tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-108286612011-08-16T23:02:32.875-04:00Rants and observations on political, economic, social, religious and military situations that <em>seem</em> to be unsolvable. (In one of the Star Trek films, Captain Kirk beat the 'Kobayashi Maru' training scenario by <i>thinking laterally</i>: reprogramming a simulation designed to test character and see how people would handle no-win situations. Beyond that theme, this blog has <em>nothing</em> to do with Star Trek.)Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.comBlogger12611100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-15368996182215908112007-10-22T11:01:00.000-04:002007-10-22T11:03:52.820-04:00

Thanks to everyone for reading and sustaining this blog these past three years. It's time to move on. Go here to find out why and join me on the next stage of the journey.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-1853348714337300532007-10-11T16:42:00.000-04:002007-10-11T16:45:13.162-04:00

March 17, 624. Battle of Badr. Green lights. Empire State Building. Last night of Ramadan. Dhimmitude. If you don't know what these things are or how they're connected, you should.This coming weekend on October 12-14, for the first time ever the Empire State Building in New York City will be bathed with green lights, the color closely associated with Islam, so as to commemorate Eid ul-Fitr, the

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-27929427728359233852007-10-11T10:22:00.000-04:002007-10-11T10:22:01.483-04:00

...authorities [in British Columbia, Canada] have benefitted [sic] from a 2006 law allowing BC Hydro, the area's main power company, to share its residential power consumption records with local officials... scanning residents' utility bills to determine who is using a lot more power than the average homeowner... Armed with that information, local authorities cut the power off to the home of the

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-54906665039666378522007-10-10T09:34:00.000-04:002007-10-11T10:13:48.295-04:00

Short week. Busy day. Pardon the cryptic style--and apologies in advance for 72 hours of radio silence starting tomorrow night as I depart for an intensive faith-formation retreat. A few items:17.6 of professors in the social scientists consider themselves Marxists. Only academics doing a survey of other academics could possibly think that this is low (actually, the authors use the term "rare"!).

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-6179845445221710772007-10-09T11:46:00.000-04:002007-10-09T11:46:42.045-04:00

File this one under dispassionate and objective, hard-hitting news... or not:Don Schwartz, who describes himself as "a super-Deaniac progressive type," decided to back Hillary Clinton - whose centrist views, he concedes, do not necessarily match his own - for a simple reason. He wanted, finally, to be with a winner.Either that, or he knows--as is patently obvious--that she's not really a '

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-7836270809861600632007-10-05T11:35:00.000-04:002007-10-07T16:17:01.864-04:00

Just got back from picking up a few things at our local Whole Foods Market. (For those who don't know, it's an upscale organic-oriented grocery chain founded in Austin, TX). The main reason I go there is not for the opportunity to spend wads of cash to feel good about eating vegetables fertilized with cow poo and meat from animals who did yoga and got daily massages, but because our other local

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-9795103918861581922007-10-04T07:44:00.000-04:002007-10-04T08:05:37.342-04:00

Great piece by Frank Furedi over at Spiked on how, like a stinking sewage effluent pipe, global warming-as-religion is spilling over into, and fouling the clear waters of traditional religion.In recent years, some in the church have sought to gain the public’s ear through the greening of traditional doctrines, and Christ the Saviour is fast becoming Christ the environmental activist... Church

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-46068451444794597192007-10-03T08:56:00.000-04:002007-10-04T08:18:34.882-04:00

OK, call me paranoid, but I'm starting to put some pieces together and they're not looking good for the future of right-leaning media (or free speech generally) as we roll into the 2008 election season.Spring, 2007: Democrats in Congress make a trial run at re-instating the 'Fairness' Doctrine, testing the political waters, invigorating their base, priming the media, flushing out the opposition,

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-70941249628588513082007-10-03T07:59:00.000-04:002007-10-03T08:13:03.384-04:00

Check out the sobering and highly insightful 'must-read' op-ed by Michael Rubin in this morning's WSJ ('Russian Roulette'). Ever wonder why sanctions on Iran have been impossible to obtain and why some of us have therefore thought it foolish to waste time pursuing them at all?Russia and China have made billions as enablers to Iran's military ambitions. Less than a month after the 9/11 terror

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-44182903333413527972007-10-03T07:32:00.001-04:002007-10-03T07:36:17.669-04:00

D*mned if you do and d*mned if you don't. Those who despise this administration and its policies are finding opportunities for criticism in keeping prisoners there--and also in releasing them.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-76835500677282055942007-10-02T21:13:00.001-04:002007-10-03T07:38:37.083-04:00

