Month: December 2006

  • Decline and Fall

    Here is a bit I posted at my place a few days ago. It fits in with the themes often seen here at Classical Values. === Commenter Karridine alerted me to this interesting piece by Orson Scott Card on the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. Card’s central thesis is that trade made the…

  • Please Allow Me To Introduce Myself

    First I’m no man of wealth, but I do have a fair amount of taste. Especially for fine women, fine wine, and fine cigars. Now that the Devil is out of the way. Merry Christmas to all. My main interests are politics, American and Middle Eastern, science and engineering especially the energy sector, the drug…

  • ‘Tis the Season for an Announcement!

    As I get ready to leave for a vacation, I was pleasantly surprised to see a post from Dennis (which I think is a good omen). I’ll be gone for eleven days, and depending on time and Internet connectivity, I might be able to check in, or I might not. But regular readers, fret not!…

  • Wii!

    This is really fun. I’m blogging to you now from the new browser channel for the Nintendo Wii (powered by Opera). The typing interface isn’t as bad as you might think, but it definitely isn’t something I’m likely to do again. You point and click with the wiimote on a visual keyboard, and the software…

  • Virtue at gunpoint

    You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog! — Harry S. Truman This interesting discussion of altruism (a topic which seems to interest mainly libertarians these days) triggered thoughts of Harry’s maxim: What are friends for and how can a friendship be tested? By behaving altruistically, would be the most common answer and by…

  • The rape that might as well have happened

    Speaking of fictional facts that might as well be true, I see that District Attorney Mike Nifong has dropped the rape charges against the Duke University La Crosse students: Lacking any “scientific or other evidence independent of the victim’s testimony” to corroborate that aspect of the case, the district attorney said in court papers, “the…

  • Just in time! A Christmas stocking stuffer

    Listening to the G. Gordon Liddy Show, I just heard Pajamas Media’s Richard Miniter make a major news announcement revealing what he thinks Sandy Berger was doing (in the sock stuffing caper) and for which Miniter thinks “he ought to go to jail for a long time.” (10 to 20 years!) Among other national security…

  • my foam flecked frenzy over fictional facts

    Is the best defense always a good offense? Eric Boehlert (a Salon editor who now writes for Media Matters) is getting a lot of attention in the blogosphere right now because of the ferocity of his defense of the MSM’s phony “Jamil Hussein” story. Rick Moran in particular delves into Boehlert’s thinking with a great…

  • Having my nightmare and eating it too!

    Last night I had one of the worst nightmares I can ever remember having, and I’ll spare the awful details, because for one thing, I just don’t want to write about it. And for another, some things are a little too personal, and I while I think soul-baring is occasionally good, too much soul-baring can…

  • Taking turns with the futuro

    “No tengo futuro.” So says Jeb Bush, and I think he’s probably right. While dynasty politics has its place, I suspect that Americans might have had just about enough of presidents being replaced by close relatives. Dynasty fatigue, perhaps? I know that many people will say that this is only Bush dynasty fatigue, but I…

  • Catching up with the campaigns

    Despite last-minute Christmas insanity (try waiting until today to start sending cards!) I’m trying to keep track of the elections. Lest you thought the elections were over, think again. (They are never over; we’re still stuck in the last election, and already holding the next one.) I’ll start with what’s supposed to be “local” politics.…

  • Save Time with hard truth?

    Well, the truth is that someone always has to be Man Person of the Year, and in a no-holds-barred WorldNetDaily piece, Pat Buchanan has nominated Iranian President Mahmood Ahmadinejad, who (claims Buchanan) is more qualified for the honor than, well, you: Perhaps it was fear that the face of the Iranian president on the cover…

  • A climate of crushing dissent

    Clayton Cramer links an eye opening story about powerful United States Senators conspiring to stifle dissent — in a manner so distasteful that a British lord, Christopher Monckton has felt compelled to defend the American tradition of free speech. The Wall Street Journal provides some background on the remarkable letter from Senators Rockefeller and Snowe.…

  • Huge puppy needs home

    Speaking of pit bull mortality, my vet has a wonderful (but huge) seven month old male pit bull puppy which has been surrendered for adoption. And I do mean huge. At seven months, he already weighs in at 70 pounds, and from the looks of his feet, he’s got considerable growing to do. I’d say…

  • Feeling suicidal? CALL THE NRA!

    No, that is not a sarcastic anti-gun bumpersticker I saw and decided to ridicule. What it is, though, I’m afraid will sound like an absolutely crazy idea. Perhaps crazy ideas are nothing new here, but I hope readers will bear with me, but it’s one of those ideas which won’t go away, and the more…

  • Abandoning all hope of government talking points?

    It’s not every day that the MSM reviews and reports on blogs, but the Christian Science Monitor’s Dante Chinni took the time to review Bill Roggio’s excellent blogging from Iraq in an article titled “The value of a pro-war blogger’s reports from Iraq.” Chinni, while somewhat sympathetic to Roggio (and urging people to read the…

  • Zeroing in on guns that hate

    The Philadelphia Inquirer’s April Saul is a tireless promoter of “gun violence” theory. For many months, she has been writing a series called “Kids, Guns, and a Deadly Toll,” which focuses on child victims of what is called “gun violence.” According to this theory, when someone is shot to death, the guns are the primary…

  • Being led by leading art

    I know I’m going to sound biased here, but, hey. I am biased. I like the art of Salvador Dali, and I admit it. With that admission in mind, I want to return to Professor Fernando Tesón’s fascinating post about political art: …if one believes in moral-political truths, it seems natural to recommend that artists…

  • Laughing at the failure of discourse?

    Via Glenn Reynolds’ link, I was somewhat startled to see this contention by Professor Fernando Tesón (guest-blogging at Volokh) that political art is not only a failure of discourse, but that it’s leftist: ….political art is a special form of discourse failure. Art is a type of concrete imagery, and as such it evokes a…

  • Holiday Blogging

    I will be filling in for Eric (as if that were possible) at Classical Values while he is away for the holidays. This is sort of a test post to get the bugs out before Eric leaves. My posts here will also be cross posted at Power and Control. And just so that this is…