Tuesday, January 24. 2006
Is Ahmadinejad truly nuts? This immanent 12th Imam stuff sounds wierd. On the other hand, our Second Coming probably sounds wierd too. Condi said yesterday that the time for discussion is past. What next? The Plague of Athens led to the end of the Golden Age around 430 BC. Strong new evidence that it was typhoid fever. McCain-Feingold cannot be constitutional. I see no way it can be, despite the Court's 2003 ruling. The Court returned this Michigan case back to a three-judge panel yesterday, but it may come back to the Court. As far as I can tell, without being a lawyer, this case represents simple infringement of political speech.
Monday, January 23. 2006
Canada's elections: We will know late tonight. It should be interesting to see whether Harper can eke out a majority govt. Strange that there is so little interest in the US MSM. Michelle has a summary, and of course Captain Ed is master of the ship. We ignore Canada, but should not. It seems that lots of Americans view Canadians as the stereotypic nice, irrelevant, harmless Lefty wackos, lacking in testosterone and cultural confidence, and oppressed by a corrupt Nanny State that won't leave them alone to work and achieve (very different from our view of the Aussies). And they do not seem to like us Americans too much, but they should. We do not match any unflattering stereotype they hold of us, either. We are all warm and cuddly, when we aren't busy hunting ducks and deer and fascists and terrorists, and rescuing civilization from barbarians. US Govt borrowing: It is huge, claims Dem watchdog group. Regardless of their partisanship, there should have been a temporary war tax - on ice cream or something. Or imported beer. Or tea? But Bush Jr. didn't want to mess with taxes. It destroyed his Dad: remember "Read my hips"? Satanic drivers in Afghanistan. Amazing. Mrs. Clinton was pandering to her plantation. P'line The American Left is on a Death Trip - literally. So opines American Thinker. The quest for the perfect Don Giovanni. Marginal Rev. H/T, YARGB. My opinion - a live performance beats all that plastic. Lots of work for him to post his Alito Vote Watch. Calif. Yank. That high school kid who went to Iraq - the real story finally appears. BareKnuckle
A 25th anniversary review of Reaganomics in the Opinion Journal, with this quote: Where Republicans have most strayed from the Reagan vision has been on controlling federal spending. But most still adhere to his tax-cutting lessons, with a few prominent exceptions (notably Senator John McCain). They should all recall the Gipper's words in his inauguration speech 25 years ago: "It is no coincidence that our present troubles parallel and are proportionate to the intervention and intrusion in our lives that result from unnecessary and excessive growth of government."
USA to Bin Ladin: "Nuts." NYSun Blogger in the news: Zany and irreverent lawyer David Lat (now blogging at Wonkette), and his blogging problems with his boss. Funny piece. NYT Fuming about the no-smoking laws in Spain. NYT US Navy catches Somali pirates. Cool.
Sunday, January 22. 2006
Gary's Crush of the Week: Lisa Schue. Yikes. A Harvard gal, too. Ex-Donk. Maggie's Farm does Dogs of the Week and Birds of the Week, etc., but we probably should do a Soft Porn Babe of the Week to really improve our numbers...but, thinking further on this, why bother with Soft? And, for the gals and the gays, we could do a Hunk of the Week too. But Bird Dog would not stand for that: we are supposed to be a dignified blog. Maybe I need my own blog. Canadian Libs made a campaign error by talking anti-American? Cap'n Ed. I guess the US and Israel are the world's main scapegoats these days for desperate politicians. How many times must America rescue large chunks of the planet from Fascism? And will we ever be appreciated for it? Maybe not. But in the US we are still grateful to France for their necessary assistance in our war against the Brit Empire. We know gratitude. And George lll wasn't a bad guy: Parliament was stupid and greedy. Is it possible to flirt without cigarettes? "Got a light?" - WaPo Rushdie gets psychological with Moslems - fear of female sexuality: Tel Chai. I don't buy it. A tattle-tale parrot leads to divorce. Classical Values. Moral of the story: Own no talking birds or dogs. More on Europe's decline: John at Powerline. Regulation and socialism destroy the economy, and in my opinion undermine the historically vigorous character and heart of the people. The effect of moonbats like Belafonte and Sheehan is to make other moonbats appear less insane. Christians should get their hands dirty by venturing into pagan worlds. Giles at Town Hall. Good piece. A quote: "Look, horribly confused Christian: from what I’ve gathered from reading the scripture a few times, the believer has three options when he’s faced with an overtly wicked environment. He can either: 1. Absorb the culture.
