Month: January 2006

I see that a sickening Philadelphia story involving the apparently random, near fatal beating of a Haitian immigrant has reached the attention of Drudge, who links to this Breitbart report. The facts are appalling enough simply because of the cavalier nature of what was done: A Drexel University engineering graduate student told police he was…

Because of the near hysterical tone, my attention was drawn to this piece by an “educational consultant” (not quite sure what that means) named Alyssa Robins. She maintains that frogs will soon all be extinct because of a fungus caused by Global Warming: it has now been determined that the chytrid fungus, which causes a…

In a report described as a “bombshell,” Townhall.com’s Diana West says that “Pope Benedict XVI is said to believe that Islam is incapable of reform“: This bombshell dropped out of an early January interview conducted by radio host Hugh Hewitt with the Rev. Joseph D. Fessio, SJ, a friend and former student of the pope.…

Speaking of Michael Moore, I see that he’s railing against a possible conservative victory in Canada: “Oh, Canada — you’re not really going to elect a Conservative majority on Monday, are you? That’s a joke, right? I know you have a great sense of humor, … but this is no longer funny,” Moore complained in…

Much to the credit of his newspaper and his profession, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Robert Moran takes a hard look at the statistics behind Philadelphia’s shooting victims, who turn out to be not quite as innocent as they’re often portrayed. A full 70% have criminal records: Coleman was one of Philadelphia’s 380 homicide victims last year,…

Leave it to Time Magazine to make a big deal out of photographs allegedly taken of the president with Jack Abramoff. Frankly, I’d be surprised if there weren’t any such “incriminating” photos. Any Washington hustler worth his salt will try to elbow his way into being photographed with the president. Bill and Hillary Clinton were…

I’m having a bit of a low tech problem. My toilet is one of those tacky, early landlord special, low-flush models which ought to be called a “no-flush” toilet, because it often takes several flushes to get its job done, and many times a plunger is needed in addition to that. (Yechh!) As Radley Balko…

Via Nick Packwood, I learned that philanderers should think carefully about what animals they select as pets. A British parrot named “Ziggy” (named for David Bowie, of course) spilled the beans on his owner’s girlfriend: LONDON, England — A computer programmer found out his girlfriend was having an affair when his pet parrot kept repeating…

Just when I wasn’t sure whether I was really a bona fide RINO or just a RINO In Name Only, curveball thrower James Wolcott had to go and say this: …it’s clear that there’s a homoerotic ardor for Bush by neonconservatives that bypasses reason and reduces them to hero-worshipping mush. Sheesh. Statements like that make…

I think the following Philadelphia Inquirer story — headlined “Kids, Guns and a Deadly Toll” — is a remarkable piece of reporting, not for what it says, but for what it does not say: It’s as if the minute Darnell Winn, 15, was shot and killed Saturday night, the streets started screaming his name: “Mook.”…

I am at a loss to interpret lunatic ravings like these by a man whose logic I consider insane: What you hear about him and his suicide is a strong message to you, which he wrote with his blood and soul while pain and bitterness eat him up so that you would save what you…

Among other things, that last essay reminded me that it really isn’t reasonable for me to call myself a RINO (Republican In Name Only). Nor is it reasonable for anyone else to call himself a RINO. Because, if the ideas and beliefs of the Republican Party are not ideas and beliefs, but merely political tactics…

One of the things I did while in the Bahamas was spend a day on the island of Eleuthera. A more serene and beautiful place would be hard to imagine, and it’s tough to visit without wanting to move there. Inherently tough though it is to leave Nirvana, I bravely flew back to the land…

This effort to hold Republicans accountable (to a standard higher than the Abramoff business as usual standard) seems eminently worthy of a link. I agree that the new leadership should be “thoroughly and transparently free of the taint of the Jack Abramoff scandals” as well as undue influence by K Street lobbyists. I also welcome…

I’m chagrined! No really. Via Glenn Reynolds and a whole host of others, I see that I missed out on a major Culture War outburst of Pat Robertson-style channeling by New Orleans Mayor Roy Nagin, who not only maintained that God sent Hurricane Katrina as punishment for various sins, but that God demands chocolate! “It’s…

If you’re looking for a few hopeful signs in this sadly diminished world, you could do worse than to visit Green Car Congress. Interestingly, their name doesn’t say it all. They don’t limit themselves to cars. Far from it. It was at Green Car Congress that I first heard of the Green Goat hybrid switching…

The things I miss while I’m away…. If reports like this are correct, the United States is under invasion at the border — not in the civilian sense by aliens from Mexico, but by the Mexican military. And the U.S. government is doing, well, basically nothing. Unless you consider warning the border patrol to stay…

Via Worldchanging, an interesting article in the Christian Science Monitor. Bolted onto the exhaust stacks of a brick-and-glass 20-megawatt power plant behind MIT’s campus are rows of fat, clear tubes, each with green algae soup simmering inside. Fed a generous helping of CO2-laden emissions, courtesy of the power plant’s exhaust stack, the algae grow quickly…

While I try not to go out of my way to look for such things (a major reason I avoid television), last night I was reminded that the type of thinking which annoys me does not go away simply because I take a vacation from it. In order to view a slideshow of pictures I…

I’ve heard people say that Too much of anything is not good for you, baby… The finitude of life is a blessing for every individual, whether he knows it or not. Oh no… I wish to make the case for the virtues of mortality. But I don’t know about that… If the life span were…