Two Masters

Spengler on American Education's Systematic Child Abuse

2012-01-31T09:56:00.000-05:00

In the Asia Times Online:

"The grand result of a generation's worth of brain-science application is a generation of schoolchildren who are disproportionately illiterate, innumerate, anxious, angry, and unhappy."

Read the whole thing. And weep if you trusted your children to these fools and charlatans.

The Grey - Movie Review - Nasty, Brutish, and Shoulda Been Shorter

2012-01-29T13:03:00.006-05:00

The Grey stars Liam Neeson as a nihilistic old codger with a rifle and no good reason he can think of not to stick it in his own mouth. And a bunch of CGI super-wolves. The story is set in Alaska, but I understand the breathtaking shooting location is actually Canada. Good actors, good cinematography, good location, okay CGI effects, and an audience ready to see Liam Neeson do some more of his reluctant-but-super-capable-action-hero thing. This movie should satisfy. But it doesn't. By the time it's all over, you can't help but think the nihilistic old codger should have pulled the trigger and saved us all a couple hours. Long before it's over, on the other hand, you realize the movie-makers are selling you something funky, and they only promised you an action movie to sucker you into the theater.

I read that some animal rights activist objects to The Grey because wolves don't act in real life the way they are portrayed in the movie. It's sensible to ignore opinions of animal rights activists, but the fellow has a minor point. I imagine wolves do not, in fact, act the way the wolves act in this movie. But he should relax and look at the bright side. If he wants people to think animals are as good as people, this movie can work for his cause. Not because the wolves are nice; they aren't. But in this movie neither are the people. And the guy whose job it is to protect the rest of the oil crew refers to himself as a "hired killer" because he shoots dangerous animals that are attacking his fellow-man. If that isn't laying philosophical ground work for PETA, nothing is.

I've never been to a remote oil field but I have a hard time believing a company would hire these men, or run this kind of canteen, in a multi-billion dollar, high-tech facility. The workers are all dead-enders - drunks, ex-cons, broken men, the scum of the earth. And the company bar where these desperate men drink and fight looks like a cross between a Hells Angels clubhouse and the joint where Han Solo shot that alien under the table. In this economy you should be able to find a better crew for $150K blue collar jobs, but I suppose if the company recruiters did a better job this movie couldn't keep beating you over the head with its vile message. The fake wolves aren't evil, you see, they're just man's alter-ego. And unlike the men in this movie the wolves actually have a purpose in this bitter, wind-swept panorama. They're there to prove nothing men do will keep them from being eaten alive in an ice-cold and merciless, malevolent universe. Naturally and by the way, the major message here is that there is no God, and also he really hates you. This could go without saying but, just in case the audience is slow on the uptake, the characters spout all sorts of materialistic fatalism. Repeatedly. Even after there aren't any other characters left to spout it to.

Are you a self-absorbed baby boomer? Have things have gone so poorly for you, you've decided the universe sucks? Do you roll your eyes when simple-minded religious types talk about things like "faith"? This is the action flick for you.

Post-Sunday School Man

2011-12-20T09:40:00.000-05:00

To open the door but never to step through it; to notice the modern Berlin Wall but never to challenge it; to observe the fact of the slavery and never once mention it since that would be judgmental — that is the hallmark of today’s post-Sunday School Man.

Fernandez is on a role.

Rioting arsonists should be shot by police, review finds

2011-12-20T08:14:00.000-05:00

You don't say.

From the Telegraph.

Public Sector meets the Public Dole

2011-11-30T12:39:00.000-05:00

The British government has proposed slowing the rate of growth in the generous pay of civil servants to the extent that they may (after a few years) have salaries not much higher than private sector workers. Their pensions and other benefits of course will still far exceed those of the lowly subjects they, uhm, serve. The London Telegraph covers the resulting riots.

Take these clowns and add them to the feces-encrusted "Occupiers" currently snarling traffic in many Western cities and you have a classic symptom of Western civilization's current social cancer. The pigs at the public trough (whether government workers, or students who borrowed too much money to take degrees that are of no particular value to anyone) are furious that the rest of us want their help in paying for the operation of their gravy trains.

"Climate science is ... the teenage girl of science."

2011-11-28T11:13:00.000-05:00

Tim Blair being Tim Blair at the Telegraph. Good stuff as usual.

2011-11-23T09:30:00.000-05:00

Roger Kimball reviews "The Opium of the Intellectuals".

The primary target of Aron’s polemic was fanaticism. But he also recognized that the defeat of fanaticism often leads to a contrary spiritual sickness, indifference. Both are expressions of the ultimate enemy, nihilism. Skepticism, Aron wrote, is useful or harmful depending on which is more to be feared at the moment: fanaticism or apathy. The intervening faculty that orients us appropriately is practical wisdom, prudence, “the god” (Aron quotes Burke) “of this lower world.”

I read part of the book after Jonah Goldberg mentioned it at The Corner a few years ago. I remember it was hard to get (it took a while for my library to get it on inter-library loan). I liked it but never finished. It's an English translation of a French work on philosophy/sociology and I found it heavy going. I just couldn't put in the time.

What if they're just practicing?

2011-11-22T12:49:00.000-05:00

I was just over at PJMedia, reading Jack Dunphy's thoughts on "Occupy LA", when a thought occurred to me about the public disruptions carried out by these urine-soaked Occupards: This sort of thing will be useful in the 2012 elections. In the last presidential election there were some cases of voter intimidation carried out by the New Black Panthers against Republican leaning polling stations. Those clear cases were then dropped by the DOJ. These black racists got away with threatening voters at their assigned voting places on election day.

Would it shock anyone if, next November on election day, groups of feces-encrusted Occupards showed up at (only) Republican-leaning polling places to disrupt the voting? In a close election, intimidating people at a couple hundred Republican polling places in swing states could make a difference.

In case you need to justify it...

2011-11-22T11:10:00.000-05:00

Top Five Reasons to Be a Commie Pinko

Why there is still hope for America...

2011-10-24T16:16:00.000-04:00

"(D)espite the mistakes in Washington DC, America finds itself at the top of a heap of nations which have managed to outblunder it." - Richard Fernandez (Wretchard)

I love a good turn of phrase.

Read the whole thing.

Twenty-Seven?

2011-10-16T09:25:00.003-04:00

Good morning, Agim. I hope that you, and all of your readers, enjoy the item I just posted on my Knight's Castle blog. It's linked to the title of this piece, or you can get it here.

It's a short piece, and pretty sketchy, so I thought I'd use this space to expand upon one point.

Herman Cain claims that his "9-9-9" proposal is simple, transparent, and neutral. There is one big exception to the apparent simplicity and transparency. Cain's plan leaves capital gains completely out of the mix. 9% across the board, with no exemptions or deductions for personal income; 9% for corporate tax, without loopholes or exception; a 9% national sales tax, without exceptions for food or medicine; but 0% for income derived from speculation and the profitable sale of assets.

I don't buy the argument that some forms of income should be privileged, particularly when capital gains benefit primarily people who don't need more benefits.

Coulter on the Death Penalty

2011-09-22T10:22:00.000-04:00

In the matter of the execution of the recently late Mr. Davis:

It's nearly impossible to receive a death sentence these days -- unless you do something completely crazy like shoot a cop in full view of dozens of witnesses in a Burger King parking lot, only a few hours after shooting at a passing car while exiting a party.

That's what Troy Davis did in August 1989. Davis is the media's current baby seal of death row.

A brief history of Palestine

2011-09-21T08:43:00.000-04:00

In case you need to brush up on your 20th Century Israeli/Palestinian history:

HT: Powerlineblog

America's first European President?

2011-09-20T13:24:00.000-04:00

Concerning Europe, Brett Stephens writes:

"(T)here is always a danger in substituting grandiosity for achievement, mistaking pronouncements for facts, or, more generally, believing in your own nonsense."

He could be describing Barrack Obama.

Moral standards have been replaced by feelings.

2011-09-20T10:13:00.000-04:00

Dennis Prager:

"Forty years ago, I began writing and lecturing about this problem. It was then that I began asking students if they would save their dog or a stranger first if both were drowning. The majority always voted against the stranger — because, they explained, they loved their dog and they didn’t love the stranger.

"They followed their feelings.

"Without God and Judeo-Christian religions, what else is there?"

Sounds about right to me.

Spengler explains what's with all the horror movies these days...

2011-09-07T09:02:00.000-04:00

"What produces monsters is not the sleep of reason but the absence of faith."

The entire essay, worth reading, is here.
(HT Pajamasmedia)

Those smart, sophisticated atheists...

2011-08-22T10:48:00.000-04:00

Inequality grows as poor, ignorant atheists swamp U.S.

This is sad, but no surprise to believers. Lots of atheists on the other hand are stuck in the mistaken belief that faith and intelligence are mutually exclusive.

The Human Target

2011-08-13T17:08:00.000-04:00

Proverbs 25:28

"A man without self-control
is like a city broken into and left without walls. (ESV)

Consider with sadness the city with no wall against marauders or brigands, the traditional bane of history and geography. Simply to withstand a minor attack, even if help could arrive shortly, would take great effort if there are no walls for the defenders to stand behind. There is no margin for error. Can guards stay alert - 360 degrees - through the full dark of a Middle-eastern night 3000 years before electricity? And doesn't the lack of walls increase the odds they would have to? That is, would not the armed bands come specifically to the city that men say has had its walls broken? Wealth to steal, women to rape, healthy young people to sell into slavery. In the Judea of that day such a city is probably doomed. It's just a matter of time.