Well, gosh, that's a surprise. Democrats vote to condemn Rush.[Rush] said the attacks aren't really about him personally. "It's about them and they are desperately trying to salvage themselves with their own lunatic fringe base who they are not only disappointing but they are deceiving because the dirty, little secret, as I also predicted, was that if the Democrats win the White House in '08 they

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-49940061640737793122007-10-02T14:48:00.000-04:002007-10-02T15:07:12.881-04:00

Those who haven't been following the France2 story should. Boston blogger and professor Richard Landes at Augean Stables has one of the best summaries, drawing heavily on Natan Sharansky's recent WSJ op-ed. My own short-take on that:France 2 Television broadcast film footage seven years ago purporting to show a Palestinian man and his son cowering under heavy IDF fire, ending with the boy's

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-7404282477240125392007-10-02T14:26:00.000-04:002007-10-02T15:09:56.047-04:00

Yesterday I ranted about how Democrats were behaving badly, making clear that they've been bought and sold by the deep-pocketed ultra-left wing of their party. One symptom of that (or perhaps an attraction to their backers?) is the telling of baldfaced lies that 20-million people can instantly refute and not caring a whit because those people ('ditto-heads') are not their people. It's the very

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-19750370231988945932007-10-01T22:31:00.000-04:002007-10-01T23:03:57.382-04:00

Caroline Glick picks up the trail over at RealClearPolitics and it's a good deal more difficult to deal with than the bad-enough stuff that received saturation coverage (H/T: ShrinkWrapped)During his visit to New York this week, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad attacked every basic assumption upon which Western civilization is predicated... while the Western media sought hidden meanings and

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-80334937263493232612007-10-01T21:56:00.000-04:002007-10-01T22:16:50.405-04:00

"Is There Sex in Heaven"? Yes. But probably not in the way you're accustomed to thinking of it. (H/T: Evangelical Outpost)Did it ever occur to you that... human sexuality is derived from cosmic sexuality rather than vice versa, that we are a local application of a universal principle? ...The God of the Bible is not a monistic pudding in which differences are reduced to lumps, or a light that

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-60860432709082257002007-10-01T16:27:00.000-04:002007-10-01T21:24:03.823-04:00

Harry Truman, Franklin Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, JFK...Whether one agreed with their policies or not, what does one think of upon hearing those names? What do they have in common?Well, for one thing, they were serious men dealing seriously with serious issues during times of serious crisis and war. They weren't plagued by the kind of post-modernist cynicism, self-doubt, petty back-biting, vague

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-82399457019428831492007-09-30T23:00:00.000-04:002007-10-01T06:52:10.425-04:00

Some days you just can't make this stuff up. Here's Tom Friedman waving his magic wand like Glinda the Good Witch of the North in the Sunday NYTimes, declaring with a dazed, hallucinogenic grin that "9-11 is Over". (That's the actual title of the editorial, reminding me, thematically at least, of this). You stupid little munchkins hiding in fear from the Wicked George Bush can all come out now:

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-30991387401661316702007-09-29T10:03:00.000-04:002007-09-29T10:07:03.307-04:00

As noted before, I've been increasingly impressed with U.S. News and World Report economics writer James Pethokoukis. In this post/column, he completely fisks the Democratic debate that took place in Hanover, NH earlier this week. If this were all he had to do, I would nominate his as the easiest job in America.If you've a hankering for higher government spending and higher taxes—and I know

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-45532361142276756712007-09-28T10:39:00.000-04:002007-09-28T12:03:46.868-04:00

Not to be hyperbolic about it, but two articles this morning, on first reading, left me semi-despondent over the nature of truth, factual dialogue and the world's sense of priorities. (I'm a little more sanguine after analyzing them in more detail, as you'll see by the end.)The first is featured by Drudge, linking to the FT. The piece includes this quote from Condi Rice, and appears to mark a

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-60039038294330757812007-09-27T09:02:00.000-04:002007-09-27T09:01:32.887-04:00

Boston Globe sub-headline last Sunday: "The advantages of amnesia... What society needs now are new ways to forget."Tremendously 'deep' and filled with quotes from prominent academics and thinkers (e.g., Borges) tilting Luddite-like at new technologies like Google, iPod and the Internet in general.Only one problem: the left has already done a bang-up job, starting in the 1960s of forgetting and

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-81485205123614977422007-09-27T08:37:00.000-04:002007-09-27T08:36:20.801-04:00

I don't know whether to laugh with derision that it took them so long to figure out what has been patently obvious to some of us for six years, or to cry with relief that they finally did so, but some in the academy are finally beginning to discover that (swallow your coffee and hold onto your seat, folks 'cause this is big--really big--news): Islamic terrorists such as Al Q'aeda want to kill,

