Month: June 2006

  • More Philadelphia gun violence!

    Bear in mind that the statistics you read about include incidents like this: A burglar who kicked his way into a locked store early yesterday found himself facing the shop’s owner – who was armed and fired his gun, police said. Damon Jones, 32, of the 400 block of West Wellens Street, was pronounced dead…

  • Not a bright idea . . .

    I think we should be glad that this didn’t happen at Guantanamo: MULTAN, Pakistan (Reuters) – Fateh Mohammad, a prison inmate in Pakistan, says he woke up last weekend with a glass lightbulb in his anus. Wednesday night, doctors brought Mohammad’s misery to an end after a one-and-a-half hour operation to remove the object. “Thanks…

  • Defending the indefensible

    While I’m not particularly into journalistic hype, it’s hard to resist digging into a piece that starts like this: Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is sitting on his back porch in Berkeley, Calif., listening to the hummingbirds and explaining his plans to seize control of the Democratic Party. I don’t care what you think of Kos, there’s…

  • Cartoon

    It’s been awhile since I’ve drawn anything, and this was more or less an exercise to brush up, but I was impatient and didn’t put in much effort. The concept was my girfriend’s … and she’s a Democrat! What do you think? For awhile I’ve been toying with the idea of drawing cartoons for this…

  • Building a better world — where only dictators have guns!

    “To disarm the people is the best and most effectual way to enslave them.” — George Mason, quoted in today’s New York Sun editorial. Last night I discovered that Jeff Soyer was written up in the UK’s Guardian — although hardly in a manner which could be called respectful. Aside from quoting Jeff without linking…

  • Flip-flopping on equal rights

    Here’s an in-depth look at a vexing question: Are flip-flops damaging your career? While I’m self employed (and thus don’t face such workplace pressures), I’m always intrigued by such cultural phenomena, but to my dismay, the article revealed a distinctly sexist bias: An online survey conducted for retailers Old Navy and Gap found flip-flops topped…

  • driven to drunken sex?

    Just as tobacco has all but been declared a poison (leaving smokers open to indictment for murder), via Ann Althouse I see that Wisconsin has declared alcohol to be a date rape drug: “Alcohol is the No. 1 date-rape drug, and we’ve felt strongly that our statutes should reflect that reality,” said Jill Groblewski, spokeswoman…

  • Inconvenient troots?

    Ann Althouse has come up with a great new term: Peter Daou signs off over at Salon, as he leaves to serve Hillary Clinton as “a blog advisor to facilitate and expand her relationship with the netroots.” Take note, bloggers! That’s a new job description, and you qualify! Blog Advisor, facilitating and expanding relationships with…

  • Facing dry facts dryly

    (Aerial view of Pennsylvania flooding accompanying a story about Red Cross shelters set up nearby — including one in this county.) The flooding (which I discussed yesterday) appears headed from bad to worse: The remarkable siege of rain that has left a deadly legacy of angry, chocolate-brown waters, submerged highways, and forced evacuations threatens the…

  • Legalize smoking — or face a war crimes tribunal!

    Can logic be carried too far? Earlier, when I researched the question of landlord legal liability for tenants’ secondhand cigarette smoke, I found an amazing web site, which goes much further than merely saying landlords are liable. According to the site, landlords and all others who allow cigarette smoking are murderers — even part of…

  • orders ignored in order

    I hate it when T-shirts like these clash with reality: Lest anyone think that the above is the company uniform Joey Vento issues to the employees of Geno’s Steaks, it’s actually associated with the rock group Clash. From the above website: Our best seller! This one is for the Clash fans. A faithful reproduction of…

  • Exegesis of reality-based values

    It’s not every day that I see one of my valued commenters getting bigtime attention, but it has happened. (Um, “Lo Ping Wong” is not my most valued commenter, of course, but all commenters at this blog are by definition valued! That’s because the values meme in this blog’s name operates like a tar baby…

  • Managing unmanageable water resources

    I don’t know which crisis is worse: Pennsylvania’s drought or Pennsylvania’s flood. We’re having both at the same time! I’ll start with the floods: Heavy overnight rains, falling on an already saturated landscape, have led to the flooding of streets and neighborhoods around the region. Although some streets have reopened, such as the Vine Street…

  • Rob Smith, R.I.P

    Via Pajamas Media, I’m sorry to read about the death of Rob Smith, aka ACIDMAN. “A Real Life” is how PJM described Rob, and I think that’s a fitting tribute. Despite innumerable and complex health problems, the guy kept blogging right up until his last day on the planet. (No indication in that post that…

  • Grabbing is silly!

    Just as I failed to care about the sex life of Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, I’m equally uncaring where it comes to the sex life of Rush Limbaugh. (At least, I’m assuming that’s what Viagra is used for.) Oddly enough, I find myself in agreement with Atrios: Grabbing people in airports ’cause they have a bottle…

  • Guns, Sudan, the Holocaust

    I tend to be distrustful of propaganda packaged as education, so naturally my attention was aroused when I read (in a piece titled “After the trigger is pulled”) a Philadelphia schoolteacher’s comparison of street crime to the Holocaust: Tuesday, March 14 – In a lecture room at Temple University Hospital, a color slide flashes on…

  • Is cosmic accountability a dead issue?

    John Steinberg thinks Ann Coulter is heaven-sent manna for the Democrats — a Republican version of Michael Moore, and that the key to Democratic victory should involve asking every living Republican whether he agrees with her: The question, “Are you an Ann Coulter Republican?” should confront every Republican running for every office in the land,…

  • The majority of the minority is the majority?

    John Grogan’s latest Inquirer column highlights the unrepresentative nature of what we often call “public opinion”: I caught a blistering earful from readers across the country after I criticized Michael Berg last week for denouncing the U.S. air strike that killed the terrorist who beheaded his son. Two guided bombs dropped near Baghdad this month…

  • Remember history with RINOs

    I’ve been busy with out of town visitors, so I haven’t had time for blogging today. But please read the George Santayana Edition of this week’s RINO Sightings Carnival, where Searchlight Crusade’s Dan Melson supplies historical context for each post. If you want to know what the invasion of Sicily, the Battle of Midway, Solon,…

  • Who says who’s a Muslim?

    This is getting interesting. According to CAIR, the seven men arrested last week for plotting to wage war against the United States (and blow up the Sears Tower) are not Muslims — and we are not to refer to them as Muslims: CAIRO ? The Council on American-Islamic Relations, America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group,…