But it's a simile. The proverb is giving advice about men, not cities. A man without self-control has less wealth than he could, less education, and fewer accomplishments that might lead to building a successful business or rewarding career. His health is poorer than it should be. Misfortune of any sort will find him with little defense. He has difficulty climbing out of such a hole because how can a long, hard, slow climb be made without the very self-discipline he lacks? And his weakness can be seen from a distance. Because he cannot be depended upon, his circle of friends is shrunken and his reputation is not good. He is vulnerable and others know it. Likely they talk about it. Word gets around. And the sad truth about humanity is that any particular vulnerability attracts exactly those that can best exploit it.

Like a city with broken walls attracts the marauder.

Coulter on the British Riots

2011-08-11T08:13:00.000-04:00

I was trying to write something about the riots in Britain but Ann Coulter is way better and faster.

About the British riots...

2011-08-10T08:09:00.000-04:00

"What's the cause of the riot? I'm guessing lack of incoming fire."

Kind of what I've been thinking.

(HT: Instapundit)

Bomb Blast in Oslo

2011-07-22T11:34:00.001-04:00

Horrible thing. And so was my first thought: How long will it take for the Norwegians to blame the Jews?

Ongoing report here.

"Here is an Englishman"

2011-07-07T11:17:00.000-04:00

Crazy as bedbugs some of 'em, but you can almost see how they came to rule the world.

From Time Magazine, 8 August, 1955:

Upshot was that Wintle was clapped into the Tower of London, where the admiring Scots Guards on duty plied him with whisky, cigars, and duck in aspic. But Wintle refused to let them clean his boots and uniform. "Much as I admire the Guards," he said coldly, "I do not feel they quite understand how to look after a cavalry officer's kit."

HT: Charlie Martin at PajamasMedia.com

Jamaicans Nostalgic For Colonialism

2011-06-30T10:19:00.000-04:00

I'm not surprised in the slightest about this:

"(B)y a 60 percent to 17 percent margin, Jamaicans say they would be better off if they were once again a British colony(.)"

The Ugly Frenchman - 1190 and 2011

2011-05-17T15:59:00.000-04:00

In 1190 AD, Richard the Lionheart - a Norman (French) duke who was also King of England - was in Salerno, Italy on his way to the Crusades.

"Passing through a small village ... he heard the cry of a hawk coming from one of the houses. Believing that only noblemen had the right to own hawks he pushed his way in and seized the bird. He was at once surrounded by a crowd of angry villagers and when he refused to give it back they attacked him with sticks and stones. One man drew a knife and Richard struck him a blow with the flat of his sword only to see the blade snap. So the crusader King was reduced to pelting villagers with anything he could lay his hands on in order to make his escape(.)"

- John Gillingham

So here we are almost a thousand years later and French aristocrats - they're called "Socialists" now - still go around the world thinking they carry their own rules with them. And they still get surprised when the locals refuse to put up with it.

Yes, I know Richard I and Dominique Strauss-Kahn are very different people. First of all, Richard didn't have some foofoo girlie name. And Richard carried a sword, fought for Christendom, killed jihadis, and bought expensive clothes because his clothes were, you know, made of armor. He probably had to spend a lot of money on accommodations too because, well, he brought his own army and those things cost a lot to carry around. What's this Strauss-Kahn character got going for him? He's just some Euro-bureaucrat/politician married to a rich babe who wires him bail money when he gets arrested for rape. How sophisticated and French, ne c'est pas? Good luck with the bail thing, Domi. You can send Roman Polanski a thank you note for America's, uh, heightened standards of custody when it comes to rich French a-holes charged with sex crimes. You'll see France again when either the jury comes back with the right verdict, or your wife's people have enough meetings with the maid's people to reach an agreement on price. Welcome to America. If socialism is helping some extended West African family get rich you are certainly walking the walk. Perhaps you should have read the fine print when you checked into the hotel. Apparently $3K a night does not include butt-rangering the staff. Maybe you mixed up Manhattan with some other place French sophisticates visit. Be interesting to find out where such a place might be. We'll probably know soon enough; previous victims seem to be crawling into the light faster than I can type. Hope your wife inherited a really, really, big fortune.

You might have been better off on crusade, mon ami. Bon chance.

(And if you think about Richard I breaking his sword when he should have kept it sheathed, try not to think about what you were swinging at the cleaning lady.)

And if the Pakistanis had decided to interfere?

2011-05-17T13:23:00.000-04:00

America Prepared For War With Pakistan

"By May 2nd, the U.S. had assembled a huge naval and air force in the region, that was pointed at Pakistan. This force would attack any Pakistani troops or warplanes that went after the U.S. forces in the bin Laden compound, or who might be able to do so."

When I heard about the bin Laden raid I remember thinking we should have had a serious covering force to support the raid team. Apparently it was practically an invasion force. Good.

Wikileaks - "(L)eftist revolutions never deliver on their promises."

2011-05-16T10:26:00.000-04:00

Tim Blair:

Usually they collapse, over the course of a few decades, into bitter power struggles, official hypocrisy and general misery. WikiLeaks has accomplished this faster than most. The last 170 days, since those first cables were published, have been like watching the entire rise and fall of the Soviet Union on fast-forward. Add some Benny Hill girly chase music and you’ve even got Assange’s legal troubles covered.

Read the whole thing.

A great Bin Laden question I've also wondered about...

2011-05-11T09:13:00.000-04:00

Jonah Goldberg asks

For a week, people have been asking, “Why won’t the president release Osama bin Laden’s photo?” That’s the wrong question. We should be asking, “Why was Barack Obama in such a hurry to tell us bin Laden was dead?”

"Our educated unemployed are most susceptible to demagoguery."

2011-05-10T12:38:00.000-04:00

From the ever-impressive Thomas Sowell, The ‘Education’ Mantra:

Students can graduate from some of the most prestigious institutions in the country without ever learning anything about science, mathematics, economics, or anything else that would make them either productive contributors to the economy or informed voters who can see through political rhetoric.

On the contrary, people with such “education” are often more susceptible to demagoguery than the population at large. Nor is this a situation peculiar to America. In countries around the world, people with degrees in soft subjects have been sources of political unrest, instability, and even mass violence.

Read the whole thing.

Don’t Worry: Osama Was Shot in Accordance with Islamic Tradition

2011-05-03T17:47:00.000-04:00

"So that’s why everyone involved was very careful to handle his dead body in accordance with Islamic tradition… as best they could. I mean, there were a few minor bumps along the way, like when the body kinda sorta got dragged off by wild dogs. That happens. No one is perfect, not even the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)). And you have to understand that dogs are just animals, and a big difference between animals and people is the ability to show respect for Islamic traditions. Anyway, those dogs were chased immediately, the body was retrieved, and the canines involved were given a stern talking to."

Read the whole thing.

(HT: Instapundit)

What a great day.

2011-05-02T08:29:00.000-04:00

HT: Pajamas Media

You Can Achieve Whatever You Set Your Mind To — No, Really!

2011-04-29T09:48:00.000-04:00

"Decades of study on expertise prove that virtually anyone can be great at anything — "bad genes" are an excuse, not a cause."

Entire article here. Good stuff.

I think "arrested" would be a better verb to see in this headline...

2011-04-28T13:35:00.000-04:00

Man deported in alleged cannibalism, war crimes case

Other good words to throw in would be "charged", "tried", "convicted" and "hanged".

An Occurrence at McDonalds

2011-04-26T20:41:00.000-04:00

I wonder if the vicious beating at a McDonalds restaurant in Maryland might have presidential political implications.

Two young black women - teenagers really - attacked a white "transgender woman". A transgender woman is a person that was or still (depending on the level of surgical or chemical modification) is a man, going about as a woman. Like the rest of us, transgenders have various calls of nature, which, when they are in public, going about as women, they respond to in public toilets reserved for women. This particular transgender may or may not have met one or both of his attackers in the women's restroom before the attack. So far as it went, the incident was a common crime. As with much common crime, depravity, folly, and brutality highlighted what can be wrong, weird and terrible about our sinful species. Normally (or in a saner society) none but the prurient or debased would want to know much more about this case other than, perhaps, that arrests were made and justice done.

But this ugly incident could end up being more than that. Special-needs sexual practitioners, in which category "transgenders" can certainly be counted, are much in the public debate. There is building pressure from a determined minority to force the government to legally deconstruct the institution of marriage to allow for so-called "gay marriage". The president of the United States has made it as clear as he believes politically advisable that he supports this pressure. Part of the president's political base, the left/progressive wing of American politics, has for some reason decided this issue is a great test of civil rights and is determined to push the question at this moment, at all costs.

At the same time the president's approval rating among black Americans has already dropped to 85%. This is at first glance (and in actuality) a huge majority. But when one remembers that George W. Bush received about 10% of the black vote, context comes into view. More black Americans oppose Barack Obama than supported George W. Bush. This is interesting. Economic issues must play a role in these numbers, but I wonder if cultural and perception issues may not be more important. Mr. Obama is seen to be very supportive of illegal immigrants. Are most black Americans? I believe not. The president is strongly pro-abortion; black America is strongly not. And now this nasty incident appears that could quite possibly - if pushed far enough - come to be portrayed as a civil rights matter in the national spotlight.