2. Separate from the culture.
3. Or infiltrate the culture. Let’s check out the tres selececciones."
Saturday, January 21. 2006
Advertising out of context might work. Hmmm. A VC Australia's bad reputation? Huh? Tim Blair. Oh, because they aren't weeny defeatist Lefties? I can say that the Aussies' reputation around Maggie's Farm is very good - excellent. The growing unrest in China. Am. Thinker Where does John Kerry blog? Guess. Not at YARGB Does Canada want conservatives, or just non-Liberals? Chequerboard What does "INRI" stand for? Mexican military continues to cross the border. BareKnuckle Kelo comes home to NH for Souter. Yes, silly. But it dramatizes the main point: states and localities need to address Kelo.
Sundance Film Festival: Selections from short films here. Is Bin Ladin working for Rove? Ex-Donk Or is he planning to run in the Dem primaries? I thought Dems wanted a "living constitution." Now they want a precedent-respecting constitution. Principle-less opportunism. Pardon My English Can a liberal be a friend? Bill Quick doubts it. I don't. In three days, companies traded on the Tokyo exchange have shed roughly $300 billion in shareholder value -- more than the gross domestic product of Norway. Livedoor alone has lost $1.8 billion in market capitalization. Scandal Panics Tokyo Market Need some good belly-laughs? The Free Photo Booth thing from the Leno Show.
Friday, January 20. 2006
A double standard? Religion in politics, left and right. Protein Kennedy should go for impeachment of Alito, or be totally inconsistent. The Prof. Will Michigan be the next haven for trial lawyers? Opinion Journal The latest charter school injustices. Education Wonks Believing in the unbelievable. Evangelical Outpost. Iran wraps CNN around their finger, just like Saddam did. Disgusting. Instap. NYT praises Tel Aviv suicide bomber. LGF
Kondracke: Give Bush the data-mining authority. Why not do it now? Let's have a vote. Double-dare anyone to vote against. The stench of corruption. Hillary and the Barrett Report. Very bad sh-t. Gateway "You can get away with it with the Christians." Christians in Palestine. Dhimmi Watch Old hymns vs. praise songs. Ten Napel Liberals in Canada go berserk about the blogs. SDA. Yeah, can't let the ignorant voters know too much. Facts might confuse the voters, right? American college grads lack basic skills. Duh. Dems want to have it both ways: now the administration is relying too much on the UN and international efforts. Huh? Gimme a break. GOPBloggers. Eritrea and Ethiopia. This could get really ugly. Where's the UN? Open Democracy/ Elsewhere in Africa, the Ivory Coast heats up with promises of mass slaughter, mayhem, and horrible tragedy. The UN ran away. Wretchard. Beeb wants to raise the telly tax. How do Brits tolerate a government tax-supported information source? It's the Brits' Pravda, and it's nuts. Right for Scotland What's all this about Sudoku? The game's interesting history (it's not Japanese), how it works, and why it's fun. The Week How you are supporting the ACLU, without writing them a check. Like a tapeworm, they feed off scams, legal threats, and settlements against local and state governments, on our nickel. Trial lawyers in drag. Want to feel depressed? Read this: Cao GM's death spiral. Am Spectator
Thursday, January 19. 2006
The French and Indian Wars, on TV tonite: Irish Pennants. Yes, they were a very important (to the future USA) aspect of the war between the Brits and the French. But not as historically important as the later series of Indian Wars in which the Indians allied themselves with the Brits to prevent migration into the Indian Lands, and the 19th century Indian Wars when land-hungry American homesteaders succeeded in conquering the country. CraigsList. Who is Craig? Dinocrat Powell on Iran: Confed. Yank. Hillary too (is she going to do a daily "major speech" between now and 2008? - or is she trying to distract from the Barrett Report?) When do women smell best? LiveScience Condi is shaking up State in a major way: Checkerboard Why Hollywood loves Johnny Cash and not Merle Haggard: City Journal (Maggie's Farm loves both - and City Journal too.) Response to Iranian nukes? RWNH goes through the thinking as if he worked for the State Dept. I wish he did. A way to stand up to the ACLU's attacks against American security. Michelle. PSA, Prostate cancer, medical tests, and economics. Very good, in-depth piece by Dr. Bob Osama (or his impersonator) cries uncle. RTLC Google vs. Yahoo: A VC Fuel economy to fall? Env. Econ. The UN maps that delete Israel. Atlas Another gun lobby, new to me, looks good, deserves donation. Citizen's Committee
This piece is making the rounds today: Number 10 - Life is a sexually transmitted disorder. Number 9 - Good health is merely a term for the slowest possible rate at which one can die. Number 8 - Men have two emotions: Hungry and Horny. If you see him without an erection, make him a sandwich.
