Month: April 2009

It’s the 13th time Barack Obama has appeared on the cover of Time! Yay! Writing for the occasion, Joe Klein is upset that not enough attention was paid to President Obama’s speech at Georgetown University on April 14: The speech received ho-hum coverage on the evening news and in print — because, I suspect, it…

A commenter at American Thinker had this to say. But I must also note, as a Christian, that marriage is a sacred vow taken within a church, synagogue, or mosque, as a Sacrament. There should be no democratic government that tries to dictate such a holy action. So the government now hands out sacraments? Or…

A story about an alleged Detroit area “pit bull” which killed an 11 month old baby has rapidly become national news (having been picked up by countless news feeds — all of which use the phrase “pit bull” but which refuse to identify the deceased or the parents). In most accounts, the dog is described…

Glenn Reynolds’ post about the happy Somali pirate reminded me of the media circus that’s been developing these past few days. I have to question the wisdom of bringing Somalian pirates like Abduwali Abdukhadir Muse to the United States for trial. I mean, look at this: He was all smiles when he landed on American…

From Glenn Reynolds’ link to Larry Kudlow, my attention was drawn to an earlier Kudlow piece which (after noting a near-300 point stock plunge over new fears of bank nationalization), Kudlow looks at the vexing question of what to call all of this: An old friend e-mailed me this week about how to characterize Obama’s…

Click to see the full size Note the “Young Pinkies from Columbia and Harvard” sign on the side of the cart. H/T ravingdave Cross Posted at Power and Control

Finally! Now that the debt-plagued New York Times is down to its last paltry millions, the government is sounding the wake-up call. Leading the charge, Senator John Kerry is calling for government rescue of the failing newspaper industry: “America’s newspapers are struggling to survive, and while there will be serious consequences in terms of the…

It seems the DEA is telling lies again about the drug war. Cocaine is as cheap as ever, according to a new analysis of government data by a Washington, D.C. think tank. The findings appear to contradict claims by U.S. law enforcement officials that the drug has become more expensive. “[Over] the last two years…

The left has a hard time applying economic analysis to problems except the drug war. And the right is fairly good at economic analysis (comparatively) except for the drug war. Drugs makes the left smarter and the right stupider. Interesting, no? Capitalism applies selection pressure in the right direction – efficiency, waste reduction, etc. Socialism…

Today we are covering opening and closing tags. Please follow the lesson closely. There will be a quiz. H/T Extra Good Sh** by blogger Fred Lapides whose blog is neither work nor wife safe. But it is #1 in Google rankings if you look it up. Funny that there are so many people interested in…

While Janeane Garofalo’s charge that the Tea Party Movement consists of racists attracted a great deal of attention, I’m fascinated by the way she slipped in an admission that not all of the participants were white. It’s almost pathological or elevated to a philosophy or a lifestyle. And again, this is about racism. It could…

Watts Up With That? has information on how to contact the EPA over the new “CO2 is a pollutant” rules. In a stunning act of political kowtowing, the EPA caved to special interest groups and politics and declared CO2 a “dangerous pollutant”, even though it is part of the natural cycle of life. Now the…

All photovoltaic industries in the world depend on government subsidies. China is going down that road as well. Shi Dinghuan has stated that what China’s solar power manufacturing industry needs is a more active set of government policies to support and subsidize the adoption of solar power domestically, along the lines of the industrial policies…

Roger Kimball looks at Britain’s pending 20-mph speed limit, and observes, In Britain, as in the United States, “local authorities” like nothing better than sticking their collective noses into the everyday life of ordinary citizens, chivvying them with ever more intrusive rules and regulations, backed up by the coercive power of the state. The only…

I like to joke about global warming, especially global warming hysteria. The problem with humor is that it’s like drugs; it relieves pain symptoms but does not make it go away. I suppose you could laugh at physical pain too, but that would not treat the underlying cause. Pain that they are, global warming activists…

Sgt Mom gave a rousing speech at the Tea Party at the Alamo recalling the history of Texas. It is not too long. Follow the link and read the whole thing. Note that Sgt. Mom was one of the organizers of the Alamo Tea Party and she and the other organizers managed to get rock…

I’ve been trying to reconcile two recent incidents — one in which an angry and violent mob was allowed to shut down a talk by Tom Tancredo, and another in which a perfectly civil journalist was arrested for trying to ask questions of the public outside a Katie Couric award ceremony. Here’s the video of…

The election in 2010 will be most amusing. And 2012 is going to be the height of hilarity. About 1/2 the electorate is apathetic about politics. If 20% of them decide to participate in the next election due to taxes and inflation….. My first mate didn’t want to vote for the Black Man for two…

Because I’m no political naif, it came as a shock to see that I had apparently been duped. (Well, at least so it appeared.) While catching up on email, I found an apparently official announcement from the American Family Association (how I got on their list I don’t know) claiming that the AFA was “the”…

We are in the midst of seriously improving energy efficiency in the hopes that it will reduce energy consumption. However, there is an economic theory (about coal consumption no less) known since 1865 that says that increasing efficiency will increase overall energy consumption even if the amount used for a given task is reduced. In…