No sane person can support violent assaults. But will this president, with his so-far impressive track record of saying the wrong thing about matters upon which he has no need to opine, be able to keep from saying the wrong thing in this case? Will he stupidly say the reasonable thing - that men pretending to be women really should stay out of the Ladies' Room? Will he mouth the equally stupid, but more politically correct (and far less reasonable) thought that men dressed as women have the right to go wherever they choose, and only bigots would challenge the idea? If he says the first, what will be the reaction of the gay community and its supporters? If he says the latter, how will the black community react? It is a ticklish spot and history indicates Mr. Obama hasn't the wit or finesse to handle such dilemmas. He cannot win if he opens his mouth. Will he please his opponents and try? Or will he escape his nature this time? Will this crime be driven offstage by a liberalist media that sees the political danger their man faces, while his advisors (who know both his limitations and his lack of self-awareness) keep the president's mouth shut until the moment passes?

Tough call. There are young black women involved, charged with a crime. If presented properly by their defense counsel, the case could be about their right not to have white men walk into their toilet and harass them. It doesn't matter if it happened that way; it could be so asserted. Traditionally under such circumstances, Sharpton and Jackson would show up to melodiously and passionately say stupid things in front of large crowds. But a drag queen, that is a "transgender", beaten for going about as a woman? For this sort of thing prominent academics publish verbose accusations in the best tradition of Communist show trials. But will they now? Can they? Bullying a special needs sexualist - isn't this according to current fashion a greater crime than treason? Are not "haters" - the term for anyone that harms a deviant for any reason, just now in season? Yet what's a good liberalist to do? Will the gay community stay quiet? Will they demand a public branding of the two young black female thugs? Can it be done without mentioning their race? If not, will various parts of the president's base square off and go to town in an escalating game of racecard rock-paper-scissors?

Who knows? It's a royal wedding week, gas is four bucks a gallon, the Mideast is turning into an even bigger stain, the economy is in the tank, and America's full faith and credit is being debated around the world. Maybe this small and shabby story will fade away. It is nothing much really, other than bizarre, pathetic and sad. But still, if the stars line up, two black "haters" and a white drag queen could have an interesting effect on the political fortunes of the most powerful man in the world.

My only royal wedding post, ever...

2011-04-26T14:43:00.000-04:00

I'm kind of amazed I am linking this. I have no interest in the upcoming royal wedding in Britain and am only aware of it because, since I don't live in a cave, I can't not be aware of it.

But this particular post caught my eye: Why I’m Watching the Royal Wedding.

I still don't intend to watch but I understand and even have some sympathy for the viewpoint.

Today's Day By Day

2011-04-26T09:07:00.000-04:00

Divorced Dad Who Is Paying for Child's College Has Right to See Report Card

2011-04-23T08:57:00.000-04:00

A divorced parent funding a child’s college education can demand the student’s academic records as a condition of payment, a state court judge says in a case of first impression. ...

At the TAXProf Blog.

Seems right to me, too. (HT: Instapundit)

Speculating About Speculators

2011-04-22T12:10:00.001-04:00

There's much noise about "speculators" allegedly driving up the price of gasoline. In this context "speculator" simply means "gambler". That is, there are people guessing what the price of oil is going to be in the future, and then buying up rights for that oil at a specific future date, at a specific price. If they do it right, they buy a future oil contract for less money now, and sell it for more money later. If they guess the price of the oil is going up, they are willing to pay a higher price for that future oil contract. If they guess correctly, they make money. If they are wrong, the price of the oil at that future date will be less than the price of their contract. The contract then becomes worthless and they lose money.

If a lot of speculators are trying to buy future contracts for oil, the price of those contracts will go up. The very fact that future contracts are becoming more expensive will cause the price of real, live oil to go up today. Hence the speculation (I couldn't resist) that speculators may be causing the current spike in oil prices.

This analysis (or wild-assed supposition) misses a critical point. Why would all these speculators believe the price of oil will be higher in the future? It seems to me they merely have to look at the fact that the US government is purposely allowing the dollar to de-value (thereby increasing the relative value of others things - like oil), we have seriously irritated of the Saudi Arabians (who have in retaliation lowered their oil output), we have signaled that America will not increase its own oil production, and we are running around like fools in Libya, thereby keeping that country's oil from entering the world market.

If people are betting that the price of oil is going up, it isn't because they are necessarily evil; it is simply that they are not stupid. Of course the price of oil is going up and the American government has - as if by design - created many of the reasons that will cause the price to continue to climb.

This focus on "speculators" is absurd.

Free Kindle Book

2011-04-22T09:36:00.001-04:00

Yesterday Glenn Reynolds, the Instapundit, linked to a book entitled
Do the Work.

Today, he re-posted the link, along with a note from one of his readers that both
recommended the book and pointed out that you can get it for free from Amazon for the next couple weeks. I went to Amazon, downloaded the free Kindle app for my PC, and then downloaded the book. Done. Ready for reading at lunchtime.

What an amazing, modern world we live in.

Archbishop of Canterbury talks like a teenage beauty contestant.

2011-04-22T08:02:00.000-04:00

From the Telegraph OnLine:
Archbishop: make the rich and powerful help the poor

"Political leaders, the rich and the powerful should be required by law to spend time each year helping the poor and needy, the Archbishop of Canterbury suggested yesterday."

Don't get me wrong - I get the point and the Archbishop is correct that Christians are supposed to serve. The more rich and powerful the Christian, the more he should be doing to serve others.

But that requirement comes from God to the Christian. It does not go through an intermediary. It is not - and should not be - a legal requirement. The Archbishop may well be a very nice guy, but this sort of syrupy silliness does nothing for evangelism. If anything, I believe it hurts the brand.

Tolerance, Muslim-style

2011-04-22T06:20:00.001-04:00

New Christian Convert from Islam Murdered in Somalia
"Muslim militants shoot young man dead after learning he had begun to follow Christ."

Just another day at the office in the Umma.

HT: Mark Krikorian at NRO's The Corner

Why Is (Pacifist) Spain Selling Cluster Bombs to Libya?

2011-04-22T05:11:00.002-04:00

Pajamas Media asks the question.
"While Spain’s Socialist government publicly preaches the virtues of post-modern pacifism, in private it is busy selling weapons to some of the most odious and repressive regimes in the world."

Helping NATO partners in Iraq and Kosovo wasn't pacifist enough. But selling anti-personnel ordnance to tyrants is just peachy. It's hard to keep up sometimes with the mental gymnastics of progressive utopians.

General Sir Charles Napier (August, 10, 1782 – August 29, 1853)

2011-04-21T16:19:00.002-04:00

From Wikipedia:

A story for which Napier was noted involved a delegation of Hindu locals approaching him and complaining about prohibition of Sati, often referred to at the time as suttee, by British authorities. This was the custom of burning a widow alive on the funeral pyre of her husband. The exact wording of his response varies somewhat in different reports, but the following version captures its essence:

"You say that it is your custom to burn widows. Very well. We also have a custom: when men burn a woman alive, we tie a rope around their necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; [then] beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows. You may follow your custom. And then we will follow ours."

Maybe they used to build better Englishmen than they do today.

Lady Gaga: Thin-skinned, atonal skank can dish it out...

2011-04-21T12:31:00.001-04:00

How perfect is this? Lady Gaga - who figures it's way cool to dress up like a slutty nun, and market a song on the basis of offending over a billion people, refuses to allow Weird Al Yankovic to produce a parody.

The more mediocre the talent, the more seriously they take themselves. (HT: Big Hollywood)

UPDATE: Wow. That didn't take long. Apparently the Lady Gaga crew loves Weird Al parodies. Can't imagine a higher complement. It was all a misunderstanding.

Maybe I need to learn more about this Twitter thing. It seems to be powerful stuff.

"Indian Slaves in US Saved"

2011-04-21T12:04:00.000-04:00

The title above was the teaser headline at the Deccan Chronicle OnLine. When you get to the headline at the actual article, the title reads:

"US sues over treatment of workers from India, Thailand".

"A U.S. federal agency has sued over unequal treatment of more than 500 workers from India recruited to work at shipyards in Mississippi and Texas and over 200 Thai farm laborers brought to Hawaii and Washington state, officials said on Wednesday."

The shenanigans that go on with temporary visas in the US really is a scandal.

Brilliant!

2011-04-21T09:37:00.000-04:00

Energy saving light bulbs 'contain cancer causing chemicals'
Aren't these dorks - I mean the Gaia-loving/tree-hugging/"renewable" energy cultists - the same people that were always spouting on about the precautionary principle? At least when it came to sensible and useful things, like oil-drilling, incandescent lights, and toilets that use enough water to get the job done?
(HT: Instapundit)

Victor Davis Hanson on the Mideast

2011-04-21T09:16:00.000-04:00

My two takeaways:

Few in fits of introspection blame endemic cultural practices such as tribalism, gender apartheid, and religious intolerance as equally responsible for the general misery. A Mubarak, Qaddafi, Ben Ali, King Abdullah, or Assad is thus not a natural expression of a society’s collective values and customs, but supposedly an aberration, and one forced upon Middle Easterners by an array of often sinister foreign interests.

and...

An outsider might look at the last four months in the region and reach some reductionist conclusions. Americans treat dictatorships with more deference than they do existing democracies. It is wiser for a dictatorship to be anti-American than pro-American. Survival is likelier to be assured by launching brutal, deadly crackdowns, banning the media, and ignoring global opinion than by trying to prevent mass casualties, allowing international television into the country, or accommodating U.S. concerns. The effort to acquire nuclear weapons wins exemption, as in Iran, while the surrender of such programs invites intervention, as in Libya. Oil trumps most considerations, accounting for the European attacks on Libya once the rebels seemed assured of ousting Qaddafi, the American lack of interest in pushing popular protests in the Gulf, and the American braggadocio in ordering the oil-poor dictators of Egypt and Tunisia to step down. The possibility of using American force will be predicated on international authorization, and the actuality of it will be not be decisive.

