Month: June 2009

Barack Obama finally weighs in on the Iranian protests with these weightless words: “The world is watching.” And apparently watching is all the world is going to do, if Obama has anything to say about it. “The last thing that I want to do is to have the United States be a foil for those…

A few days ago, M. Simon wrote a post (“Brain Dead Republican Enhances Party Image“) that just stuck in my craw. A Republican congressman in Illinois (he’s co-blogger TallDave’s rep) has sponsored a new anti-marijuana bill to toughen penalties for with penalties of up to 25 years in prison for first-time offenses involving sales of…

Scientists are all the time trying to figure out how the world works (it is their job after all). So they think about things that interest them and imagine how they work. Then they develop a rule, called a hypothesis, to match their imaginings. Then they test the rule against the real world. Some times…

It seems that the Obama Government is loosing the support of its own members. WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Obama administration is unfair to the ethanol industry with its proposals on greenhouse gas reduction, the House Agriculture Committee chairman said on Wednesday, and he will not support any climate-change bills. “You’re going to kill off the…

Rumor has it that the IRGC will be called into to crush the Iranian protests sooner rather than later. While many see hope for revolutionary change, I’m skeptical any internal movement will displace the mullahs. It’s easy to forget the Soviet Union fell only because their leadership lacked the will to send in the tanks…

This interesting essay over at HotAir by Doctor Zero looks at various scenarios under which Iran might wreak havoc as a nuclear power, including this very real problem: The Nuclear Umbrella: The most logical, and essentially guaranteed, result of a rogue regime achieving nuclear capability is the immediate foreclosure of the Saddam Hussein option. The…

The below video came from Raye Man Kojast? Where Is My Vote? There is a lot of excellent material there in English, French, and Farsi. Updated frequently. I SUPPORT DEMOCRACY IN IRAN Just as Cross Posted at Power and Control

Three news items intrigued me, but as they didn’t inspire me enough to write three individual blog posts, I thought I’d do the lazy thing and dump them together in one. In New York, a man posed as his dead mother in order to collect her government benefits. He did a pretty good job of…

The joke that is the ITER Fusion Project in France just got a lot funnier today. The EC said it welcomed the decision by the parties to adopt a “phased approach to the completion of ITER construction as a working basis for development of the project baseline.” In particular the EC said it welcomed a…

Greetings CV readers, I’m honored and blessed to be contributing at Classical Values. You may have seen my work at Dean’s World, perhaps via the odd Instalanche. I’ve always loved the idea of a blog based on the values of classical civilization (partly as a result of everything Victor Davis Hanson has written on the…

The BBC reports that tokamak fusion may be 100 years off. The Iter project was set up three years ago to build an experimental nuclear fusion reactor in the south of France. But construction costs alone have more than doubled and some scientists now argue that the development of fusion as a commercial power source…

I am pleased to announce that a new blogger will be contributing here at Classical Values: Dave Price, best known to commenters as “Tall Dave.” Dave is a regular blogger at Dean’s World, a good friend of M. Simon, and his philosophy is quite compatible with that of this blog, so I’m honored to have…

I don’t know how many readers have seen this picture, but it’s been making the rounds as an email attachment: I’ve gotten it twice now, both times in a Power Point file with this cute accompanying story: MY FAMILY PHOTO On the left is my wife, in the middle is my mother-in-law, beside her is…

We are one step closer to room temperature superconductors. Menlo Park, Calif.–Move over, silicon–it may be time to give the Valley a new name. Physicists at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Stanford University have confirmed the existence of a type of material that could one day provide dramatically faster, more…

No, Classical Values has not “gone green on us” as TigerHawk worried Glenn Reynolds might’ve. (There are no greenie weenies who blog here.) However, like many bloggers I want to express solidarity with the protesters in Iran. (Andrew Sullivan, despite my many criticisms of him, is really on board with this one.) Showing some temporary…

In a series of some of the dumbest “clarifications” I have ever heard of — to one of the dumbest laws I have ever heard of — government Obamacrats have construed the 1958 Switchblade Knife Act in such a way as to prohibit the vast majority of pocket knives routinely sold in stores and carried…

The boys at Talk Polywell have uncovered the details of the WB-8 contract [pdf]. Those details can give us some insight into how WB-7 has gone. From the looks of things – rather well. The current effort will build on what has been completed under these previous contracts as well as requirements to provide the…

Michael Totten as usual has very good sources. Let us start with the fact that in the above video a phalanx of police is retreating before a mob. Then Michael gives this excerpt from Shah of Shahs. Now the most important moment, the moment that will determine the fate of the country, the Shah, and…

I hate to think that I might be diagnosed as a conservative for saying this, but I have never liked other people’s saliva. It’s irrational and I admit it. I’m not afraid of blood or urine, and I would rather be bled on or urinated on than drooled on. The relative actual dangers of these…

I was very upset to see Glenn Reynolds point out how true it is that “90% Of Waking Hours [are] Spent Staring At Glowing Rectangles.” So upset, in fact, that I decided to get up now. To get up out of my chair. To get up right now and go to the window. (That’s because…