Month: December 2005

I’ve been too busy to write, but not too busy to commit a random act of PhotoShop kindness. I was just thinking, well, if there’s really a war on Christmas, we need some warriors! I think our hero looks postively Mongolian in that stunning hat. Almost like Genghis (in a manner reminiscent of “Jenjis”?) Khan!…

Dreadfully depressing dream in which my house was under construction. A nasty fight with racial overtones broke out between two completely unreasonable contractors — each of whom blamed me for the presence of “the other.” Naturally each one blamed the other for starting the fight, and of course I had not seen any of it.…

Blogging has been light because of major Christmas-related responsibilities. It’s not yet Christmas, so today I’ll just say Happy Solstice! A couple of solstice scenes:

Dr. Helen’s speculation about bloggers being people who don’t feel well has cheered me immeasurably: Winston Churchill once said, “85% of the world’s work is done by people who don’t feel very well.” Perhaps this saying applies to bloggers. Is it my imagination or do a lot of bloggers seem to be people who don’t…

This kind of thing (via Drudge) makes me so sick of blogging that I could scream. Here’s Clinton, February 9, 1995: “The Attorney General is authorized to approve physical searches, without a court order” And, of course, Carter (May 23, 1979): “Attorney General is authorized to approve electronic surveillance to acquire foreign intelligence information without…

While I wouldn’t normally get too worked up about an election in Bolivia, when an anti-American leftist wins based on his opposition to the failed U.S. “War on Drugs,” I think it’s worth paying attention. I agree with Glenn Reynolds. I’m for relegalization. But until the other day, I had not known how desperate or…

The other night when Sean Kinsell was visiting, I read this story about Homeland Security agents showing up at the home of a student and intimidating him for checking out Chairman Mao’s ridiculous (and omnipresent) “Little Red Book,” and my immediate reaction was “I don’t believe this!” It’s just too hokey. I don’t think the…

Gee, it must be Stalin day at Classical Values…. Here’s a news item for the bioethicists to ponder: THE Soviet dictator Josef Stalin ordered the creation of Planet of the Apes-style warriors by crossing humans with apes, according to recently uncovered secret documents. Moscow archives show that in the mid-1920s Russia’s top animal breeding scientist,…

Via Kathy Kinsley at On The Third Hand, I found a fantastic, thought-provoking essay on radical losers. It’s much too long to discuss in its entirety, but the writer identifies certain traits shared in common by the loser: He can explode at any moment. This is the only solution to his problem that he can…

What? No Christmas ham? A WA hospital has scrubbed baked ham from its Christmas menu, fearing Muslim patients could be offended. It has also overhauled its entire menu so that all meals are now halal ? containing only meat and other food prepared according to Muslim customs. But Port Hedland Regional Hospital staff and many…

This week’s RINO Sightings Carnival has been posted by Judith Weiss at one of the first blogs I read as a beginning blogger, the wonderful Kesher Talk. All the posts are good, and Judith (who, BTW, runs a RINO and DINO social club) does a nice job of categorizing and summarizing them. Here are the…

I’m late getting to my blog today, and that’s because I’ve been running around with Sean Kinsell, who’s visiting from Japan for just a few days. Yesterday afternoon, Sean drove to my place, where he charmed the socks off Coco, who is normally very reserved about strangers. In fact, Coco liked Sean so much that…

Via Charles G. Hill, I have learned that women who dress in a sexy manner face workplace discrimination: Harvard librarian Desiree Goodwin, who holds two advanced degrees from Cornell University, charged that she was passed over for promotion 16 times because of her attire and physical attractiveness. Goodwin claimed the jobs she sought were given…

Dr. Helen has an excellent post about debt. I always laugh when I read articles such as this that describes why young people are in debt. The cause–rising college costs and easy access to credit cards they say. Uh, could it possibly have something to do with making $42,000 a year and spending $25,000 on…

Not long ago, I touched on the problem of the presence of children as a threat to freedom: And suppose I decided that no undisciplined brats would ever enter my home. Even that wouldn’t avoid possible contamination, as my child might end up visiting the home which created the problem, and on top of all…

To the left of the headline about the elections in Iraq, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s readers are treated to a scary headline — “It’s in the river: The dreaded snakehead” — accompanied by a photo and an article about the latest alien invasion. (Yes, we’re still allowed to use the word “alien” when speaking about non-human…

Today’s historic election in Iraq celebrates freedom and democracy in the truest sense. While I’m very happy for the Iraqi people, I think this election is good news for Americans so accustomed to hearing that our troops died in vain. They absolutely did not. Via Glenn Reynolds and Black Five, my attention was drawn to…

Speaking of our national kindergarten, it’s almost comical to see the “War on Drugs” degenerate into a War on Sudafed — soon to be a “War On All Substances That Even Though They Can’t Get You High Might Be Used In Theory By Someone To Make Something That Could Get Someone High.” Uncle Sam is…

Is there “implicit racism” in King Kong? According to David Edelstein, there is. And here’s “the implication”: Kong stands for the black man brought in chains from a dark island… I never knew. Seriously, this is the first I’ve heard about the racism of King Kong. But according to Baldilocks, “only a racist would automatically…

One of my pet peeves (which goes beyond ordinary political left-versus-right considerations) is what I see as this country’s relentless degeneration into what I’ve called a vast “national kindergarten” — more times than I can remember. Not everyone agrees with me that a national kindergarten would be a bad thing. In fact, there’s a piece…