The whole thing is here.

Hey, More Che!

2011-04-20T17:53:00.000-04:00

Lots of people love the fictional Che Guevara (you know, the one that's supposed to be a hero). Such fools can easily be identified because they like to put his picture on all kinds of stuff. Personally, I think about the insane, cowardly, incompetent, racist, serial-rapist mass murderer Che. The real one.

And the only place I want to see his ugly mug is in a urinal.

Che Guevara at the Bay of Pigs

"(T)he physical sexual abuse of students in schools..."

2011-04-20T16:50:00.000-04:00

"...is likely more than 100 times the abuse by priests."

From the Catholic League website.

A middle-aged friend used to remark that he and I had both grown up in the "best" of times - after the sexual revolution and before the widespread outbreak of AIDS. Interestingly, he attended a Catholic college in the 1970's and, though heterosexual, sometimes attended parties thrown by friends at the college's seminary. He was impressed by the blatant, celebratory, homosexual carousing that went on.

As Donohue points out the Church doesn't have a pedophile problem. They had a predatory homosexual problem, mostly fixed now. At least as much as any institution, however well-intentioned, can ever permanently fix problems that arise from the sinful nature of man.

The Tolerant Left

2011-04-20T16:42:00.000-04:00

Michael Walsh nails it:

"They never miss an opportunity to let the mask of hatred slip. It’s practically Pavlovian; they are so invested in the myth of their own righteousness that their “tolerance” fetish goes right out the window whenever they suffer the slightest affront to their delusional notion of how the world works."

Of course the idiot with the self-control issues is a "Professor of Anthropology and Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies in the Department of Gender, Women’s & Sexuality Studies". It's almost not fair, liberals have to keep making stuff up out of whole cloth and we conservatives just have to grab the low-hanging fruit.

Or find it so ripe it already fell on the ground.

Mounting Evidence of Rebel Atrocities in Libya

2011-04-20T16:31:00.000-04:00

From John Rosenthal at Pajamas Media:

"Video clips depict summary executions, lynching of an alleged mercenary and a beheading. Black African prisoners are singled out for abuse."

When you pick a side in a fight between two sets of barbarian a**holes, you end up allied with barbarian a**holes.

UN human rights body plans urgent meeting on Mideast unrest

2011-04-20T10:58:00.000-04:00

"Diplomats told The Associated Press on Wednesday that a special session of the 47-member UN Human Rights Council could take place in Geneva as soon as next week."

Wow. The UN Human Rights Council is finally on the job.

Maybe as soon as next week.

For months Mideast governments have been falling, riots have been raging, grapeshot promiscuously whiffing; the UN already authorized some sort of Keystone Cops military action, missiles are flying, bombs are dropping, and only now the UN Human Rights Council has decided they need an emergency session because the situation is urgent?

And this is the group with members like Cuba and Zimbabwe, right?

To misquote the Comedian from that over-rated cartoon movie: "Sure the world's got problems but it takes a room full of morons to think you jokers can do anything about them."

Bully for Haters

2011-04-19T20:33:00.002-04:00

The great Thomas Sowell writes:
"There is a lot of talk from many people about bullying in school. The problem is that it is all talk. There is no sign that anybody is going to do anything that is likely to reduce bullying."

Thomas Sowell is a lot smarter than I so with trepidation I point out what he writes is beside the point. Of course nobody is going to do anything about bullying. Nobody can. Adam couldn't keep Cain from bullying his little brother Able; it's not likely we're going to succeed where Adam failed.

Two things would have to be done, and neither is possible. First, children would have to be raised to always respect others and refrain from taking advantage of the weak. Always. All children. All the time. Anybody want to bet money on that proposition? Second, punishment for bullies would have to be swift and consistently applied. Can you picture that, in our current society? Me neither. The best corrective to bullying is thwacking the dickens out of the bully when you catch him in the act. It's a solution that may as well be on the Ho Chi Minh Trail. It's across the border in Cambodia and we're not allowed to go there. We'll simply patrol around, conducting 'hearts & minds' campaigns, and every now and then find a bully, or the body parts thereof. Occasionally we'll declare this week's body count is better than last week's so we must be winning.

Where I think Professor Sowell misses, is that the current sturm und drang is no longer about (if it ever was really about) bullying per se. Nobody sensible believes we can actually, you know, do anything about bullying. In America, real, live bullying will happily continue, and even increase, for everybody but heterosexual, Christian, white males, who, as has become customary, will be singled out for anti-bullying campaigns whether they are as nasty as Eddie Haskell, or as true-blue, decent and fair as Little Joe Cartwright.

Bullying is merely this season's must-have fashion. It is the "Glee" of cultural and political discourse. It is what we talk about to stay on top of the up-to-the-minute fashion. We are simply experiencing another temporary societal obsession such as we have been developing, with increasing frequency, whose only lasting results are always the same: we take a perfectly serviceable word and make it forever useless for anything other than vilifying opponents in an argument. "Bully" will now join "racist", "sexist", "extremist", and the recently added "hater" on that special list we draw from when we want to tell somebody to shut up, and tell everybody else not to listen to a single word that person says.

Recently on Facebook someone wrote he was contemplating "defriending" a certain person for being a "hater". The contemplative fellow supplied a new-fangled definition of hate: "the willful desire to cause harm without right justification. Right justification is defense of self or defense of others." I leave it to the reader to look up the word "hate" if he cares to, but trust me when I declare that were we to adopt the above definition, it would mean George H.W. Bush does not really hate broccoli, and Inigo Montoya did not really hate the six-fingered man.

Since Bush did, and so did Sr. Montoya, this interesting new definition of hate is no longer very useful for its old purpose - identifying real, live "hate", but it becomes quite useful indeed for wrapping an insidious moral accusation inside a supposedly descriptive word. With such a definition, when the good guys hate for "right justification" it is not really hate at all, and when the bad guys hate, it is by definition an immoral act in and of itself. The good guys, we will find, will always look like progressive leftists and the bad guys will be the usual suspects (the above mentioned heterosexual, Christian, white males, and of course Americans in general, Republicans in particular, and most especially members of the Tea Party).

"Hate" has metastasized into the latest progressive buzzword to use against conservatives. The Left's depraved attacks on Sarah Palin lowered the stock value of the word "sexist"; many now yawn if accused of "racism" (currently defined, apparently, as anybody that thinks Barack Obama just may be a knave and a fool); "Islamophobe" and "Homophobe" were always weird, artificial-sounding things and, being the truly stupid terms they are, they have inevitably lost much of the sting they once inexplicably possessed. We need some new words on deck. Hate can't last forever, unless you're Ricardo Montalban in a Star Trek movie, or the average Palestinian.

I suspect "bully" will do nicely as the next trendy accusation. Progressives can customize the definition, and then they will for a while enjoy its heft and feel as they swing it at conservatives. They will overuse it, as they did "racist", or violate its true meaning beyond even their own ability to dissemble, as they did with "sexist", or shoot past it so forcefully with their own despicable behavior (see "incivility" and Madison, WI) that eventually the day will come when bully will never be mentioned again. But for the near future, expect to notice a lot of Republican "bullies" among the "haters", and keep your eyes open for the next word we may want to make useless in the cause of progressive newspeak.

Australian Tim Blair explains...

2011-04-19T11:41:00.000-04:00

...the reasons for his continued success:
"Sustainability is important. That’s why, many years ago, I decided to base almost all of my columns on making fun of left-wing blundering and idiocy."

It seems to work both above and below the equator. Maybe it's universal.

Greg Gutfeld predicts attacks on David Mamet

2011-04-19T11:01:00.000-04:00

"Legendary playwright" David Mamet started publicly losing his faith in liberalism a couple years ago, and is now apparently coming out with a book on the subject:
The Secret Knowledge: On the Dismantling of American Culture

Greg Gutfeld:

"What happens to people who do such things?
My prediction is that Mamet, if he isn’t disowned by his industry already, will be.
The break will be ugly, but clean.
He will be dismissed as a bitter crank who probably sucked to begin with.
All those awesome plays and films once praised by critics and celebs will now be reassessed.
As crap.
Because Mamet abandoned group-think.
Overnight, he will turn from legendary to lackluster – whose attack on the left must be due to artistic suckiness."

Let's face it, predicting vicious leftist attacks on former leftists who question leftism is pretty much like shooting fish-in-a-barrel.

As you sow, so shall you reap...

2011-04-19T08:14:00.000-04:00

"Well, when you cave so easily to Muslims’ complaints about blasphemy, you send a signal to everyone else about what kind of behavior is rewarded. May you have joy in the incentive structure you’ve created."

French Catholics Destroy Andres Serrano’s “Piss Christ.”

Global warming must be true, Charles Manson believes in it.

2011-04-19T07:53:00.001-04:00

I admit I've wondered about the mental health of some global warming alarmists, and the simple truth is that one is judged by the company one keeps, but even to me this doesn't seem fair.

Full article at The Daily Mail

If we had hanged this fellow 40 years ago like any sensible society would have done, Charley wouldn't now be embarrassing all those Gaia-worshipping warmenists. They don't really need the help.

MORE: From the PJ Tatler:

"Why, it’s like global warming is a pagan quasi-religious cult or something."

Speaking of wood-burning El Caminos...