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-30760790229284373472007-09-26T08:41:00.000-04:002007-09-26T08:43:27.347-04:00

Michael B. Oren and Mark Gerson wrote an op-ed in last Friday's WSJ that I missed at the time but am glad to have found in 're-runs'.Jonah's quandary is routinely encountered by national leaders, especially during crises. Winston Churchill, for example, prophetically warned of the Nazi threat in the 1930s, but if he had convinced his countrymen to strike Germany pre-emptively, would he have been

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-16785502783165293982007-09-25T22:14:00.000-04:002007-09-25T22:14:09.727-04:00

Must read op ed by John Bolton in today's WSJ.A dramatic and apparently successful night-time Israeli air attack on Syria, whose details remain extraordinarily closely held, has increased the stakes. North Korea immediately condemned the raid, an action that raises this question: What is it about a raid in Syria that got Kim Jong Il's attention?Israel's specific target is less important than the

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-69065684433208163072007-09-23T18:16:00.000-04:002007-09-23T18:15:36.638-04:00

On July 9, 1971, the [Washington] Post published a story headlined "U.S. Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming." It told of a prediction by NASA and Columbia University scientist S.I. Rasool. The culprit: man's use of fossil fuels.The Post reported that Rasool, writing in Science, argued that in "the next 50 years" [i.e., by 2021] fine dust that humans discharge into the atmosphere by burning fossil

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-80607328191960732042007-09-23T15:42:00.000-04:002007-09-23T15:41:36.221-04:00

Israeli intelligence finds NoKo nuke material in Syria*, quietly solicits and obtains the support of its primary ally for removing it (without a media leak), and launches a daring and successful raid to do so. The best part: we find out about it only two weeks after the fact. If there were casualties, they were minimal. This is how things are supposed to work.*If the NoKo/Syria/Iran nuke axis of

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-13040778597431989942007-09-21T08:22:00.000-04:002007-09-21T08:21:32.588-04:00

I don't usually opine on arcane details of bills in Congress. Others do it much better. One of those is Hugh Hewitt. In this post, he lays out the details of Section 1070 of the Senate Defense Appropriations bill, a bit that got its own vote late Wednesday night. Here's the meat of it:It is the sense of the Senate–(1) to reaffirm its support for all the men and women of the United States Armed

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-54439940568436266272007-09-19T21:56:00.000-04:002007-09-19T21:55:11.534-04:00

This allegory has a somewhat apocryphal ring to... and it's a little harsh to imagine even as fiction... but then the larger reality it describes isn't a whole lot more pleasant. H/T: Foxfier"OK, now I want you to pretend that our house and our yard is the United States of America, and you are President Bush."Our son giggled and said, "OK."..."[The bad man] walks across the street to the old lady

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-41666405447040933742007-09-19T17:23:00.001-04:002007-09-19T17:26:37.682-04:00

Definition of Chutzpah: Dan Rather sues CBS for $70M for making him a 'scapegoat' while still maintaining that the story CBS ran prior to the 2004 election about President Bush's National Guard service is true. Mountains and mountains of concrete evidence showed that it was not.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-42864261961628448422007-09-19T15:13:00.000-04:002007-09-19T15:19:53.697-04:00

What those advocating half-measures, pass-the-buckism, vague notions of 'containment' or 'deterrence', outright appeasement, and/or spinelessly indefinite patience on Iran miss is... what our enemies actually say... and do. (Other than that, they're as tame as Captain Kangaroo and Mister Rogers--riight). Here's Iranian government spokesman, Gholam-Hossein Elham at a rally today in Iran:"The U.S.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-82186625988943118982007-09-19T08:44:00.000-04:002007-09-19T12:02:55.616-04:00

Check out this inadvertently hilarious piece on page one of yesterday's WSJ illustrating how an absolutist (as opposed to a trade-off-acknowledging) world view on the left end of the political spectrum leads to infighting and hypocritical contradictions galore.Susan Taylor... strung a clothesline to a tree in her backyard, pinned up some freshly washed flannel sheets -- and, with that, became a

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-74141780906004655372007-09-19T08:15:00.000-04:002007-09-19T08:15:19.472-04:00

Naaahhh, nothing at all...Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a Jane's Magazine report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria... the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a scud missile when the

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-6319375012931388272007-09-18T08:30:00.000-04:002007-09-18T08:37:42.112-04:00

The phenomenon is as old as war and politics. The American Civil War was famous for it; Lincoln (rightly) sacked generals over it. Once they're retired and have the mike however, there's not much that can be done in a free society except to fisk their arguments.Thus it's merely disappointing, not surprising, that General John Abizaid, "recently retired commander of U.S. forces in the Middle East"

