Category: Uncategorized

It seems that some folks are unhappy with Glenn Beck and want advertisers to boycott his show. An advertising boycott against Fox News host Glenn Beck has succeeded in keeping most major sponsors from running commercials on his show even as the controversial commentator’s viewership has grown. Beck attracted 2.81 million viewers Monday, his third-largest…

It seems that Ted Kennedy had very good relations with the USSR before their much lamented demise. This letter which details Senator Edward Kennedy’s offer to help the Soviet Union defeat Reagan’s efforts to build up the nuclear deterrent in Europe was unearthed by a Times of London reporter in the 1990s after the KGB…

Here’s how Senator Robert Byrd appeared over a year ago, crying about Ted Kennedy and saying…. something. (It’s so incomprehensible I can’t really make out the details.) While it’s sad for anyone to have be in such a deteriorated mental state, because Byrd is a powerful man with enormous responsibility, it’s also a bit scary.…

I blog, you decide! Remember that entire day ABC News turned over to Obama to sell his health care plan? Apparently they don’t. Suddenly they’ve discovered they can’t take sides, at least when it comes to selling time for an ad opposing ObamaCare. “The ABC Television Network has a long-standing policy that we do not…

It seems like the health care bill needs a new name. Sen. Robert Byrd (D-W.V.), one of the few to have served in the Senate longer than the late Sen. Ted Kennedy, said in a statement today that health care legislation should be named in his honor. Kennedy famously called health care reform “the cause…

It’s happened before, and according to the ephemeris, it’s happening again today. Glenn Reynolds is having a birthday. And what I want to know is why has the White House been so suspiciously silent about this occasion? They’ve had all day now, so the omission has to be deliberate. The White House has gone out…

Eric put up a post on the death of Ted Kennedy. He is disgusted that some Democrats are taking advantage of his death to push their health care plan. ‘Win One for Teddy,’ Say Dems Pushing for Health Reform Well if they want to get down and dirty: ‘Win One for Mary Jo’ say those…

Such a scenario will be possible in the near future. In light of news reports like this one, some people will be worrying that the “institution of reproduction” is under assault. Others will worry about whether that should that be the government’s business. If you’re willing to pay to utilize such advanced DNA techniques, by…

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…