckers like myself could have been herded into the Superdome Concentration Camp to see…

I hate to see reports like this, but unless I am mistaken, (and unless Glenn Reynolds and Julian Sanchez are mistaken) official state and federal policy in New Orleans appears to come very close to one of starving people out (by prohibiting the Red Cross and Salvation Army from entering New Orleans): Digest this: government…

If someone had told me a month ago that Chief Justice Rehnquist would die in early September, and that very little attention would be paid to it, I’d have been flabbergasted. It’s huge news, but it’s just not interesting right now. Even my reaction was along the lines of “well it was expected, but what’s…

It’s Sunday morning, and as is so often the case, I find myself subjected to morality sermons I didn’t ask for — for the simple reason that I didn’t go to church. But these days (at least in larger urban areas like Philadelphia), there’s a huge class of guilt-infected, self-hating people who don’t go to…

Speaking of the limitations of blogging, Environmental Republican makes a telling observation: Blogs can’t compete with this onslaught. While the blogosphere is a major part of the information wagon train, they are much better with slower moving issues such as the Dan Rather affair or the Trent Lott kerfuffle. I’m not saying that blogs have…

A performer named Kanye West made some statements at a live NBC fundraiser yesterday which have pissed a lot of people off: West: I hate the way they portray us in the media. You see a black family, it says, “They’re looting.” You see a white family, it says, “They’re looking for food.” That’s a…

As Glenn says, “Advantage: Blogosphere!” I’d like to also say, “advantage, National Weather Service.” Except I’m puzzled. On August 28, Brendan Loy linked and quoted what he rightly called an “apocalyptic statement from the National Weather Service in New Orleans.” Here it is: URGENT – WEATHER MESSAGENATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE NEW ORLEANS LA413 PM CDT SUN…

But that doesn’t mean I want the government to “fix” anything! Rand Simberg does a fine job of explaining in lay terms why government attempts at price fixing do more harm than good: Consider — if a gas station owner has gas, someone has to decide who gets it. If the price remains at pre-hurricane…

Here’s another reason to find a charity and donate to it. Giving money to private charities might be better than relying on big government bureaucracies. Here’s WSJ.com’s Daniel Henninger: We know what to do. We have many specialists in the arcane disciplines relevant to understanding natural and man-made disasters. We know what to do, but…