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-32739184533984965532007-09-17T15:33:00.000-04:002007-09-17T15:32:10.456-04:00

Telegraph headline: "Bush setting America up for war with Iran"Senior American intelligence and defence officials believe that President George W Bush and his inner circle are taking steps to place America on the path to war with Iran... Pentagon planners have developed a list of up to 2,000 bombing targets in Iran...The headline reads like a bad editorial. ("Set up" may mean something different

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-38754292654454262592007-09-17T15:20:00.000-04:002007-09-17T15:19:59.009-04:00

Suddenly vying for top three on my lifetime list of least expected phone calls is the one my wife and I received yesterday from our daughter off at college (her freshman year):"Mom, Dad, I went skydiving this afternoon." I suppose there are many less positive ways of ramming home the point that she's an adult now and will make her own decisions... but this one is right up there.It was a strange

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-2592431220356158332007-09-16T13:39:00.000-04:002007-09-16T13:44:28.792-04:00

Longtime readers already know that warmer temperatures lower morbidity and mortality far more than higher temperatures raise them, inverting any moral case that might be made against anthropogenic global warming... if it existed to any significant degree, which it doesn't. John Tierney notes the same thing in his NYT column last week, which I cited here.About seven times more deaths in Europe are

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-23984011081255850662007-09-13T08:23:00.000-04:002007-09-13T08:22:03.469-04:00

One of three things is going to eventually happen to John Tierney--the lone conservative(ish) columnist at the New York Times: 1) He will save the paper from the left-wing echo-chamber into which it has consigned itself, 2) They will find a way to fire him, or 3) (and most likely in my view), they will keep him around like a pet just to be able to say they are balanced--as if a see-saw with

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-24807415750142010822007-09-12T10:00:00.000-04:002007-09-12T10:00:58.792-04:00

It would be nice to think that this could be resolved with a virtual staring contest the way JFK did it in October, 1962.Israeli surveillance shows possible Syrian nuclear installation stocked by North Korea... target of alleged raid last week was Syrian missile base financed by IranUnfortunately, one key element is missing: rational or even life-seeking thinking on the part of our opponent (in

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-22882011743795537432007-09-12T09:49:00.000-04:002007-09-12T10:01:48.779-04:00

"...the Klingons don't take prisoners... a no-win situation is a possibility every commander may face... How we deal with death is at least as important as how we deal with life, wouldn't you say?"This and other items eerily applicable to today's struggle with the jihadists on this Star Trek clip over at YouTube: the Kobayashi Maru training scenario.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-15064710545643536482007-09-11T21:33:00.000-04:002007-09-11T21:48:15.607-04:00

Interesting headline: "Surge a failure, Democrats tell general"... during his testimony to them.If only you'd stop telling us about your successes and run away with no strategy like you're supposed to, it would become what we say it is!Did I miss something or aren't the Petraeus hearings (and all hearings for that matter) supposed to be about asking questions, learning and deliberating on new

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-77772849361469297392007-09-11T14:47:00.000-04:002007-09-11T14:50:44.385-04:00

This one pretty much speaks for itself: the thin end of a wedge of ends justifying means. Not as far off from this as it might at first appear.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-6097310303963236822007-09-11T14:38:00.000-04:002007-09-11T14:40:14.812-04:00

U.S. News and World Report economics writer James Pethokoukis, whose e-mail list I somehow managed to get signed-up for a few months ago, without having done anything in particular, has been on a roll lately--in a good way. His piece today is important to consider in light of the old and tired class-warfare and Bush-bashing rhetoric Democrats are already starting to trot out in preparation for

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-65555616444874692472007-09-11T12:49:00.000-04:002007-09-11T12:50:17.702-04:00

Dennis Prager--rapidly becoming my favorite radio host--frequently makes a generalization that's nonetheless illuminating.Prager observes that while those on the right think leftists are naive and misguided in how they attempt to apply their convictions, most of their underlying motives and intentions are good. By contrast, the left tends to think that conservatives' convictions stem directly

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-86136628226426037212007-09-08T17:00:00.000-04:002007-09-16T13:39:33.764-04:00

Question: How do you know the New York Times is misleading you? Answer: Their printing presses are running.Two-thirds of the world’s polar bears will disappear by 2050, even under moderate projections for shrinking summer sea ice caused by greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, government scientists reported on Friday. The finding is part of a yearlong review of the effects of climate and ice

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-58450332179536367242007-09-07T20:01:00.000-04:002007-09-07T20:04:20.284-04:00