2011-04-18T14:04:00.000-04:00

...I've been wondering for a while if people that hate fossil fuels really think through the consequences of purposely raising the price of oil.

While this truly boss ride was built in Finland (HT: Instapundit)and presumably was built just for the heck of it, it illustrates a good point. When government policies raise the price of oil too high, what do the intellectualistas think poor people are going to do? Spend money they don't have to buy hybrid cars? Invest the home-equity loans they can't get to completely re-build their houses' heating systems?

Why no, no they are not. Where I live in Eastern Pennsylvania, people are going to drive old trucks longer, and are going to count on their wood-burning stoves to provide more of their heat in the winter.

How's that going to help our air quality? I'm just asking?

Syria Protest Update - How to motivate one's military to follow orders

2011-04-18T09:07:00.000-04:00

From Haaretz:
Report: Senior Syria officer assassinated over unwillingness to open fire at protesters
"A senior Syrian military officer was assassinated over his unwillingness to open fire at anti-government protesters, websites linked to Syrian opposition groups said on Monday."

Is this report accurate? Dunno. But it does seem to me that after months of protests and a couple of government overthrows, the remaining Mideast dictators would be working to, shall we say, improve their power-clinging methodology.

Meanwhile in Japan...

2011-04-18T08:03:00.000-04:00

...the cleanup continues.

From The Telegraph.

Did you know India has arrested over 120 Somali pirates?

2011-04-18T07:38:00.000-04:00

From The Deccan Chronicle:

"The Indian Navy has captured 120 Somali pirates during its anti-piracy operations in the waters off the Horn of Africa and Lakshadweep Islands in the last six months. The biggest capture was of 61 Somali pirates last month after a mother ship, Vega 5, was apprehended."

It's easy to forget how wild the world can be.

A little Palm Sunday commie-bashing:

2011-04-17T16:37:00.000-04:00

Ron Radosh quotes Leszek Kolakowski doing the needful:

“All of Marx’s important prophecies…have turned out to be false.” Class polarization receded instead of deepened; the working class all but disappeared and dwindled; and proletarian revolution proved not to be inevitable, which Marx thought it was. One might say the 1981 Polish revolt led by Solidarity was led by the workers. But as Kolakowski notes of his countrymen, it was a revolution “directed against a socialist state, and carried out under the sign of the cross, with the blessing of the Pope

.”

Gotta love it...

2011-04-16T13:42:00.000-04:00

(HT: The PJ Tatler)

Apology to Harold French

2011-04-16T12:22:00.000-04:00

The other day I posted about a debating maneuver called the no-true-Scotsman. I was frustrated with a Facebook friend I've been arguing with since long before there was a Facebook *. If you're going to argue with someone - at least if you are trying to have a good-faith argument - all participants must use the same definitions for the terms being argued. If two people are arguing, for instance, about "drugs", the argument will be confusing if one person uses "drugs" to mean "drugs that are currently illegal in the United States" (like cocaine, etc.) while the other person uses the word to mean "any chemical substance that has any effect on a person at all" (a category that would include caffeine, nicotine, etc.). Either definition can be fine, provided everybody agrees at the outset what kind of "drugs" the argument is about.

Perhaps part of my problem is that when Harold announces his definition of a term it isn't immediately clear to me that Harold may well be doing exactly what I think he should be doing. If Harold is simply "stipulating" that throughout the discussion that follows he will be using a word to mean a very particular thing, then he is doing the correct thing. Recently, for instance, Harold wrote:

Hate is the willful desire to cause harm without right justification. Right justification is defense of self or defense of others.

I saw Harold's post on Facebook and immediately objected. To me this was (and is) far too limiting a definition for an extremely useful word like hate. Hezbollah hates Jews. George H.W. Bush hates broccoli. Inigo Montoya hates the man with six fingers. The three are all examples of hate. All are legitimate, but they don't all meet Harold's definition. Were we to agree with Harold's definition, we would also be forced to agree that G.H.W. Bush either does not really hate broccoli or that he is somehow wrong to do so. Who are we to judge another man's hatred of a particular vegetable? In the case of the relentless Sr. Montoya, are we sure he has no "right justification" for his feeling? By what standard would we say so? Or are we saying his feelings toward the six-fingered man are something other than hate? Montoya is after all crossing land and sea to track the man down so he can kill him; if that ain't hate, what is? Some of these propositions - all ridiculous - would somehow have to be 'true' if we agree with Harold's definition of hate.

Or such was my feeling. If all Harold was trying to do was simply stipulate that for purposes of the following discussion he was going to use the word "hate" in a particular way but, after the discussion, "hate" would have its normal meanings, then Harold was doing right and I owe him an apology. I hereby offer it.

* Harold and I used to post at a site called the Great Books of Western Civilization Café, back in the early days of internet bulletin boards. It was a terrific site, run by Ken Roberts in Canada. A number of smart people - with fundamentally different political, philosophical, and religious views - were all in the same place. Arguments often got hot but, by and large, people had to control themselves if they wanted to be taken seriously. Ken shut the site down. One reason, I think, was because of the increasing sovietization of Canadian speech laws. He understandably didn't want to be hauled before some kangaroo-court speech tribunal for a running a site where people sometimes expressed politically incorrect thoughts.

If you think the Tea Party is rude...

2011-04-15T09:48:00.000-04:00

...you should see how they do it in Hong Kong:

Radical legislators have made hurling fruit and invective an eagerly anticipated ritual whenever the city's top officials appear in the chamber of the Legislative Council(.)

Did you know that India has an anti-missile shield?

2011-04-15T09:37:00.000-04:00

I thought those things couldn't possibly work but it seems everbody that's anybody has one or is getting one.

Abortion: It's not just for women anymore!

2011-04-14T11:36:00.000-04:00

From the Are-You-Kidding-Me? File:

Presumably a woman who feels male and wishes to undergo extreme surgery to gain some semblance of physical maleness should also retain a functional uterus and associated organs, perhaps cleverly connected to a decorative penis. An intriguing challenge for any ambitious surgeon.

Read the whole thing, provided you're not drinking anything that can shoot out of your nose when you start laughing.

(HT: Tim Blair)

Jews News - The Shanghai Ghetto

2011-04-14T10:02:00.000-04:00

Did you know there was a Jewish ghetto in Shanghai and that the Chicoms are considering preserving it? And that a World War II Japanese diplomat was granted the honor Righteous among the Nations by the State of Israel for saving European Jews, and that during WWII the Japanese military governor of Shanghai refused to turn over the German Jews in Shanghai to the Nazis?

The stuff floating around the backwaters of history is sometimes pretty amazing.

So, how can one tell if a senior North Korean official has actually been put against a wall and shot?

2011-04-14T08:06:00.002-04:00

A little bit of North Korea talk from The Asia Times OnLine

Apparently there are always questions about whether the high NK officials we think were executed really were executed.

Those who do not deal with North Korea seldom realize how little outside observers know about its high politics. North Korean media stretch the definition of state secret to an extent that would likely appear excessive even to Joseph Stalin. There have been numerous cases where North Korean media chose not to report some very important (and, interestingly, very public) events that had a profound impact on the lives of every North Korean.

What a horrible place.

Americanus ex machina

2011-04-13T16:40:00.001-04:00

Last night I watched the Granada Television version of A Scandal in Bohemia, one of the early Sherlock Holmes short stories written by Arthur Conan Doyle. I've been a Conan Doyle fan since I was a kid and I thought this first of the Granada Holmes productions was the best screen adaptation I've seen of the Sherlock Holmes legend.

The original story was published in 1891, and watching it last night reminded me of something I noticed a long time ago: when the plot required something extraordinary to happen, British Victorian writers, maybe instinctively, often conjured up an American to get the job done. Irene Adler, an American adventuress, is Sherlock Holmes' antagonist in A Scandal in Bohemia. And this chick from New Jersey takes Holmes to school. If memory serves, she is one of the very few (if not the only) antagonist that ever completely defeats Sherlock Holmes.

Also as a teenager, I read Bram Stoker's Dracula (1897) and loved it. (I was continually disappointed with screen adaptations of the Dracula story until Coppola's movie came out in 1992.) Again we see this odd literary phenomenon: at the height of the British Empire a platoon of Englishmen is desperately battling Dracula and his minions; their lives, their women, their very souls on the line; there are only seconds to go before the sun sets and all is lost. And a mortally wounded Texan staggers back into the fight, and with his dying breath and his trusty Bowie knife finally puts paid to the evil vampire. No wonder Dracula stuck around Europe for centuries, sucking blood and generally causing trouble; you Brits and Continentals had the wrong guys on the job. Y'all want a tough problem solved, y'all need to get yourselves an American. Preferably from Texas. (It occurs to me this theme is not limited to the last century, nor to fiction.)

According to Wikipedia, the "Latin phrase deus ex machina comes to English usage from Horace's Ars Poetica, where he instructs poets that they must never resort to a god from the machine to solve their plots." It's disappointing for the audience to have a character in a story saved at the last second by some sort of miracle out of nowhere. We feel cheated when such things happen. We expect the heroes of page and screen to solve their own problems. We do not want them to need the "god from the machine" to be lowered to the stage to take care of all the hard things for them.

It's interesting that foreign writers (at least British ones) use American characters in almost exactly such a way. Americanus ex machina? Who can out-think Sherlock Holmes? Who can kill the undead? Who can slip some cash to James Bond when he gets wiped out at the gaming table, or parachute 20 frogmen into the water on short notice when Bond finally finds the stolen nuke? One can almost see the author pulling at his hair, or the screenwriters staring blankly at the deadend on the story board:

Now what are we going to do? How do we work our story out of the corner we just wrote ourselves into? Quick, write an American into the story! They can do anything!

