Month: November 2007

Via Dr. Helen, I just took the Ultimate 2008 Presidential Candidate Matcher. Ultimate 2008 Presidential Candidate Matcher Your Result: Rudy Guiliani   The former New York City mayor emphasizes his tough foreign policy stance. His primary issue is national security, and would continue to pursue Bush’s war on terrorism. Guiliani is liberal on social issues,…

The Europeans have some of the highest gasoline taxes in the developed world. Certainly higher than in America. And yet…. In common with the rest of the world, Europe is now having to face up to the fact that a cheap and plentiful supply of oil and other fossil fuels has led to a long…

I can appreciate the “inoculation” style of advertising that Howard Kurtz describes: “You give people a small dose of the virus, in the hope that later on, when opponents start bashing you on family values or whatever, viewers will have enough of the defense to resist the incoming attacks.” Sure, it’s tough to take Hillary…

Damn it! It’s so cold today that I didn’t want to go out shopping, and there isn’t anything I want to buy right now. Plus I can’t stand crowds. I’m just not cut out to be a shopper. But on the other hand I hate it when people tell me not to do something, and…

I’ve never had children, but I have never regarded people who had them as selfish. However, there’s an emerging form of new morality which not only regards having children as selfish, but considers them a threat to the planet. The Daily Mail discusses people and couples who have therefore had themselves sterilized in order to…

Despite the grim title, and the grimmer contents to come, let me start by wishing everyone a very happy thanksgiving! Notwithstanding my tendency to lodge complaints about this thing or that thing, I’m not unmindful of the fact that today is a day to be grateful to be an American living in a free country…

While I’ll be thankful for my turkey today, I did not especially appreciate the turkey of a headline which greeted me from the front page of this morning’s Inquirer: Two GOP votes test gun lobby in Penna The axioms of state politics dictate that two Republican House members from the Philadelphia suburbs risked political death…

“Fuck it,” I say. “Fuck it,” agrees Ware. That settles it. I’m going back in. You know things are not right with the world when you share a spiritual moment with a damn journalist. But there it is. Mick Ware and I are standing on the street, digesting the finality of the option we’ve just…

High Technology meets low art. More Zeusaphone music. “This Tesla coil was built and is owned by Steve Ward. Steve is a EE student at U of I Urbana-Champaign. He and Jeff have been going to Teslathons, which is where they met.” You can find out more at Zeusaphone. Just some good old American geeks…

I’ve seen two new things in the past 24 hours that I like about Rudy Giuliani. I especially liked what he said today in defense of Barack Obama’s admission of past drug use: “I made some bad decisions that I’ve written about, there were times when I got into drinking and experimented with drugs.. there…

That’s my best phonetic attempt to write the phrase “Philly spoken here” in the regional dialect that used to be much more common in this area than it is now. The local football team is fondly referred to as the “Iggles” and there’s a blog called “attytood,” but fewer and fewer people actually speak that…

Yesterday was not a great day for the forces of gun control. Ed Rendell’s extraordinary attempt to pressure the Pennsylvania legislature failed, and the Supreme Court voted to hear District of Columbia v. Heller. On today’s front page, the Philadelphia Inquirer carries Linda Greenhouse’s New York Times report. Yawn…. Ms. Greenhouse (known at least as…

Yes it is very taxing to make a buck. Unless you use taxing to make a buck. Then it gets easier. From Bloomberg. Nov. 19 (Bloomberg) — When Senate Environment Committee Chairwoman Barbara Boxer, Republican Senator John Warner, the nation’s largest environmental groups and General Electric Co. join forces to push a U.S. cap on…

I just got an e-mail from one of my friends at Jewcy repeating in full and providing the url for this article trashing Thanksgiving because of the destruction of the Native Americans. Let me quote a bit of this noxious screed. After years of being constantly annoyed and often angry about the historical denial built…

I should be more careful about what I don’t wish for. In a humongous post on Sunday (in which I argued that the man who murdered a Philadelphia police officer was quite possibly a bad person), I took issue with the Inquirer’s editorial contention that it was society’s fault, but expressed relief that they didn’t…

While I try to be rational and logical and not conflate things that really shouldn’t be conflated, the world is not a logical place, and many people are driven by emotion, especially where it comes to hot button issues. Guns, gods, and penises are all hot-button topics, and when you’re as steeped in the arguments…

I lost this damned post earlier because of an error in the time stamp, so now I’m recreating it. (Sorry if I sound whiny, but I hate reinventing thoughts which aren’t new, and I find this topic extremely annoying.) Anyway, “GOD HATES SEX” seems to be an apparent area of agreement between those waging war…

Engineering is scientific in that it compares results to theory and adjusts accordingly. However, in engineering it is not always the theory that gets adjusted. I was having a discussion with Gerald Browning at Climate Audit about engineering vs science. Two related but very different disciplines. Which brought up this polemic (thankfully short) from me.…

What a foul and wretched day it is today! It’s that wet cold that pierces to the bone, and it’s raining steadily . On the bright side, today happens to be National Ammo Day. Glenn advises picking up a box or two, and what the hell, if it’s “Chinese-made, “at least it’ll be something that’s…

UPDATE: The interview has now been posted! Watch it here. Pajamas Media is doing an interview with Fred Thompson, which will be posted tomorrow morning. Early Monday morning, we will post the first of these conversations, with Senator Fred Thompson. Roger L. Simon and Bob Owens discussed the subject at length with Sen. Thompson at…