GK Chesterton would be proud of this articulately brilliant take-down of Dawkins that uses no more force than is absolutely necessary for the task. Short and sweet. Required reading.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-5403811670387755582007-09-06T10:17:00.000-04:002007-09-06T10:17:02.215-04:00

With this story, I note a new item on the blogroll: HappyNews.com.About 15 shoppers walked through the front doors of a closed Dollar Tree store [in Colorado] Monday after a lock on the doors malfunctioned... it appears nothing was stolen. Police were able to contact a manager, who fixed the lock and closed the store. [A police spokesman noted that] the incident showed that people can be 'honest

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-79792570371499290642007-09-05T12:46:00.000-04:002007-09-07T20:07:51.981-04:00

UPDATE (Friday night): By now everyone is aware that Hsu's denouement was a pale imitation of either the Bourne movies or any of the hypotheses I offered below.How pitiful, small, desperate and sad. A train. Colorado. A possible suicide attempt. Some stories end with a whimper that leaves one wondering what all the fuss was about and against one's previous impulses, pitying the former villain, if

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-12501326843214881732007-08-31T11:42:00.000-04:002007-08-31T11:40:43.637-04:00

For the record, the alleged perpetrators of these crimes should be investigated, prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent of the law, including summary execution if/as warranted. There is no excuse. That said, their actions should not be used to drive macro policy decisions that by virtually everyone's estimation would result in far far greater carnage.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-74022545296767875692007-08-31T11:10:00.000-04:002008-12-12T20:22:03.107-05:00

Don't even ask how I tripped over this one; but it got my attention in a great big hurry.First, some background.Last week, we dropped my daughter off at college. It's her freshman year. She is our oldest. It's a big deal for all of us and one we're only beginning to come to grips with.I'm over-the-moon happy for her. It's a small, high-calibre institution--her first choice. The place has managed

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-21794295302527171312007-08-31T07:33:00.000-04:002007-08-31T07:32:08.506-04:00

With all due respect to Ms. Rice, who's better than her recent predecessors, this piece in today's WSJ (free at OpinionJournal) illustrates why John Bolton should have the job instead.Kim [Jong-il] is once again besting the U.S. in accomplishing his two central strategic objectives: staying in power and preserving his nuclear-weapons program. The working groups currently underway do nothing to

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-1685650923735555562007-08-30T17:03:00.000-04:002007-08-30T17:03:31.999-04:00

Must-read article in the Times (of London). I've predicted a major military showdown with Iran for quite some time. This makes it clear that that eventuality has only become more likely.Clearly, Iran now believes it can profit from confrontation, which hardliners around President Ahmadinejad appear to be actively seeking. For the past six months, Washington has warned Iran to stop supplying

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-83505423175349347312007-08-30T16:02:00.000-04:002007-08-30T16:01:00.414-04:00

Fascinating article in the Times (of London that is) on the man who saved JFK in WWII:An elderly villager in the Solomon Islands, one of the poorest and most remote corners of the Pacific, has been honoured by the United States Navy for a crucial, but little remembered, contribution to world history — the day, 64 years ago, when he saved the life of the future American President, John F.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-23343057022042502132007-08-30T15:24:00.000-04:002007-08-30T15:24:04.186-04:00

This is rich:United Nations officials found vials of dangerous chemicals [phosgene gas], which had been removed from Iraq a decade ago, in a U.N. building in New York... The Iraqi weapons inspectors came across the material as they were closing their offices.So aside from the obvious (WMD were indeed in Iraq, at least as late as 1997 according to this brief mention) what kind of bloated

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-23033400349035777142007-08-30T12:42:00.000-04:002007-08-30T12:40:50.943-04:00

Mr. Bin Laden, please call your office... on a land-line.Mobile phones can take as little as ten minutes to trigger changes in the brain associated with cancer, scientists claimed [Wednes]day.Americans on average use more than four times as many wireless minutes per month as Europeans, according to... an American Consumer Institute study released last week...

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-4358858506840677102007-08-30T09:12:00.000-04:002007-08-30T09:16:09.569-04:00

In the latest New York Magazine, writer Phillip Weiss takes on the super-difficult challenge of plumbing the mystery of Matt Drudge. The piece ('Watching Matt Drudge') is neither entirely satisfying, entirely fair, nor entirely complete. Like Drudge himself however, it's juicy enough to read through--at which point one is rewarded with this marvelously conflicted series of quotes:[On his radio

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-59224042882667056232007-08-29T21:52:00.000-04:002007-08-29T21:51:19.129-04:00