When you - absolutely, positively - need some ass kicked in a hurry, who you gonna call?

For all the condescension we get as Americans in the fashionable circles of international opinion, the occasional glimpse of the fantasy life of the non-American is gratifying. Even as the world loves to disparage us, the secret sometimes bubbles up into view in popular fiction. The world has long viewed the American as that missing je ne sais quoi that's required to set right what otherwise cannot be fixed.

We Americans of course know better. We can't always do all of that magic stuff (only sometimes) but it's nice to know that deep down inside, the rest of the world figures that when the impossible needs doing, it's good to have Americans around.

The Stipulated Scotsman

2011-04-13T10:26:00.000-04:00

There is a debating maneuver called the "No-true-Scotsman" maneuver. Some refer to it as a logical fallacy. It goes like this:

- The speaker says: "No true Scotsman drinks wine."
- His interlocutor says: "This cannot be so. I know a guy name Ian MacGregor; he was born and raised in Edinburgh; we had dinner the other night, and he drank wine."
- The speaker then says: "Well, he may have a Scottish name, and have been born and raised in Scotland, but he nonetheless cannot be a "true" Scotsman.
- The interlocutor asks: "How can it be that a Scotsman, born and raised in Scotland, is not a "true" Scotsman?"
- The speaker replies: "Because you said he drinks wine, and no "true Scotsman" drinks wine.

What happened is that the speaker had a private (or "stipulative" or "stipulatory") definition of "true Scotsman" that he did not share with his interlocutor before he started the discussion. The interlocutor reasonably assumed he and the speaker were using plain English, and that words they were using meant what those words usually mean. In plain English, a Scotsman born and raised in Scotland is certainly a "true Scotsman." The speaker allowed the conversation to proceed to a certain point, and then whipped out his private definition of "true Scotsman" - a Scotsman that does not drink wine. The interlocutor of course had no way of knowing the speaker had a private, or special, definition of the term "true Scotsman" and so he innocently entered the conversation only to be frustrated by the speaker's stipulated definition. Lewis Carroll famously highlighted this irritating little debating trick when one of his characters grandly declared that a word meant exactly what he meant it to mean, no more and no less.

One cannot have reasonable, good-faith discussions with people that use the 'no-true-Scotsman'.

Unclaimed bodies get ‘beggar’ tags

2011-04-11T12:48:00.000-04:00

Most bodies found on the roads near Secunderabad Railway Station and in Gopalapuram and Market police stations are branded as beggars.

This article in the Deccan Chronicle reminds me of the vast gulf between a place like America, and much of the rest of the world. I worked for 18 months in Hyderabad and know the exact area where these bodies are being found. Many of them probably are beggars. But since many beggars in India actually work for someone else - there are fairly large syndicates of beggars in all major India cities - just because a body was a 'beggar' does not necessarily mean the person died alone and unknown.

CARPE DIEM: Why Wearing a Baseball Cap Backwards is Dumb

2011-04-06T14:49:00.001-04:00

CARPE DIEM: Why Wearing a Baseball Cap Backwards is Dumb
(h/t Instapundit)

Steyn on Japan

2011-04-05T13:18:00.000-04:00

"Why is there no looting in Japan?" wondered a headline in the Daily Telegraph. So did a lot of other folks. Various answers were posited(.)

Most analysts overlooked the most obvious factor: Looting is a young man’s game, and the Japanese are too old.

For some reason this hits me as one of the saddest things I've read in a month filled with plenty of competition in the sad news department.

Steyn on Hitchcock on Strangers on a Train

2011-04-01T12:02:00.003-04:00

There are few things more satisfying than reading one great describing the work of another great: Strangers On A Train

Five Myths About Why the South Seceded

2011-04-01T11:57:00.004-04:00

For those occasionally subjected to Southerners' views concerning the causes of the Civil War, you might want to take some notes from James W. Loewen.

Barack Obama's Burden

2011-03-31T20:46:00.003-04:00

(With apologies to Rudyard Kipling...)

Take up Obama's burden
Send forth the best ye breed
Go bind your A10 pilots
To serve Sarkozy's need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-found freedom fighters,
Half terrorist, half child.

Take up the U.N.'s burden--
In patience to abide,
To manage the no-fly zone
And show off NATO’s pride;
By open speech and simple,
An hundred times made plain,
To seek for BP’s profit,
And work for France’s gain.

Take up Obama's burden--
The savage wars of peace--
Fill full the UN mandate
And bid Gaddafi cease;
And when your goal is nearest
The end for others sought,
Watch Europe’s venal folly
Bring all your hope to naught.

Take up Obama’s burden--
No tawdry rule of kings,
But toil of nation building--
The tale of common things.
The oil ye shall not purchase,
Goodwill ye shall not keep,
Ye broke it so ye bought it,
And now it mars your sleep.

Take up the White Man's burden--
And reap his old reward;
The blame of those ye better,
The hate of those ye guard--
The cry of hosts ye humour
(Ah, slowly!) toward the light:--
"Why brought ye us elections?
Sharia is our right!"

Take up Obama’s burden--
Ye dare not stoop to less--
Nor call too loud on Freedom--
To cloak your weariness;
By all ye cry or whisper,
By all ye leave or do,
The silent, sullen peoples
Shall weigh your Gods and you.

Take up the White Man's burden--
Barack's done with childish days--
The lightly proffered laurel
The easy, ungrudged praise.
Comes now, to search his manhood
Through all the thankless years,
Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom,
The judgment of his peers!

Hitchens on Gaddafi

2011-03-31T10:12:00.002-04:00

"It is morally unthinkable that he should emerge from this episode with even a rag of authority to call his own, and it is morally feeble not to say so out loud."

I'm afraid our president hasn't the character to address the latter issue, nor even enough to ensure the former.

India and Iran, oh my!

2011-03-08T18:28:00.001-05:00

The Deccan Chronicle reports on a meeting between India's "national security advisor" and Iran's president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

India is a nuclear power, and Iran is trying to develop nuclear weapons. India's economic development requires oil, the continued availability of which is open to speculation based on what is going on in the Middle East these days. One might think majority Hindu and officially secular India would be reluctant to support a religiously bigoted (to say the least) Muslim Iran but the Indians need the oil and it's not as if the U.S. has given India much love since the Bush administration.

It might seem unrelated but with a billion people, India needs a lot of food, too. Iran hasn't got any food to sell India, but it does have oil. And both oil and food are getting expensive these days. So how would India be able to pay a nuclearly needy Iran for oil, if it needs to use its cash for food?

"Pakistan is an ally and India a market".

2010-11-08T13:31:00.002-05:00

From The Times of India.

India is an interesting place. My experience was that the people can be hard to impress. I imagine the president is learning that.

NPR Prediction: How Soviet can you get?

2010-10-22T11:50:00.002-04:00

After the CEO of NPR showed herself to be a vicious fool by publicly implying Juan Williams was fired for repeatedly violating ethical standards, and that Mr. Williams may be in need of psychiatric help, here is NPR's next move in it's self-imposed idiot-kabuki dance:

As demands grow that NPR detail the alleged ethical violations, NPR will have some spokesperson announce that NPR cannot comment because it is a personnel matter. The spokesperson will announce this imbecility with a straight face.

You read it here first. If it hasn't already happened, that is.

The San Jose mine rescue

2010-10-13T10:24:00.006-04:00

The Chilean miner rescue is a wonderful thing to watch. The miners are being rescued from what up until this past decade would have been certain death. Think about that for a moment. All the mining that that has gone on in the world over the millenia, and until about 10 years ago, miners like these Chileans would have - in similar circumstances - faced certain, horrible deaths.

To quote Patrick O'Brian's Captain Aubry from Master and Commander: "What a fascinating, modern world we live in."

But even as I watched, moist eyed and joyous, I was unable to keep a thought from popping into my head:

The place was a media circus and the president of Chile was personally grandstanding the event. If something went wrong in the rescue as a result of media or political pressure we would never know it. Were engineers and rescuers being at all hampered by an imperative to, essentially, make the event good TV? Was anything at all in the rescue schedule or the rescue process being effected by considerations such as the president's presence on the scene? Was any equipment placed or were any rescue personnel staged in certain places because of TV camera angles?

They can't seem to hit Breitbart's pitches. He's gotten inside their heads.

2010-07-21T13:10:00.005-04:00

So there's this big story the last couple days about a woman named Shirley Sherrod, late an Assistant Deputy Something-or-other for the Department of Agriculture in Georgia.

Andrew Breitbart posted a video of her at Big Government that shows her telling a story to an NAACP audience that seems to imply she had (at one time at least) a less than open-minded racial view of whites. Within a short time of the video hitting the internet Miss Sherrod, apparently by order of the White House and at the request of the NAACP, was hitting the street as a new member of the unemployed.

But wait, there's more. It seems that a full version of the video (Breitbart only showed an edited version - he claims it was all he possessed) shows that Ms. Sherrod was actually telling a story about overcoming racial animosity. The NAACP and the White House now seem to want to take back - can you believe it? - her forced resignation.

A couple points:

1. How jittery and jumpy do the NAACP and the White House have to be to fire an Assistant Secretary of Something-or-other within a couple hours of an obviously incomplete Breitbart video coming on-line? When I personally saw the Breitbart video it seemed clear there was more to the story and that the rest of the video might show Sherrod was not advocating racism of any sort. Even Breitbart indicated the rest of the video had to be seen. The WH and the NAACP didn't bother to find out before they reacted even though it turns out the NAACP had access to the entire tape.

