Month: March 2006

This week’s RINO Sightings Carnival is posted at The Politechnical Institute. Great blog, and great posts, all worth reading. I alsoe like the attempt to summarize the beliefs of this tough-to-define group: If one were to sum up the beliefs of the Raging Rinos, it would be independent minded. Wait, that?s two words. If you…

I spent most of today having a shoulder injury (well, what I thought was a shoulder injury) diagnosed. Two doctors, plus a visit to a rehab specialist. I’m an exercise nut, and among other things I do a minimum of 120 consecutive full-motion pushups on alternate days (with stands, and feet elevated), plus a minimum…

A brief word about Rumsfeld v. FAIR (Supreme Court holding that ROTC and military recruiters cannot be barred from universities despite sexual preference discrimination). While Orin Kerr and fellow Volokh conspirators have, in my view, done an excellent job analyzing the legal aspects of the case, I’m a bit more concerned about the political and…

Anger is honorable, says Hillary Clinton: “People will be attacking you instead of your ideas, they may impugn your patriotism, they may even say you’re angry.” “If they do that, wear it as a badge of honor, because you know what? There are lots of things that we should be angry and outraged about these…

I’m intrigued by Ayman al Zawahiri’s latest remarks: Al Qaeda’s deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahri said offences against Prophet Mohammad were part of a “crusader” campaign led by the United States, and he urged Muslims to conduct new strikes on the West. In a video broadcast Saturday on Al-Jazeera Arab satellite network, Al Qaeda’s No. 2…

I don’t watch much television, but I thought out of fairness to the blogosphere I would do my duty and attempt to live blog the Oscars. So, I turned on my television, only to discover that they were showing a long montage…. But then I saw that meanwhile, PBS station WHYY is doing a fundraising…

As I recently learned, ebay is not a venue for free speech. No matter how ridiculous a thing or a concept might appear to be, there is no right to ridicule or satirize it at ebay: Keyword spamming occurs when members place brand names or other inappropriate keywords in a title or description for the…

That’s easy for me to say. But when I was looking for something else on my um, hard drive late last night, I found a photo I surreptitiously took of Dionysius, and I saw that it was leaning. So I flipped it to make it lean the other way. But then the gods played tricks…

Glenn’s link reminded me that Wal-Mart has not paid me to write a post attacking the Philadelphia Inquirer’s criticism of Wal-Mart for the crime of hiring people on Medicaid (or something like that). The data will add fuel to the debate, which may be part of today’s budget hearing in Harrisburg, over whether too many…

In an ongoing series of posts (such as “Why Activists Win” parts I and Part II), I’ve explored the mechanism of intimidation by activists (something I’ve been a target of personally). I’ve long believed that there’s a tacit (if not officially unacknowledged) connection between the public activist “leaders” and their anonymous-if-not-covert “followers.” (The “street,” if…

I’m confused about what seems to be a recurrent pattern in this country. When there are laws against something, and these laws are not enforced, instead of enforcing the existing laws, there’s always a demand for new laws. Tougher laws. It’s as if there’s some magical belief system that the tougher the law is, the…

I don’t normally write posts about sports, but it’s not every day that a sports fan spreads his mother’s ashes on the 50 yard line during a professional football game: Charlotte Noteboom, 70, a sports fanatic and lifelong Eagles fan, died of emphysema in January 2005, just days before the Eagles won the NFC championship…

Steven Malcolm Anderson where are you when I need you? I say this not to grieve Steven (although I have and still am), but because despite my deep and abiding cynicism, I just can’t stay ahead of the constantly shifting political spectrumology. Let me back up. I still remember the good old “normal” days. When…

I love it! Linking to Hugh Hewitt’s interview with Christopher Hitchens, Glenn Reynolds called Francis (“History-Has-Ended“) Fukuyama an “insoluble problem.” Well, history has ended, hasn’t it? Nothing left to solve or dissolve. All that remains is nostalgia (as Hitchens says, “a secret academic wish to be living in “normal” times once more.”) I don’t want…

I’m feeling safer already. The Patriot Act has just passed overwhelmingly, which means that all patriotic Americans will now have to show ID in order to buy cold medicine: The U.S. Senate voted 89-10 to reauthorize the USA Patriot Act today and the bill includes provisions, co-authored by California Sen. Dianne Feinstein, that will put…

Critical pedagogy: a teaching approach which attempts to help students question and challenge domination, and the beliefs and practices that dominate. In other words, it is a theory and practice of helping students achieve critical consciousness. In this tradition the teacher works to lead students to question ideologies and practices considered oppressive (including those at…

Taking things literally is one of my favorite (and most annoying) pastimes. So, after briefly getting ahead of myself with the literal implications of the title, I read Yankee Muse’s post — “An Army of Mohammads” (via Glenn Reynolds), and I found myself in full agreement with his points: The same technological advances [discussed in…

I don’t know why, but I dreamed about pinheads last night. Anyone who has seen the 1932 Todd Browning film “Freaks” knows that they’re cute and charming, and, well, they’re just not like most of us. That’s why people used to pay money to watch them perform, and it’s why the movie “Freaks” continues to…

Hillary Clinton, Charles Schumer, and newspaper editorial boards all seem to be echoing the same meme: guns should be traced: The National Tracing Center database is an essential resource for law enforcement. Beyond enabling law enforcement to trace the history of a gun linked to a crime, it helps identify patterns of gun theft and…

What is an “anti-family interloper”? People who are interested in the future of the Republican party might want to read this post, which uses the term to describe a growing threat to the Republican Party: In recent years, the conservative pro-life/pro-family base of the GOP has not only had to stand its ground against the…