Try for a moment to imagine the following mild, non-judgmental lede buried somewhere deep and obscure in the bowels of a thumbnail story in New York Times:Republican presidential candidate [whomever] will give to charity the $23,000 in donations he has received from a fundraiser who is wanted in California for failing to appear for sentencing on a 1991 grand theft charge.Now try to stop

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-11468164646587893182007-08-29T09:37:00.000-04:002007-08-29T13:17:59.598-04:00

I've given very little time to discussing NASA's recent Y2K-related revision of historical temperature data on the assumption that it's become well known via other sources. That may be a too-hasty conclusion on my part. Short version: some of the hottest years on record in the U.S. actually took place in the 1930's--well before the bulk of CO2 emissions--not the '90s or this decade as many claim.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-72198496230266487942007-08-28T15:00:00.000-04:002007-08-28T15:08:42.304-04:00

For the record, I don't own a gun and don't plan to. I've shot at targets before and gotten reasonably good at it, so it's not about being afraid of them. For myself, I just don't see the need.I live in a low crime area in a small city where 911 emergency response is reliable. Still, I'm glad--if only intellectually--to have the choice to own a gun if I want to. If I moved to the country (or to a

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-31488047390262379962007-08-28T09:42:00.000-04:002008-12-12T20:22:03.850-05:00

The two charts below speak volumes about what has been mostly an ungrounded philosophical jousting match about what kind of healthcare system provides the most advanced or broadest coverage or costs the least or is the fastest or most flexible or most 'just'. As in higher education, this kind of analysis stands out for its attempt to cut through a fog of discussion around inputs and processes and

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-78743547064871845822007-08-18T08:44:00.000-04:002008-12-12T20:22:04.259-05:00

I've argued previously for a long-term geo-historical approach to understanding climate change, its triggers, its manifestations and its impacts--as against the prospective, model-based approach that's been dominant in the debate so far.For illustration, it's worth looking at two snapshots I took off of WeatherUnderground this morning depicting different methods for forecasting the track that

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-39571390420185687862007-08-17T10:30:00.000-04:002007-08-17T10:38:02.645-04:00

Jose Padilla has been convicted. See if you can guess which lead sentence came from which newspaper. Scroll down for answers. Some may surprise you--as they did me. Choices (in alpha order): BBC, Guardian, Miami Herald, NY Daily News, NY Times, USA Today, LA Timesa) In a significant victory for the Bush administration, a federal jury found Jose Padilla guilty of terrorism conspiracy charges on

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-87520266521286784942007-08-14T09:11:00.000-04:002007-08-14T09:20:44.698-04:00

Blame it all on those late-model SUVs--8,000 years late, that is.Roseanne Roseannadanna, please call your office.Last week, NASA corrected an error in its data of temperature records, apparently caused by a Y2K bug. Global warming alarmists are now enduring a fault line in their argument, and anti-warmers have another arrow in their quill.The problem was discovered by Toronto-based Steve McIntyre

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-46804024296870326222007-08-13T08:39:00.002-04:002007-08-13T09:35:06.749-04:00

Instapundit Glenn Reynolds yesterday, on global warming:...the whole debate seems to me to be a religious sideshow. Regardless of what you think about global warming, there are lots of good reasons to avoid burning fossil fuels. But the global-warming discussion in the media is a consensus identity narrative designed to achieve political ends, not an effort to find facts or protect the

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-7794310894781886692007-08-11T18:29:00.000-04:002007-08-11T18:29:15.784-04:00

French President Nicolas Sarkozy's remarks on his arrival in Kennebunkport today:"When we see, on the edge of the Atlantic, all the cemeteries with white crosses, those are the young Americans who came to die for us. That is more important than Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Bush"I might just have to revisit my personal boycott of French products. Just please Mr. Sarkozy, don't go yelling in your native

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-18938910717315494652007-08-11T11:37:00.000-04:002007-08-11T16:34:54.018-04:00

Check out this great explanation, excerpted from Tod Lindberg's new book, The Political Teachings of Jesus, of the Christian Beatitudes (aka, Sermon on the Mount) as a brilliantly integrated (but radical) self-solving political system,From even the highest point in the Jesusian hierarchy of the “good person,” [in the Beatitudes] it is but a single step to the lowest, the poor in spirit. It’s the

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-69114644988986701742007-08-10T08:21:00.000-04:002007-08-10T08:22:56.221-04:00

Fascinating...Generation after generation, the rich had more surviving children than the poor... [creating] constant downward social mobility as the poor failed to reproduce themselves and the progeny of the rich took over their occupations. "The modern population of the English is largely descended from the economic upper classes of the Middle Ages," ...concluded [Dr. Gregory] Clark [of UC,

