Month: July 2008

Ever heard of a thing called an “ice shelf”? Well, I have! Despite Global Warming, I have been plagued by a persistent ice shelf, which I decided to call the “GE Ice Shelf” because of its location in the freezer compartment of my General Electric refrigerator. Unlike some of the world’s ice shelves, it has…

Children in Albany, New York are unhappy that even though summer has barely started, it’s already “back to school” time. That’s because the advertisers want parents spending money now: Kids may hate the timing, but parents like the pricing. “People are becoming wiser consumers, looking for deals whenever and wherever they can,” said Howard Schaffer,…

Much of what I write consists of me talking to myself, but in a manner which allows anyone to listen. Normally, we think of people who talk to themselves as a bit weird, if not mentally ill, and this is especially true if they do so in public. I’d like to be able to say…

The Presidential candidate who recently said economics is not one of his strong points appears to be taking lessons. …on deep background, this senior McCain advisor told me I was correct: no cap-and-trade. In other words, this central-planning, regulatory, tax-and-spend disaster, which did not appear in Mac’s two recent speeches, has been eradicated entirely —…

England really has become a foul place in which to live. I felt that way the other day when I read Rachel Lucas’s reaction (to the prosecution of a man who defended his family against rock throwing thugs — with a board!): ….what the fuck is WRONG with these people? I know there’s not much…

While I liked the movie Gonzo: The Life and Work of Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, I did not like the way Thompson — an iconoclast who never hesitated to criticize anyone he thought deserved criticism — was re-spun and reduced to a sort of a hack leftist caricature. Sure, the fact that he hated Nixon…

Elizabeth Scalia argues that socialized medicine looks inevitable: Some time after Labor Day, many Americans will start to focus on the November elections, and they’ll be surprised to learn that while they were at the mall, government-run health care moved from being a vague idea to an essentially “done deal.” In just eighteen weeks Americans…

Clayton Cramer makes a good argument that Some People Shouldn’t Have Guns: A point that I often make to reporters–and they are usually surprised to hear me say this–is that not everyone should have a gun. There are people who the law prohibits from having guns–and I agree, such as violent felons. There are also…

Recent reports about Iraqi uranium have not received the wide circulation they should have: The victory is so complete that Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki said Saturday his government has defeated the terrorists in Iraq. Defeated. Past tense. Major General Mark Hertling, who commands U.S. troops in northern Iraq, wouldn’t go that far. But he…

Tom Anderson (who writes for the Inquirer’s quirky little conservative competitor, The Bulletin) covered a talk by Charles Murray about his latest book, Real Education: Four Simple Truths for Bringing America’s Schools Back to Reality. The four truths are these: The first of his four truths, likely to be unappealing across the political spectrum, is…

What is it about sex and guns? For reasons that are still unclear to me, Andrew Sullivan attempted to drag Glenn Reynolds into a debate over a Wisconsin law I consider silly and sexist. In a post titled “Attention Instapundit” Sullivan issues a direct challenge: This attack on the Second Amendment cannot stand: “In Connorsville,…

While I don’t know what the implications are for the so-called “wisdom of repugnance,” I thought this news item was worth a yuck: LONDON, July 7 (UPI) — Toddlers who say “yuck” when given flavorful foreign food may be exhibiting racist behavior, a British government-sponsored organization says. What, precisely, is a “flavorful foreign food”? Haggis?…

I know this will sound like a paranoid conspiracy theory, but I really think the convoluted paranoid conspiracy claim about Obama not being a citizen may itself be the result of some sort of agent provocateurism originating with the Obama campaign — the idea being to game the paranoid WND types by giving them plenty…

Scientific research reveals that not only does having a dog seem to be good for you, but people who develop attachments to their dogs might not be as neurotic as commonly believed: The field of psychotherapy has traditionally viewed those whose closest relationships are with animals as somehow lacking, their affections pathologically misplaced, their devotion…

No, that’s not a reference to the Fifth Amendment, but to celebrating the Fourth of July on the Fifth. Which is what I did last night, because the fireworks have all been screwed up by rainstorms. Even though I was on a ship on the Delaware River with a perfect view of last night’s fireworks,…

When I saw the video of the Fourth of July disruption of Bush’s speech which Drudge linked, something about the appearance and the voice of the howling Code Pink bashee seemed familiar. Here she is: (Notice the young man in the front row is laughing.) And here’s the video: Sure enough, she was Desiree Farooz,…

I don’t know whether I questioned his patriotism or not, but when I wrote a post yesterday criticizing Chris Satullo for saying that “America doesn’t deserve to celebrate its birthday” and the Fourth of July should be canceled, I had not known that Rush Limbaugh had launched a national attack on Satullo. While this does…

On the heels of a week-long “SACRED GROUND” series (discussed in two posts), this morning I was greeted by an Inquirer editorial about “Two stories, one nation” in which the Inquirer belabors the tedious canard that the world only “discovered” that George Washington owned slaves as a result of excavating the foundation of the house…