Month: February 2006

  • Lemme have a hit of your booze!

    After that last mammoth essay, I feel like I need a drink. And, thanks to the wonders of technology, there seems to be a new way to have a drink without taking a drink. (I said “seems to be” because I haven’t tried it, and I’m not convinced that it isn’t a lot of hoopla.)…

  • Why Activists Win, Part II

    “Jimmy” the hippopotamus and my father both came to Philadelphia in the mid-1930s (I’m pretty sure it was 1935, but I couldn’t locate Jimmy on the Net). My father had traveled from Minnesota to his new position in Philadelphia, and as he had to work long, long hours, the only time he could find off…

  • Kibbles and Bits

    Australian researchers have knowingly violated the laws of Man and God. Their doom is sealed, their fate horrific. Just kidding. In a major step towards understanding prostate disease, Melbourne scientists have grown a human prostate from embryonic stem cells. …human embryonic stem cells were developed into human prostate tissue equivalent to that found in a…

  • Waiting For My Rainbow To Come

    I mentioned back in November that Vernor Vinge’s latest novel, Rainbows End, would be available on May 16th. Unless of course you’re the Instapundit, in which case you’ve already got a copy. Sure wish he’d hurry up and finish it… At any rate, they’ve moved the date up by a couple of weeks. The new…

  • “I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by Marxist madness”

    In an amazing tale of a world gone mad, I see (via Sean Kinsell and Jeff at Beautiful Atrocities) that San Francisco’s City Lights bookstore has banned author Oriana Fallaci. Reason? She’s a “fascist“: although my friend is no fan of Ward Churchill, the faux Indian and discredited professor who notoriously called 9/11 victims “little…

  • WARNING: Not having a gun may be hazardous to your health!

    I agree with Eugene Volokh and Glenn Reynolds that this Virginia bill (forbidding doctors from asking patients whether they have firearms in the house) is an unconstitutional infringement on the doctors’ free speech. I also think it interferes unduly with the practice of medicine, although I worry that a “guide on safety counseling for pediatricians”…

  • The discreet charm of discretionary ethics

    I have a few more questions about journalistic ethics. In the case of pseudonyms (discussed infra), I see two issues, which are not at all the same: 1. Should print media allow the use of pseudonyms? 2. Should reporters ask a source whether the name given is that person’s real name, and reflect that in…

  • Amerika ain’t got no class!

    Now that I’ve devoted several posts to deconstructing the flawed concept of “Cultural Marxism,” I think it’s fair that I shift my attention to real Marxism (aka Communism). When I started this blog and named it “Classical Values” with a stated goal of ending the Culture War, the idea was to disagree with both sides…

  • Neo Cultural Revisionism resurrected?

    Even if there isn’t such a thing as “Cultural Marxism” in the pure sense, might there as well be? And if there might as well be, isn’t it as if there is? And if it’s as if there is, then, well, isn’t it a form of reality? Of, like, truth? A comment left by Nick…

  • Hero once honored, now smeared. Why?

    In a grotesque example of anti-military bigotry, the University of Washington’s Student Senate voted against honoring World War II war hero, Congressional Medal of Honor recipient Colonel Greg “Pappy” Boyington. Reason? According to the minutes of the Student Senate meeting, concerns were expressed about honoring “rich white men,” “whether it was appropriate to honor a…

  • When anonymity is anonymous, and fiction becomes truth . . .

    Young urban black males may live longer in prison, that does not reduce their natural lifespan, murder is unnatural (in my opinion – maybe not yours). Ditto with poaching of elephants. — Classical Values Commenter “Rowan Morrison“ As the subject of “truth” has been on my mind lately, I’m pondering a question of what I…

  • An opinion is not a fact, and the truth is not an opinion

    There are no facts, only interpretations. — Nietzsche I disagree with Nietzsche, because I think there are facts. But if I agreed with Nietzsche, that would not make me a “Cultural Marxist.” And I hope that even Nietzsche would agree that a lot of people have a hard time distinguishing facts from opinions. Facts (such…

  • 安全第一 (And I’m sure I agree!)

    Huh? What’s the above title mean? I really don’t know, because I don’t understand Japanese. But hey, I guess I’ll just write a post about it anyway. Sean Kinsell (who wrote the above title) reminded me of something I know all too well — but which it’s damnably easy to forget: There’s so much information…

  • Looking on the bright side of life

    What do you do if you’re supposed to be a daily blogger but you’re just burned out on opinions? I don’t know whether I’m more sick to death of my own opinions or the opinions of other people, but I’m sure as hell sick of opinions, and it isn’t easy saying so. Why? Because it…

  • Advancing Neo-Nazi “Mufti”culturalism

    Should it be illegal in a free country to spout nonsensical lies grounded in bigotry? A brief word on the Holocaust denial laws in Austria and other European countries. While I don’t think Holocaust denial and editorial cartoons posing questions about Muhammad are moral equivalents (I explained why in detail here), I think these laws…

  • On misidentification of Cultural fluids

    More on the logically muddled “Cultural Marxist” meme (which in an outburst of hysteria I earlier called “penile correctness”). There is a serious logical error being made by the people using and promulgating the “Cultural Marxist” label. In their haste to create a grab bag “ism” for all the various things they oppose, they’ve confused…

  • Fairness is a two way street

    Whether from a national security standpoint, a moral standpoint, or a political standpoint, the situation surrounding the UAE port deal is a mess. The right wing of the Republican Party is pissed, and Hillary Clinton (hastily joined by Bill Frist) now stands to gain. As a wellspring of moral support, Bush now has to look…

  • I have a right to afford your house!

    According to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Bryn Mawr Hospital (a local hospital that wants to expand) has been acquiring property by using the old-fashioned, pre-Kelo method of paying people whatever it takes to get them to sell! The most recent price paid by the hospital for what are run-down old rowhouses (I’ve seen them) was…

  • Is the Cold War over yet?

    Via Pajamas Media, I found what I consider a must-read post — “Gramscian Damage” by Eric S. Raymond. His thesis is that the United States intelligentsia is still plagued by pervasive and poisonous memes he calls “suicidalism” — aggravated by a failure to recognize that they’re still dealing with vintage Communist propaganda left over from…

  • Taking elections seriously. (A sober reassessment.)

    Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell believes that requiring voters to show ID at the polls constitutes “disenfranchisement“: With the National Constitution Center as his backdrop, Gov. Rendell used Presidents’ Day to announce his veto of a bill that would require all voters to show identification whenever they go to the polls. Seated in front of a…