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-89734004407825702332007-08-09T15:07:00.000-04:002007-08-18T07:29:55.235-04:00

It's only a small step forward, but man, is this ever overdue (from David Wessel's 'Capital' column in today's W$J):The American medical and higher-education systems regularly boast, with some justification, that they are the best in the world. But in recent years they have been forced to confront tough questions: How do we know we're getting our money's worth? How do you know you're doing such a

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-34364762988587867802007-08-08T08:40:00.000-04:002007-08-08T08:42:20.262-04:00

Ever since the 2008 Olympics were awarded to Beijing, on July 13, 2001, I've felt vaguely ill whenever I think of it--hoping without reason that the unthinking conventional assumptions behind the award (e.g., that the games would make China more 'open' and 'free') were not as unreasonable as they have clearly turned out to be. Funny thing about turning off one's common sense: reality eventually

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-25929741930207581122007-08-07T15:31:00.000-04:002007-08-07T15:41:20.000-04:00

I'm writing this post to start a discussion. For those without cable, feel free to move on to more conventional fare. For those who've seen either of the first two episodes of "Saving Grace" on TNT (third one coming tonight), I'd welcome your views.The show--headlining Holly Hunter--seems to me a tremendously mixed bag. The two episodes I've watched so far on Tivo seem to showcase all of the most

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-21693368046483191102007-08-07T13:57:00.000-04:002007-08-07T13:58:59.539-04:00

Thomas Sowell, reflecting on a July 30th editorial by two scholars from the liberal Brookings Instition in the almost-goes-without-saying liberal New York Times, articulates what ought to be both common sense and common ground for when (not if) U.S. troops leave Iraq.(The latter option--'if'--has always been a fantastical strawman, specifically designed for the purpose of criticizing the

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-61142161567926973152007-08-07T09:31:00.000-04:002007-08-07T09:30:19.639-04:00

The books I would carry over thirty miles and a vertical mile on my back into the Wind River Mountains of Wyoming needed to be as small and rich as the samples one gets at the most exclusive city confectioneries. Harry Potter was definitely out, as was everything else on offer at the airport. My mini-bible (Psalms, Proverbs & NT--two by three inches and under three ounces) was definitely in for

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-37396571213480848742007-08-07T08:21:00.000-04:002007-08-07T08:28:58.084-04:00

Great firsthand piece in today's OpinionJournal by Romanian expat Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa, the highest-ranking intelligence official ever to have defected from the Soviet bloc:...many of Mr. Bush's domestic detractors... claim the president concocted the war on terror for personal gain. But as someone who escaped from communist Romania--with two death sentences on his head--in order to become a

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-17823011665301583732007-08-06T10:49:00.000-04:002008-12-12T20:22:05.476-05:00

Wyoming, that is. Here are a few pics from my recent trip. Yes, that's yours truly in the red bandana, fishing (successfully) for trout at 10,000 feet. (The new header is also from the trip.)

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-23897327735493715192007-08-05T08:59:00.000-04:002007-08-05T08:58:22.321-04:00

From the NYT political blog yesterday:Mr. Romney was interviewed on Thursday morning by Jan Mickelson, of WHO, who essentially challenged him on whether he was really a devout Mormon... Much of the exchange occurred when they are not on the air, but the radio show had a camera that was taping Mr. Romney, something he clearly did not know. In the video clip, Mr. Romney seems clearly irritated that

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-3328388494139270452007-08-03T15:31:00.000-04:002007-08-03T15:30:34.890-04:00

After a two week break from blogging (only nine days of which can be excused by physical absence, plus a fingernail-chewing computer crash), I thought it time to weigh in, starting with the well-known Mark Twain quote that titles this post. To my dismay, I discovered it is apocryphal. The original quote was penned in May, 1877: "...the report of my death was an exaggeration". Close... but twisted

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-78241210636657771712007-07-20T17:03:00.000-04:002007-07-20T17:02:26.737-04:00

It would be refreshing if Obama simply came out and explicitly repudiated the Kennedy inaugural as completely opposite to his own views. Something like this, perhaps:Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill (and none of them really wish us ill, now do they?), that we shall pay a little for awhile, as long as it suits us, bear any burden (as long as nobody in the military has to be

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-85307982614326449812007-07-20T15:34:00.000-04:002007-07-20T15:44:45.890-04:00

The journal Science carries an editorial today that invites close-in dissection. Under the telling headline "Playing Climate Change Poker", Colin Challen, a member of Parliament and chair of the All Party Parliamentary Climate Change Group begins:Targets can be troublesome things. If they're set for some distant future date, the target setter may not live long enough to see if they've been

