Tuesday, March 22. 2005
Pick a country - any country. The CIA's country Fact Book is online. You can learn, for example, that Uganda now has 70% literacy, universal suffrage, uses an English Common Law legal system, a population growth rate of 2.9%, and lots more. Click here: Foreign Policy: Country Intelligence
Christmas now, in Beirut, from the NY Sun: "Above a busy shopping street where a bomb blew out the front walls of a building Friday night, injuring nine people, there now stretches a long row of glittering lights. Local authorities have rekindled the decorations left over from Christmas. "They want to show the bombers that they are building," a policeman guarding the site said." Click here: In the Media I like reading the great Andrew Sullivan (the only other "greats" I use in my lexicon apply to Krauthammer and Mark Steyn), but only sometimes agree with him. He predicts "The Great Conservative Crack-up"...wishful thinking, perhaps? "Beneath the surface, however, American conservatism is in increasing trouble. The Republican coalition, always fragile, now depends as much on the haplessness of the Democrats as on its own internal logic. On foreign and domestic policy alike the American right is splintering. With no obvious successor to George W Bush that splintering will deepen." Click here: Comment: Andrew Sullivan: Bush’s triumph conceals the great conservative crack-up - Sunday Times - Times Online
Freezer packed full of game? Cook it before it all gets freezer-burned and useless. Don't dishonor the wild game. Click here: Wild Game Recipes from Rumela's Web Had a fine venison stew last night from Rumela at a pal's "27th" birthday party.
Snarks for the snarky: Funny, critical piece re Maureen Dowd, "The Queen of Mean" :Click here: Maureen, Queen of Mean by Kay S. Hymowitz
We have been following this story. It's a major scoop for the NY Post. The truth about campaign finance "reform." Cute title - The Stench from Pew: Click here: New York Post Online Edition: postopinion Do not try to hold your breath until the NYT and LAT cover this story.
Monday, March 21. 2005
Sent this piece Click here: Attention Deficit Disorder ADD and ADDH and Ritalin - Consider the Alternatives to Doc Higgins, who sent it back with these comments: I do not endorse this kind of "alternative medicine" website. However, stimulants are over-used. I read somewhere that one exclusive private boy's school in New York has 60% of its kids on stimulants. I know that the good Lord did not build boys to sit in classrooms, but c'mon! The fact is that these things help everyone concentrate better. I'm skeptical about a lot of these ADD diagnoses, but not about ADHD, which is a real diagnosis and a brain-wiring problem, I suspect.
Private organizations can restrict speech and create speech codes. Still, this kind of PC thing reeks of Mao and Stalin and Castro: Click here: FIRE - Student Files Multi-Million Dollar Lawsuit Against Occidental College After College Censored Speech and Dis
The Bacevitch Piece Just read the excellent piece linked by The Chairman on Friday. Herein lies a great debate about oil and prosperity and the expectations of the American voter, but the American voter has made his/her decision several times already, right or wrong. Debate's over, for the moment. Personally, I vote for nuclear power, and we'll be free of the oil obsession. But it's so SCARY to folks. Shouldn't be. It's a heck of a gift to us all - almost a freebie.
More good news from Iraq. Watch Iraq quietly slip from the front pages, just as Afghanistan did. Eric Schmitt in the NYT: "The top Marine officer in Iraq said Friday that the number of attacks against American troops in Sunni-dominated western Iraq and death tolls had dropped sharply over the last four months, a development that he called evidence that the insurgency was weakening in one of the most violent areas of the country. " Click here: The New York Times > International > Middle East > Insurgency Is Fading Fast, Top Marine in Iraq Says
Thanks, Bird Dog Thanks so much, Bird Dog, for finally getting us all our own logging passwords, etc. We appreciate the trust. You did publish all of our stuff anyway. And thanks to CS for taking the time to set it all up. This way, Dog won't get blamed for all of our posts! "Too many of our colleagues seem to be unaware that they are not charged with saving the world and are, instead, commissioned officers of the President of the United States. If this keeps up, we'll be forced to implement the foreign policy of the United States." This from Click here: New Sisyphus who works in State Dept. This is an example of what drives us plutocrats crazy. It should drive everyone nuts. After all, we all pay for this crap. Click here: The American Enterprise: Lawsuit Lollapalooza I know colleges are the Bird Dog's domain, but this is just good: Click here: FrontPage magazine.com :: Symposium: Can Universities Be Fixed? by Jamie Glazov
In a broadcast designed to sound like a "smoking gun" Greg Palast of The Guardian breathily announced that "The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks, sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil!" Gwynnie wrote to the author: I watched your Bush/oil show for a while on BBC, but I think Michael Moore uses incomplete film clips, innuendo and a lack of facts more effectively. Is it bad that the US government made a series of alternate plans for the Iraqi oil industry? Is that worse than earlier accusations of it not having a plan? Having read the BBC web site article about your show and the evidence it discusses, I am left with a sense from the tone of the broadcast that you have made serious accusations of some sort, but try as I did, I cannot identify any substance. Is it Mr Bush's actions that you find objectionable or is it merely his existence?