Number 7 - Give a person a fish and you feed them for a day; teach a person to use the Internet and they won't bother you for weeks.
Number 6 - Some people are like a Slinky...not really good for
anything, but you still can't help but smile when you see one tumble down the stairs.
Number 5 - Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing. Number 4 - All of us could take a lesson from the weather. It pays no attention to criticism. Number 3 - Why does a slight tax increase cost you two hundred
dollars and a substantial tax cut saves you thirty cents?
Number 2 - In the 60's, people took LSD to make the world weird. Now the world is weird and people take Prozac to make it normal.
AND THE NUMBER 1 THOUGHT FOR 2006 - We know exactly where every cow with mad-cow-disease is located among the millions and millions of cows in America but we haven't got a clue as to where thousands of illegal immigrants and terrorists are located. Maybe we should put the Department of Agriculture in charge of immigration.
Doctoring in Tibet. The new microjets. An excellent new trend: Local news blogging. Pressthink. This model could, and should, go worldwide. The Liberal Goatherd: Video satire on the Alito Hearings by Fidelis More humor: A redneck alcohol and ammo game. Chose your weapon. And even more humor: Broder praises Al Gore Earmarks and taxpayer-funded lobbying. Kesselman Custom-made bacteria, including germs that blink like Christmas lights. Science Times The Barret Report, finally: Captain Ed
Wednesday, January 18. 2006
Due to ferocious windstorms in southern New England (the second such storm in a week with gusts to 70 mph), Maggie's server in Connecticut was down until midnight Wednesday. Many trees down, power lines down, etc. And FEMA was nowhere to be found! Sorry for any inconvenience.
Tuesday, January 17. 2006
A Moslem cultural exception for smoking in bars in NYC? Gates. Similarly, in Scotland, Moslems want a Catholic school to teach Islam instead. Ace. What gives with all of these demands? Me and my friends have lots of demands, but the world ignores us. Do we have to go Moslem? A good Bush video parody. Senators openly discuss military options re Iran. Reuters. I'd prefer to see a revolution of sanity in Iran. Olduvai George is Carl Buell, an animal artist specializing in ancient animals, who now paints with Photoshop and graphics tablets. Very cool. Shows you how he does it, here. H/T, Synthstuff. Colorful Narcissists: Kennedy and Robertson. Austin Bay Greenwalt's new documentary goes after Walmart. Same guy who did MacDonalds. Now it's liberal Dems blocking the schoolhouse door. John Fund on Florida and vouchers. Why does. Mass. keep losing population? Jacoby
Monday, January 16. 2006
A fresh look at Stossel's Stupid in America. And "have the unions won?" The latest on vouchers at CSM A high school newspaper wouldn't be this dumb: Michelle with the NYT's latest. From Captain Ed: The debate over abortion has never gone away, and as science teaches us more about embryonic development, the question of killing a foetus for the convenience of the mother becomes more and more complicated. The electorate has the sense that Roe stole the ability of the people to make their own decision about policy regarding abortion and created an unresolvable political impasse as a result. The usurpation of authority that the Court committed also poisoned its role in America's governing system, with the current poisonous tone for Supreme Cout and federal appellate bench confirmation hearings resulting from that point. If anything, the Alito hearings show that the issue of abortion has become an albatross around the necks of Democrats.