2. Breitbart is driving the Left crazy. He slaughtered them with a slow drip release of the underage-illegal-alien hooker videos at ACORN. They refused to act as the videos showed ever more blatant misbehavior. Now he flicks off a quick sidewinder outside the strike zone and they swing for the stands with everything they've got, ending up with nothing but air (except for the egg on their faces). They can't seem to hit Breitbart's pitches. He's gotten inside their heads.

Living "a really good life"

2010-07-12T19:20:00.004-04:00

In the post below Max Weismann asked what the greatest impediment is to "a really good life" and I responded in the comments that the culprit is mankind's "radical depravity". This is a theological term that means, essentially, that man's sinfulness runs - sometimes like a thread and other times like a raging river in flood - through every single thing man does. (As an HR professional let me add I don't use the term "man" in a gender-specific way. All chicks are radically depraved as well.) We are all sinners.

Max came back with something interesting enough that I figure it's worth its own post. He wrote:

I ... restrict my discussions of the problems of the good life and the good society to the temporal life and to that life on its secular plane. Those who are religious persons and distinguish between the secular and the religious activities they engage in, as well as between their worldly and their religious aspirations, will be able to affix appropriate qualifications, additions, and even dissents to various things I will say "without regard to religion."

I have a problem with this. There are really only two types of answers to the question, "what is a good life"? One type of answer includes a moral component (the '"good life" includes doing the right things) and the other type of answer does not include a moral component (the "good life" is based strictly on stuff and/or feelings you get for yourself). The second type of answer is generally frowned upon by the philosopher crowd so there is almost always a moral component or "right" behavior required when philosopher types talk about a "good life". See, for instance, the comments thread where Max asked this same question at the Center for the Study of Great Ideas.

So, if living a "good life" involves moral behavior (and most philosophers agree it does) and most religious people get moral guidance from their religions (and they do) and most people are in fact to some extent religious (and they are) why do modern philosophers insist that discussion of morals must be so "secular" or "temporal" that such discussions must specifically exclude religion?

Rather than ask the religious to somehow "affix appropriate (religious)qualifications, additions, and even dissents" to discussions of morals, how about asking the non-religious to remove - if they can - the religious aspects of morality that they don't care for? If a "really good life" is defined as strictly material it would make sense to exclude religion in discussions about it. But since in reality discussions of the "good life" just about always include concepts such as morality, virtue, and "right behavior" this no-religion rule seems to me not just strange but a bizarrely self-inflicted handicap.

What in your view . . .

2010-07-10T20:56:00.002-04:00

Is the single greatest impediment, towards mankind and individuals from achieving a really good life?

Coulter on the Kagan hearings

2010-07-01T10:13:00.002-04:00

It's Thursday so it must be time for Ann Coulter's column.

"(L)iberals see the Supreme Court as their backup legislature, giving them all the laws Democrats can't pass themselves because they'd be voted out of office if they did."

Kagan Kabuki - Why so serious?

2010-06-29T13:38:00.001-04:00

The Elena Kagan nomination hearings in the Senate are surreal on a couple fronts.

First, everybody - Republicans, Democrats, and journalists on the left and right - are pretending that we want to find out what kind of Supreme Court Justice Dean Kagan would make. She is a hard-left political lawyer with no publication record and no experience as a judge. She will of course be a hard-left political Supreme Court Justice with no experience in judicial opinion writing and no prior experience as a judge. How is this any sort of mystery? One could probably predict with a high level of accuracy which way she will vote on almost any case. The only interesting thing will be examining how convoluted the reasoning is in her written opinions.

Second, I read somewhere that Kagan (and Sotomayor before her) both made opening statements avowing their dedication to the Constitution, statements that could have been made by John Roberts. I heard neither of them so I don't know if this is true. If it is though, how does the hard-left justify its view of a "living Constitution" if even hard-left judicial nominees have to deny the view in public?

Steyn on the Hapless Mr. Obama...

2010-06-20T08:21:00.002-04:00

"Barack Obama was supposed to be the best, the very best, and yet he is always, reliably, consistently mediocre"

Full column is here.

O’Sullivan’s Law

2010-05-24T12:50:00.001-04:00

Andrew Klavan:

O’Sullivan’s Law states that any organization or enterprise that is not expressly right wing will become left wing over time. The law is named after British journalist John O’Sullivan, who cites as proof the ACLU, the Ford Foundation and the Episcopal Church.

He could have cited Law & Order too, NBC’s long running arrest-and-trial television show that has just been canceled after 21 years on the air.

The entire article is here.

Primary Night in Pennsylvania

2010-05-19T13:35:00.001-04:00

Yesterday was primary day in Pennsylvania and last night was the first time I've been to any political candidate's headquarters on election night. In fact I made it to two of them.

As Republicans, my friend Bernie and I were both invited to the primary night headquarters of Pat Toomey at the Best Western Hotel in Bethlehem. We were also invited to wait for results with the campaign team of Justin Simmons, the 23 year old insurgent that was challenging incumbent Rep Karen Beyer for the nomination for State Representative of the 131st District. Bernie and I had both circulated petitions to get Justin on the primary ballot. We went to the Toomey HQ first. We signed in, got our ToomeyforSenate lapel stickers, and mingled. The Toomey staff looked like they were recruited from Southern Lehigh High School. Okay, maybe not, but it's amazing how young campaign staffers can look to a 52 year old. They were sharp, well-dressed, polite, and at ease. There was no real question to the race. Toomey was going to walk away with the nomination and the only excitement for the crowd was watching the TV monitors to keep up with the Sestak/Specter contest in the Democratic primary. Bobby Gunther Walsh, the conservative Allentown talk-radio guy, went to the microphone every now and then to make announcements. Bernie and I each bought a Yeungling Lager at the bar; Bernie introduced me to Bobby; and Bobby and I chatted for a bit about the joys and horrors of raising daughters.

Pat Toomey wasn't around yet, nor were any of his senior staffers. We figured the inner circle was in a suite near-by, not paying any money for their beer, and waiting for the right time to have Pat make his entrance before the crowd. When Bobby announced that Pat would probably show up within the hour, we decided to drive to the Justin Simmons HQ.

That's where the drama was. Justin's team had taken over the bar at Pacifico, a Mexican seafood restaurant in the Promenade Shops in Center Valley. When Bernie and I got there, Justin's father was outside, getting some fresh air. We all shook hands and talked a bit. Justin's campaign manager was pacing around on the sidewalk, saying things like "56 votes up". He played with his cell-phone a lot, and talked into it often. I think I heard him apologize three times to various people for the hooded sweatshirt he was wearing. He was excited, and he should have been. His candidate was winning a primary race against an incumbent that had party support. We all went into the restaurant and Jay Simmons, the candidate's father, told us to order whatever we cared for at the bar.

There were only about 20 people in the place and the majority were under thirty. I can't really describe how electric things were; I'm not that good a writer. What I remember is how everybody's eyes were shining as the reports came in, and the vote spread kept growing. Before 11:00 PM the Beyer campaign people started calling Justin and Mark, his campaign manager, on their cell phones. Justin looked cool, collected, and in charge. Just like he should have. Mark was talking into cell-phones, typing on laptops, texting into hand-helds, and generally acting like the campaign manager of a candidate in a race that was looking good but coming down to the wire. Little by little the vote spread kept growing, and when the TV showed Simmons with 1928 against Beyer with 1748 (and 97% of the vote counted) someone pointed out the spread was wider than the 5% recount threshold. Simmons took the concession call from Beyer on the sidewalk outside, in the light drizzle, with Mark at his side. We watched through the windows. Just in case we couldn't tell how the call was going from Justin's comfortable stance and smiling face, Mark helped out by jumping up and down, and pumping his fists into the air.

When they came back in, and everybody finished hugging everybody else, and shaking hands with anybody they didn't hug, Justin said some gracious words about Karen Beyer. He then thanked just about everybody in the room by name. Other short speeches happened, most of us thought of people to send text messages to, a couple toasts were made, and everybody kind of hung out and yakked for while about the general campaign. I doubt I will ever again be in the inner circle of a political campaign when the opponent calls to concede. As Bernie and I drove home, we agreed that we made the right call leaving the Toomey shindig to come to Simmons HQ. Not only was the beer free, but the show was much, much better.

More (on) Global Warming

2010-05-18T12:11:00.002-04:00

Glenn Knight and I are having a disagreement in the comments thread of my last post on so-called global warming (I'm embarrassed to see it's also my most recent post, period - I need to get back in the blogging saddle).

Glenn makes two statements that need addressing:

1. "(That) the evidence shows that there has been such a constant connection between man-made CO2 and global temperature change is not, I think, in much doubt."

2. "But there is no evidence whatever that anyone concocted data, suppressed data, or deliberately distorted data."

I'll deal with the second point first. I accused AGW proponents of "faking" data. I was referring specifically to the temperature "record" that purportedly shows that for the last one thousand years the earth's temperature has consistently risen in direct correlation to the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. Let me concede immediately that I am unable to prove this accusation for reasons that any lawyer or moderately intelligent student of philosophy would find obvious. It is an editorial opinion (like calling a politician a "liar" when he reneges on a campaign promise). I believe it to be true but I could not show that the scientists at East Anglia University, with malign intent, purposely produced temperature data they knew to be "fake". However I stand behind my declaration for the following reasons. They are scientists and as such know they are to adhere to particular standards in their scientific work. The evidence is now overwhelming that they did not adhere to such standards, that they knew they were not adhering to such standards, and that they knew that they should adhere to such standards. Their emails further seem to show that they knew their failure to adhere to such standards would rightly call their work into question and they did knowingly work to prevent others from discovering the shoddiness of their work. It is not proof of fraud to a legal or philosophical certainty but it sure meets the definition of "faked" for editorial purposes.