Raise your hand if you knew that Krauthammer is a psychiatrist, is paraplegic, and is the best damn columnist in the US. In this piece, he argues for the relevance of my New First Commandment: "The international left's concern for human rights turns out to be nothing more than a useful weapon for its anti-Americanism. Jeane Kirkpatrick pointed out this selective concern for the victims of U.S. allies (like Chile) 25 years ago. After the Cold War, the hypocrisy continues. For which Arab people do European hearts burn? The Palestinians. Why? Because that permits the vilification of Israel -- an outpost of Western democracy and, even worse, a staunch U.S. ally. Championing suffering Iraqis, Syrians and Lebanese offers no such satisfaction. Hence, silence." Read entire: Click here: Charles Krauthammer: Vindicated
Friday, March 18. 2005
"At the very seat of Texas government," thunders the ACLU brief, "between the Texas State Capitol and the Texas Supreme Court, is large monument quoting a famous passage of religious scripture taken, almost verbatim, from the King James Bible." Horrors. From the tone you'd think they had a monument to Hitler on the Texas Capitol. Well, it's part of the job of the ACLU to provoke and infuriate, but it usually ends up with judges determining whether values and morals and cultural traditions and religion should have any role to play in legal decision-making. Lately, it seems not. To renounce values and morals and traditions is one good way to destroy a nation. Let's begin with a couple of new members of the Supremes. As I think about it, the Hitler monument would probably be fine with the ACLU... Click here: Mona Charen: Thou shalt have no others gods before the ACLU
Cuba Watch - Via Opie "The news today was pretty interesting - fidel came out screaming that Forbes magazine had included him on its annual billionaire's list earlier this month, under the special category of 'kings, queens, and dictators.' Since I know someone at Forbes, I'll add a few tidbits." Babalu Blog is the best Fidel-watching blog: Click here: Babalu Blog
Steroid-Ball The circus hearings yesterday were an embarassment. The players made fools of the grand-standing politicians, showing them minimal respect, which was a true delight. I could easily imagine McGuire and Sosa etc. thinking "Who are these jerks?" Well, it's the end of Steroid-Ball, and that's a good thing.
Thursday, March 17. 2005
There are 8 million blogs worldwide. Approximately. Let's hope there are more readers than bloggers, although bloggers read eachother's stuff. Besides general interest (or non-interest) blogs like this one, there are tons of niche blogs that get scientific or technical information around far better than email could. Here's just one example that I read regularly that focuses on Cognitive Psychology: Click here: Cognitive Daily
The Ten Suggestions Since we're eliminating the outdated, no-fun, difficult, insensitive commandments, along with the socially-dangerous Easter Bunny - I mean Holiday Bunny - it's time to begin work on the rational New Ten Commandments, as determined by clear-thinking, scientifically unbiased, psychologically-approved, sensitive, government-certified Professional Experts - logically and humanistically-determined with proven culture-free or culture-neutral methods under sterile laboratory conditions. They will be presented as they emerge from the Scientific Laboratory of Rational Human Behavioral Management, from a secret, secure, mountaintop location, via email. Here's the first: The New First Commandment Thou shalt love and worship the State as the source of all Good and all Wisdom and of Life itself. There shalt be only one other God before that, which is the State's Holy Sacred Father - the Great International State Uber-God, who knoweth your every thought and liketh them not, and who resides in the Heavenly umlaut-free interstices of cyberspace. The Beloved State (any State) was born by Scientific Miracle from the Sacred Spirit of the Uber-God, and is His only Son. You must have faith in Modern Social Science and Modern Chemistry that this is Truth. The following extract from The New Leviticus seems to expand somewhat on the above: Either are best worshipped by sacrifice of the individual soul and spirit at specially-designed, social-scientific altars which will soon be present at all government locations including fire-houses and police stations, where they will replace the antiquated creches of false gods.To help achieve this worship, thou shalt worship and love everything that advances the International Socialist Movement or The Brave New World as predicted by Huxley, and anything that undermines American values or American power or American prosperity or American individual freedom or American religious traditions, because Aermicans are the Uber-God's Unchosen People. Members of the media, educators, fashionably right-thinking people, socially-appropriate people, people of color, vegans, chardonnay-sippers, women, and related types SHALT NOT criticize any left-leaning, anti-American, or anti-religious organization or government, politician, dictator, mass-murderer anywhere in the world, ever. This includes Castro, China, Chavez, Kerry-Kennedy, the ACLU, Mbagawa Mgububwe, Kim Sung Il, Pol Pot, Saddam - woops - too late, NOW, the French, The New York Times, Al Quaida, and the like.
