Month: August 2009

Yesterday it was the endlessly dying Castro, equating criticism of President Obama with racism. Today its the dead Kennedy, and while it would be disrespectful (and inaccurate) to say he’s demanding a death panel from beyond the grave, his colleagues are clearly using his death for advocacy purposes: ‘Win One for Teddy,’ Say Dems Pushing…

Eric recently wrote a post on the connection between genetics and crime. I thought it would be good to chime in with a post I wrote in 2007 at Power and Control on the connection between genetics and talent. ===== According to the American founders all men are created equal. We hold these truths to…

For a number of reasons, I found this post by Katie Granju deeply disturbing. There aren’t too many things more disturbing to contemplate than the horrific Christian/Newsom double torture murder case, and Ms. Granju (a local news reporter who had written about the case since the beginning) does not spare the details. Nor should she.…

A homeless man (who has been arrested 50 times) burst into flame when Ohio police tasered him, and even though it’s in my general area, I only learned about the incident because a British newspaper reported it, and it was then linked by Drudge. I was in the middle of a post on the subject,…

I just ran across an article on the proliferation risks of fusion and a few paragraphs caught my eye. Some proponents of nuclear fusion power falsely claim that it would pose no risk of contributing to weapons proliferation. In fact, there are several risks including the use of tritium as a fusion power fuel which…

Various people seem very worried Iraq is falling apart, but these concerns are probably overblown and to some extent their premises are likely baseless. At least half of Ignatius’ piece sounds like typical Iraqi political conspiracies, which as a rule run the gamut from improbably contradictory to downright bizarre. Anonymous sources are extremely unreliable (remember…

While Bill Richardson visits the country, Cuban dictator emeritus Fidel Castro is echoing the longstanding Democratic talking point that opposition to Barack Obama is racist: HAVANA (Reuters) – President Barack Obama is trying to make positive changes in the United States, but is being fought at every turn by right-wingers who hate him because he…

Samuel R. Delany might very well be a great science fiction writer, but I haven’t read him, because I don’t read science fiction. I don’t know how to say something like that without having some readers think I’m bragging about my ignorance, but it’s a simple statement of fact, and I don’t know how else…

For some reason, I was under the impression that Malaysia was one of those modern, “progressive” Muslim countries, where things like caning people for drinking alcohol did not go on. Wrong! KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia – An Islamic court in Malaysia on Tuesday indefinitely put on hold the caning of a woman found guilty of drinking…

I’ve been given propofol as anesthesia a couple of times, and it’s not something I would ever want to have. Being knocked out and having no memory for chunks of time is not a pleasant experience, and while it certainly is preferable to undergoing a gruesome procedure while conscious, I can’t imagine what would possess…

David Warsh is giving economic advice to the Queen of England on how to avoid bubbles and financial panics in the future. The disarming question you asked when you visited the London School of Economics last autumn – why did nobody notice that the credit crunch was on its way? – produced a thoughtful letter…

Watching this video of the execution of an innocent Volvo (which I had to force myself to do) made me feel a combination of emotions. Sadness (yes, I’m not alone there), because even though I’ve never been a Volvo driver (I can remember howling with laughter when I saw George Carlin ridicule them as “safe…

I’m thinking that it might be time for me to weigh in on an important and pressing controversy, The Princes Project: The Richard III Foundation, Inc. is respectfully requesting that the bones in the Tower, that are alleged to be the sons of Edward IV, be subjected to modern scientific examination and the treatment of…

It looks like the European Carbon Trading Scheme is being hit by massive fraud. Carousel fraud has found its way to the carbon market. The particularly European type of fraud entails setting up complicated import and export schemes between EU member countries, charging buyers for value-added tax in the country of destination, and then absconding…

Instapundit links to a piece on Hillary Clinton that proclaims that Hillary wants to stop sexual violence. Women and girls in particular have been victimized on an unimaginable scale, as sexual and gender-based violence has become a tactic of war and has reached epidemic proportions. Some 1,100 rapes are reported each month, with an average…

No one wants to be murdered. But it seems to me that there’s something especially degrading about being murdered by a child. Even a feral child, like the 12 year old boy who is charged with robbing and murdering a 24 year old woman: Detroit — Trisha Babcock’s dreams of becoming a nurse were snuffed…

Via Dean Esmay, I found a hilarious post by Ace tearing WorldNetDaily a new one over the latest Birther “revelation.” This time, it seems WND has learned that Barack Obama actually was born in Hawaii, only in 1957 instead of 1961. The evidence? A typo on his MySpace time. Which is, um, his real birth-year…

I was looking at the comments to my American Thinker article Fusion Energy and came across an interesting sequence of comments I had missed earlier. The first comment is by a sceptic. There are earlier comments by him in the comment section. Posted by: WR Jonas Jun 19, 01:18 PM I have spoken out here…

Semper Fi Mac. You might want to follow up this video with a visit to my bit on Oath Keepers. Whose motto is: Not On Our Watch H/T R. Dave via e-mail Cross Posted at Power and Control

Via a link from Glenn Reynolds, I see the feds have declared war on old toys, and are cracking down on people who sell recalled items on ebay and Craigslist. WASHINGTON — If you’re planning a garage sale or organizing a church bazaar, you’d best beware: You could be breaking a new federal law. As…