A personal look at the abortion issue by Am Princess The Gaia Theory: I hope this fellow Lovelock is wrong. And, in keeping with the theme, very strong positive review of the 2007 Tahoe. Stunningly beautiful cinematography. See it. Hero (2004) Cats think HDTV is reality. Ahmadinejad update: Method to his madness? Telegraph. And more on the cult of the Hidden Imam: LGF Pacifists: One person highlighted by YARGB. And the Methodist Bishops. Did The Netherlands (!) take anti-terror efforts too far? RTLC Murtha needs a neurological check-up. Unbelievable. Ankle-Biting Rowland's successor, Repub. Rell, on track in CT. Calif. Yank. How did she do that? Shadegg seems to be the bloggers' favorite. Kudlow.
Sunday, January 15. 2006
 We had a magnificent wind and snow storm last night in southern New England. Powerful, exciting, exhilarating, and humbling Yankee weather. Trees and powerlines down everywhere, and roads blocked all over the place. Church had no power and no heat - like in the old days - so those of us who made it huddled in "The Upper Room" instead of the sanctuary and it worked just fine. Cozy. Those church candles found a real purpose - illumination, instead of atmosphere. And a sermon concerning the dark side of God which I will discuss on the blog one of these days, soon.
Listening to George Jones, Emmylou, Johnny Cash, and Alison Kraus, Norm, if you were wondering. Plus some of The Dylanologist's recent Dylan bootlegs which he gave me for Christmas. Will pick an opera later - not sure which yet. And putting off working on quarterly taxes as long as possible. Also wondering why no-one is commenting on my Truthiness piece - I thought it was a good take-off point. I guess not - damn. That's why I am not in the marketing business. Just no sense of "mass market." But we don't want to be a boutique blog: we want to be Walmart! Or, at least, Costco. The price is right, isn't it? One more thing - the blog Humbug introduced themselves to me via email. They specialize in detecting fallacy and bullshit, and have a good sense of fun. I will not permit Barrister to read their stuff - don't want us to inadvertently plagiarize on our new Fallacy of the Week idea, which we arrogantly imagined was an original idea. Here's one of their latest posts - on Princeton's appalling Peter Singer. And a final comment: Powerline is remarkable today. Too much good stuff. How do those guys do it? This one, to only single out one of many fine pieces.
Saturday, January 14. 2006
During his speech on Monday, Al Gore will demagogue, fear-monger, strike the podium, act santimonious, and decry Bush's Nazi Police State. But watch: the one thing he will not do is to demand that surveillance of terrorists, and information-seeking from terrorists, cease. He will Talk Loud, but Carry No Cohones. If he were to be consistent, he would demand that the US surrender immediately, and quit our surveillance of terrorists/ Why is the Left consistently soft on terror? We are always trying to figure that one out. Hornik gives it a try, at Am. Spectator Birgit Nilsson died on Christmas. NY Sun Hewitt has an interesting take on the coming changes on the Court, and the panic amongst the ACLU and the Left. He sees it as a Theist/Secularist issue. He thinks there's a great fear that people will begin to speak about morality and natural law in persuasive ways. Here. Belgium thinks the American school system is rooted in an antedeluvian past. In Belgium, the $ follows the kid. Schools compete. Democracy Project.
The mugging of Walmart: Cafe Hayek A new bio of Mark Twain. Reason What's the real tyranny? Bush, or the Regulatory State? Vodka Mona Charen reviews Kate O'Beirne's Women who make the world worse: Strangely, while feminists were burning with indignation toward men, they also enthusiastically endorsed promiscuity. O'Beirne quotes Harvard Law professor Mary Ann Glendon, who notes that early feminists who sought the vote and other rights "saw that the ready availability of abortion would facilitate the sexual exploitation of women . . . they regarded free love, abortion and easy divorce as disastrous for women and children." Modern feminists, by contrast, were characterized by a "puzzling combination of two things that do not ordinarily go together: anger against men and promiscuity; man-hating and man-chasing." Read the whole review.