The age-old Liberal knee-jerk support for Castro is a typical example of why the Left has no credibility. It is no different from their past support of Stalin. Or their future support for Chavez. There is a simple principle behind it - support the Leftists or communists, and sweep the ugliness under the rug. Because it is not about truth-seeking - it's about Revolution. Or a Brave New World. Or just something much more important than truth. Click here: NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story
Wednesday, March 16. 2005
Francis Crick and Oliver Sachs seem like an odd pairing, but so does Oliver Sachs and anyone. A wonderful reminiscence from Sachs - two guys with huge curiosity and brainpower: "The central problem of consciousness and its neurobiological basis, he was convinced, would be fully understood, "solved," by 2030. "You will see it," he often said to Ralph, "and you may, Oliver, if you live to my age." Read entire: Click here: The New York Review of Books: Remembering Francis Crick
Ms. Malkin has the moonbats well-characterized, but the moonbats serve several useful functions: 1) the NYT can always use the word "controversial"; 2) objects of humor; 3) raising our self-esteem: "The most unhinged of left-wing activists, from breast-exposing pacifists to the conspiracy-mongers of MoveOn.org, will descend on New York, Washington and other major media markets to "mark the two-year anniversary of the U.S. bombing and invasion of Iraq." Click here: Michelle Malkin: Moonbats on parade
Doug Giles always presents a muscular, SUV-style Christianity that is inspiring and a good antidote to more passive or goody-goody versions: "Listen: true spirituality is incredibly practical, robust and workable no matter where you dwell or what you do. If your spirituality/Christianity isn’t viable and stout in the most difficult of cultures, then it ain’t the stuff Moses and Christ sold." Click here: Doug Giles: Robust Faith
 A magical snowstorm in Vermont on Saturday. Better than the Gates?
Man can not live on bread alone. Is the Salvation Army gradually abandoning its soul-saving mission? Click here: Commentary: Soup, Soap, and Salvation: 125 Years of The Salvation Army in the U.S. The Great Steyn on the upcoming implosion of the EU: "But either way the notion that it's a superpower in the making is preposterous. Most administration officials subscribe to one of two views: a) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater; or b) Europe is a smugly irritating but irrelevant backwater where the whole powder keg's about to go up." Click here: U.S. can sit back and watch Europe implode It takes one to know one. David Horowitz, ex-radical Leftist, has it all figured out. The players, and the name of their game. And broken down into subcategories for ready reference ! The Vast Left Wing Conspiracy, unmasked ! Click here: Defining the American Left Will North Korea be brought down by the information revolution? A good update: Click here: onefreekorea: Breaking the Information Blockade How come everyone gets it except for the university faculties. Or maybe they really do. "The idea that we should trust the Democrats because they are the good guys is what the postmodernists call a narrative, the myth that a ruling elite tells to justify its power. Don’t believe a word of such discourse, the professors of English Literature tell us. OK, we won’t. We understand now that the Democratic narrative about helping the little guy is just a naked bid for power." Click here: The American Thinker
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