Month: July 2006

That’s how the LA Times (writing in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer) describes what it calls “the illegal weapons trade” (code-language to describe what the gun grabbers want made illegal): UNITED NATIONS – A two-week U.N. conference reviewing efforts to fight the illegal weapons trade has ended in failure, with nations too divided on too many contentious…

You might find it queer that a psychologist who studies stereotypes would have such strange stereotypes. But there’s more than a grain of truth in the stereotype that psychologists study things that are problematic for them. For example, I study decision making and have a lot of trouble making decisions. I feel ambivalent about most…

A BBC headline reads “Ten Taleban fighters ‘killed’” and I read ‘so they say.’ What else could the scare quotes mean? Supposedly? In a manner of speaking? Is this meant as a direct quote? It’s possible that coalition forces used precisely the word ‘killed,’ but there’s no reason to quote the word unless you want…

Love your enemies, for they will tell you your faults. — Benjamin Franklin Might William F. Buckley be “one of the reasons Senator Joe Lieberman is having such a tough time running for reelection in Connecticut”? In his recent column, Buckley reminisces and wonders: . . .[T]hough Lieberman did not move one inch rightward, we…

Sigh. Here comes yet another post about anti-gun bias in the Philadelphia Inquirer. I like the Inquirer and I honestly wish I didn’t have to be doing this, but articles like this latest one just have a way of making me feel obligated. Raymond Ruffin, also known as “Dude” or “Black,” was shot in the…

Miss me? I know I did. Woulda left you alone, but one of my favorite blogs is under a DDOS attack right now, and it’s pissing me off so much that I just had to get toasty. And you know what happens when daddy gets toasty. That’s write. He starts righting. In other news, Khalid…

Of all the various forms of viciousness I’ve seen in the years I’ve been blogging, this one takes the cake. While I can’t open Jeff’s links right now as his site is down, via Pajamas Media and Ace, I see that Jeff Goldstein’s two year old child has been threatened by University of Arizona psychology…

A brief word on decision by the New York Supreme’s decision that same sex marriage is a matter for the legislature. (Excellent roundup from Glenn Reynolds, who also links Gay Patriot’s thoughtful post on the subject.) I think it is a matter for the legislature, and that’s why I also agree with GayPatriot that the…

In previous posts, I discussed allegations of an allegedly “secret” government plan to create a “North American Union” which would supposedly erase the borders between the United States, Mexico, and Canada. I now see that John Hawkins of Right Wing News has entered the fray, in a dramatic online debate with John Corsi, the man…

“Courage is not the lack of fear. It is acting in spite of it.” —Mark Twain Earlier reports that the the attacker who sawed open a passenger’s chest in the New York subway was carrying a teddy bear seem to have been inaccurate; according to authorities, Mr. Williams was actually carrying this: From the NY…

New York subway incidents like this are in my view doing a pretty good job of making the case for right to carry laws: The victim of the subway power-saw attack says workers at the Manhattan station did nothing as a man sliced his chest open. Meanwhile, police say they’ve charged a man who they…

Regular reader may recall that there’s a Saudi madrassa operating in my neighborhood which has been the subject of a number of complaints. A ruling from the Zoning Board is due next week, and the Philadelphia Inquirer has an article with lots of details: Foundation leaders are pledging to be better neighbors from here on,…

Glenn links a

A lot of people don’t trust Wikipedia, and here’s a perfect example of why: The death of former Enron chief Ken Lay on Wednesday underscored the challenges facing online encyclopedia Wikipedia, which, as the news was breaking, offered a variety of causes for his death. Lay, 64, died of a heart attack early Wednesday, a…

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets a little advice from Hugo Chavez.

There’s long been a big debate about the degree to which the founders were religious men, and there still is. (They were, although they saw the wisdom of keeping any particular religious view out of the founding.) Because they are part of our history, I think it’s essential to know the religious viewpoints of the…

Today seems to be a poor day for headlines. While acknowledging Kim Jong Il’s missiles that fizzled, the front page of today’s Philadelphia Inquirer mainly highlights the ridiculousness of government — with the top story being the closure of casinos in New Jersey, which “ceased all gambling operations amid a state budget impasse that idled…

Some credit is due here. I’m still warming up my old skills, and I decided to do this one with real pens (crow quills, speedballs, india ink, and all that). I splattered some ink and butchered the lettering, but wanting to get this up and move ahead, I decided to use a font rather than…

When control freaks who used to be on opposing sides of the political spectrum get together, God help us. A very important essay — Frank Furedi’s Confronting the New Misanthropy (linked by Glenn Reynolds) discusses this phenomenon. What makes the essay so hair-curling is that it’s so true. This Orwellian Newspeak, religion-as-science, Luddism in the…

Coco has been thinking about government tyranny — especially the kind which would force me to have someone to take a knife to her private areas. I don’t want to do that to her — any more than she wants it done to her. We both think it violates Natural Law to force a man…