Friday, January 13. 2006
NYT needs to hire a legal consultant- for their editorials. Patterico Krauthammer: Munich the Travesty. Harsh. Is Europe ready to deal with a war with Iran? No Oil Kinsley provides an excellent example of the cheap legal "Slippery Slope Fallacy," which will be coming up soon on Fallacy of the Week, I am told. Has anyone told Kinsley that there is a war on? Somebody named Ali wants to kill you, Michael, but we want you to stay alive, even if we don't agree.
The economic fate of the Boston Globe. UN gets in with the gun control crowd. Of course they would. Canadian Libs support polygamy. Hey - there's a way to win an election. In a Moslem country.Captain Ed. Well, you might get the guy vote. Alito v. Kennedy: A snippet. Libertarian Leanings Disposable cell phones and terrorists. Michelle Day-O. The Banana Brain Song. Paxety Doctors vs. guns. BFA The "A List" blogs. Where's Maggie's Farm on there? RWN
WHY PARENTS DRINK The boss of a big company needed to call one of his employees about an urgent problem with one of the main computers, dialed the employee's home phone number and was greeted with a child's whisper. "Hello." "Is your daddy home?" he asked. "Yes," whispered the small voice. "May I talk with him?" The child whispered, "No." Surprised, and wanting to talk with an adult, the boss asked, "Is your Mommy there?" "Yes." "May I talk with her?" Again the small voice whispered, "No." Hoping there was somebody with whom he could leave a message, the boss asked, "Is anybody else there?" "Yes," whispered the child, "a policeman." Wondering what a cop would be doing at his employee's home, the boss asked, "May I speak with the policeman?" "No, he's busy", whispered the child. "Busy doing what?" "Talking to Daddy and Mommy and the Fireman," came the whispered answer. Growing concerned and even worried as he heard what sounded like a Helicopter through the earpiece on the phone the boss asked, "What is that noise?" "A hello-copper" answered the whispering voice. "What is going on there?" asked the boss, now truly alarmed. In an awed whispering voice the child answered, "The search team just landed the hello-copper." Alarmed, concerned, and even more then just a little frustrated the boss asked, "What are they searching for?" Still whispering, the young voice replied along with a muffled giggle: "ME."
Site Meter  It seems as if most of the population of New England has hit the slopes today. I have always found this to be an annoyingly crowded weekend for skiing: by noon in Vermont or New Hampshire, you need skates, not skis.
So I am on duty at the olde blogge while everyone else plays in the snow, and I am here to inform our loyal and beloved readers that we finally have a Site Meter, which means that we will be properly listed at Truth Laid Bear in a week or two - if it all works. Not that we care....well, we do. Kinda sorta. Hope I at least get the chance to do some shooting this weekend.
Thursday, January 12. 2006
The dangers in abusing nominees: The Prof. Bush will get at least one more pick, probably two more. The court, plus freedom in the middle east, will be his legacy. Sense about Roe v. Wade: Whether pro or con, leave it to the conscience and judgement of the voters: RCP The anti-Al Quaida insurgents: Captain Ed No shame: the Alito hearings: Chapman 2006 predictions: NE Repub I rarely quote Powerline, because I assume everyone reads them, but I have to. John: For the left, however, things have changed since the heady days of the 1970s. History doesn't seem to be flowing their way anymore, and liberals are mostly hanging on, giving ground grudgingly and waiting for better days to return. In this context, the overruling of Roe v. Wade would have significance far beyond abortion. It would mean the end of the one-way ratchet, and would be a visible symbol of the receding of the liberal tide. For that reason, I can understand the Democrats' feverish efforts to lock Roe in as inviolate, even though the immediate political fallout, if the case were reversed, might favor the Democrats.
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