This takes me to Glenn's first point: "that there has been such a constant connection between man-made CO2 and global temperature change". Uh, no. The scandal of global warming hysteria is that no such connection has in fact been scientifically shown. The temperature data that accurately indicates such a connection does not exist. The data set that purports to show such a connection has apparently been gathered in such a way as to be unreproducible and is therefore, by any reasonable scientific standards, unreliable. Nothing is, or can be, "proved" by unreliable data. No statistical "connection" is, or can be, shown if it is based on values whose provenance is untraceable to any legitimate source. Something is not a science if it is not based on scientific work carried out according to scientific practices. No such rigorous work seems to have been carried out in the question of the thousand-year temperature record upon which AGW belief is based. Therefore any conclusion about possible serious or even catastrophic effects of increased CO2 is not science.

Honored Above My Deserts

2010-05-16T19:55:00.002-04:00

I am pleased and honored that Agim Zabeli has extended to me the privilege of posting as a contributor to the Two Masters blog.

I trust that Agim will have no reason to regret his generosity.

More Global Warming, Cooling, Whatever

2010-03-31T08:45:00.003-04:00

"NASA was able to put a man on the moon, but the space agency can't tell you what the temperature was when it did. By its own admission, NASA's temperature records are in even worse shape than the besmirched Climate-gate data."

Considering the now totally discredited "evidence" for "global warming", one would have to be a really, really true believer to have any confidence whatsoever left in this hokem "theory".

But then I think it always was a matter of faith and hysteria. These sorts of scares happen all the time in history and are usually so embarrassing that once they're over, everyone wants to forget about them. As a result, we forget to be careful about the next one as well. The new ice age didn't happen, the ozone layer must have fixed itself, and I predict that in a couple years you won't be able to find anybody that admits to "believing" in "global warming". (HT: Instapundit)

From the Hollywood 'Who-gives-a'shit?' file...

2010-03-30T21:52:00.003-04:00

"Ewan Mcgregor - Mcgregor Blasts Bush And Blair Over War On Terror"

Uh, shut the f*ck up, moron. Or, to bring Plato back into it:

"But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets; because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom(.)"

Just look nice for the camera, bitch, and only say the words on the script, okay? Actors. Jeesh. (HT: Big Hollywood)

Che Guevara Quote of the Day

2010-03-30T15:53:00.003-04:00

"The Negro is indolent and spends his money on frivolities and booze, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent."

How can anyone think this asshole was anything other than a mass-murdering, sexual-predator, pseudo-intellectual barbarian?

Che's immortal last words:

"Don’t Shoot! I’m Che! I’m worth to you more alive than dead!"

Pussy.

Current Reading: Greeks, Jews, and Englishmen

2010-03-30T14:40:00.002-04:00

I'm currently reading Dicken's David Copperfield, re-reading The Clouds by Aristophanes, 1 and 2 Samuel in the Old Testament, and 1 John in the New Testament. I also recently re-read David Clammer's popular 1973 history "The Zulu War" (which is currently unavailable at both B&N and Amazon).

Aristophanes (c.455 - c. 380 B.C.) was an Athenian writer of comedies during the Peloponnesian War (the long war(s) between Athens and Sparta). I'm about half-way through the first act and there are interesting comparisons and contrasts with modern American media. One thing to note is how base and bawdy this play is. I've lost count of the number of flatulence jokes and rectal references I've already had to endure. Another thing - vis a vis the current American "culture war" - is how in-your-face this play is about expressing political positions and ridiculing, often by name, political opponents. In fact the entire premise of the play is that Socrates and his entire 'what-is-truth?' school of philosophers are a bunch of frauds and jackasses. Fun stuff.

Leftism, the Religion

2010-03-30T11:45:00.001-04:00

Dennis Prager:

"Leftism, though secular, must be understood as a religion (which is why I have begun capitalizing it). The Leftist value system’s hold on its adherents is as strong as the hold Christianity, Judaism, and Islam have on theirs. Nancy Pelosi’s belief in expanding the government’s role in American life, which inspired her passion for the health-care bill, is as strong as a pro-life Christian’s belief in the sanctity of the life of the unborn."

Death sentence for 5 in Haryana honour killing

2010-03-30T10:09:00.002-04:00

Now this is how "honour killings" should be dealt with! But a couple things occur to me:

First, if I interpret the names correctly the couple and caste involved are all Hindu. "Honour" killings are not exclusively a Muslim issue. They are a problem that exists in tribal and clan-based societies, of which Islam is the most familiar to us in the West.

Secondly, given the interesting political and demographic issues in India, I wonder if the court would have had the courage to sentence 5 Muslims to death if it were a Muslim honour killing rather than a Hindu killing.

Anybody know what kind of owl this is?

2010-03-28T16:08:00.003-04:00

I went down the hill next to my house to haul some firewood out of the woods. I live in Eastern Pennsylvania. This fellow was sitting on the trunk of the fallen tree I was cutting up. He stayed there and watched me the entire time, maybe about an hour, and was still there when I left. Nervy bird.

Or maybe he figured since I was carrying heavy wood up a steep hill he should just wait to see if I had a heart attack so he could eat me.

Re-reading Plato

2010-03-24T16:41:00.003-04:00

Recently re-read Plato's Apology of Socrates and today I re-read Crito. It's been a while.

From 'Apology':

"But I observed that even the good artisans fell into the same error as the poets; because they were good workmen they thought that they also knew all sorts of high matters, and this defect in them overshadowed their wisdom(.)"

I couldn't help but think of modern movie stars when I read that.

And from 'Crito' concerning one's duty to the government:

"And when we are punished by her, whether with imprisonment or stripes, the punishment is to be endured in silence; and if she leads us to wounds or death in battle, thither we follow as is right; neither may anyone yield or retreat or leave his rank, but whether in battle or in a court of law, or in any other place, he must do what his city and his country order him; or he must change their view of what is just(.)"

Old school stuff, that, and good stuff as well. I need to go back to reading more of the classics.

Two Masters

Spengler on American Education's Systematic Child Abuse

The Grey - Movie Review - Nasty, Brutish, and Shoulda Been Shorter

Post-Sunday School Man

Rioting arsonists should be shot by police, review finds

Public Sector meets the Public Dole

"Climate science is ... the teenage girl of science."

What if they're just practicing?

In case you need to justify it...

Why there is still hope for America...

Twenty-Seven?

Coulter on the Death Penalty

A brief history of Palestine

America's first European President?

Moral standards have been replaced by feelings.

Spengler explains what's with all the horror movies these days...

Those smart, sophisticated atheists...

The Human Target

Coulter on the British Riots

About the British riots...

More people asking the right question...

Bomb Blast in Oslo

"Here is an Englishman"

Jamaicans Nostalgic For Colonialism

The Ugly Frenchman - 1190 and 2011

And if the Pakistanis had decided to interfere?

Wikileaks - "(L)eftist revolutions never deliver on their promises."

A great Bin Laden question I've also wondered about...

"Our educated unemployed are most susceptible to demagoguery."

Don’t Worry: Osama Was Shot in Accordance with Islamic Tradition

What a great day.

You Can Achieve Whatever You Set Your Mind To — No, Really!

I think "arrested" would be a better verb to see in this headline...

An Occurrence at McDonalds

My only royal wedding post, ever...

Today's Day By Day

Divorced Dad Who Is Paying for Child's College Has Right to See Report Card

Speculating About Speculators

Free Kindle Book

Archbishop of Canterbury talks like a teenage beauty contestant.

Tolerance, Muslim-style

Why Is (Pacifist) Spain Selling Cluster Bombs to Libya?

General Sir Charles Napier (August, 10, 1782 – August 29, 1853)

Lady Gaga: Thin-skinned, atonal skank can dish it out...

"Indian Slaves in US Saved"

Brilliant!

Victor Davis Hanson on the Mideast

Hey, More Che!

"(T)he physical sexual abuse of students in schools..."

The Tolerant Left

Mounting Evidence of Rebel Atrocities in Libya

UN human rights body plans urgent meeting on Mideast unrest

Bully for Haters

Australian Tim Blair explains...

Greg Gutfeld predicts attacks on David Mamet

As you sow, so shall you reap...

Global warming must be true, Charles Manson believes in it.

Speaking of wood-burning El Caminos...

Syria Protest Update - How to motivate one's military to follow orders

Meanwhile in Japan...

Did you know India has arrested over 120 Somali pirates?

A little Palm Sunday commie-bashing:

Gotta love it...

Apology to Harold French

If you think the Tea Party is rude...

Did you know that India has an anti-missile shield?

Abortion: It's not just for women anymore!

Jews News - The Shanghai Ghetto

So, how can one tell if a senior North Korean official has actually been put against a wall and shot?

Americanus ex machina

The Stipulated Scotsman

Unclaimed bodies get ‘beggar’ tags

CARPE DIEM: Why Wearing a Baseball Cap Backwards is Dumb

Steyn on Japan

Steyn on Hitchcock on Strangers on a Train

Five Myths About Why the South Seceded

Barack Obama's Burden

Hitchens on Gaddafi

India and Iran, oh my!

"Pakistan is an ally and India a market".