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-8448222710488494402007-07-19T21:07:00.000-04:002007-07-19T21:10:56.536-04:00

From today's New York Times, some common sense about the seeds of depravity:Experts have often wondered what proportion of men who download explicit sexual images of children also molest them. A new government study of convicted Internet offenders suggests that the number may be startlingly high: 85 percent...I had to read it twice to be sure it said what I thought it was saying. This is not 85%

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-25680033324590976982007-07-19T19:27:00.000-04:002007-07-19T19:27:20.205-04:00

Sometimes you just can't make this stuff up. Wednesday I wrote:...these Democrats are effectively in league with the terrorists--and I don't say that lightly... Yet what is "giving aide and comfort to the enemy" (the definition of treason) if not assuring Al Qaeda operatives that they can just wait a few months and we won't bother them any more?Expanding on the point, today we learn today that:In

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-86488543977987668892007-07-19T07:54:00.000-04:002007-07-19T07:53:44.497-04:00

In a sane world, such a point-by-point contrast would not be necessary. Unfortunately, Congressman Keith Ellison (D, MN)--the first U.S. Congressman to be sworn in on the Koran--does not appear to live in such a world.Mr. Ellison, who could have been a voice for sanity and rationalism and plurality with his muslim constituents, is running like a lemming for the wacko-fantasy left-wing fringe.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-46660386302425625732007-07-18T16:59:00.000-04:002007-07-19T07:33:41.763-04:00

It has simply stopped making sense that Congressional Democrats would harness the future of their party and the country to wanting less of this.The U.S. command announced on Wednesday the arrest of an al-Qaida leader it said served as the link between the organization's command in Iraq and Osama bin Laden's inner circle...Thank you for apprehending the suspects. Yeah we know they're the guys that

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-20753938148614243312007-07-13T15:32:00.000-04:002007-07-14T07:18:34.385-04:00

I usually don't play these games, but the grass is green, the air is sweet and it's Friday, so what the heck? Joshuapundit (aka 'Freedom Fighter') tagged me last night. The rules as he cites them are:...list 8 facts or habits about [your]self that [others] might not otherwise know and then tag another 8 people and leave comments on their sites letting them know that they've been tagged, so they

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-90803559505682618432007-07-13T14:29:00.000-04:002007-07-13T14:29:01.106-04:00

If the president is expendable in the eyes of some on the left, then military personnel seem to be also--despite 'bring-em-home' rhetoric to the contrary. This time real bullets were used. Writes Michelle Malkin in National Review:An Air Force airman is fighting for his life in Camden, N.J. He was shot on Independence Day by a crazed gunman who reportedly had a beef with the military and the U.S.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-64506596218757243342007-07-13T14:18:00.000-04:002008-12-12T20:22:06.124-05:00

If I weren't such a lazy blogger, I would have missed this one. 'Orwellian' is the first word that comes to mind. Thank goodness for screen shots.Yesterday, Drudge noted a piece in the Dallas Morning News entitled "Nobel laureate calls for removal of Bush", in which 'removal' is meant the way Lee Harvey Oswald, John Wilkes Booth, Leon Czolgosz and Lynette 'Squeaky' Fromme meant it. Here's the

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-18400612940669657212007-07-12T10:55:00.000-04:002007-09-11T21:41:15.635-04:00

I spent most of yesterday painting ceilings. It was hot, muggy and unpleasant. The house still smells of paint. I've got a crick in my neck. One of the upsides to such a mind-neutral activity however, is catching up on podcasts, and one of Dennis Prager's segments from Monday is worth noting in reference to this Sunday New York Times editorial ('The Road Home'). Not surprisingly, it advocates

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-32887615544597833302007-07-10T10:25:00.000-04:002007-07-10T10:30:50.458-04:00

An interesting if insufficiently coherent or comprehensive thesis...Muslim suicide bombing has nothing to do with Islam or the Quran (except for two lines). It has a lot to do with sex, or, in this case, the absence of sex.What distinguishes Islam from other major religions is that it tolerates polygyny... creat[ing] shortages of available women... increas[ing] competitive pressure on men,

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-1552942474729164232007-07-10T09:17:00.000-04:002007-07-11T11:20:56.548-04:00

An overly broad definition of treason. Here's RFK, Jr. at one of the Live Earth concerts:"This [global warming skepticism] is treason. And we need to start treating them [skeptics] as traitors."Hmm... and here I was all this time thinking it was about science. Oh well. Me bad. If the definition of traitor has come to mean expressing contrary opinions about a matter of conjecture at the far

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-79998192821466666962007-07-09T11:58:00.000-04:002007-07-09T11:59:49.198-04:00

That's the assessment of George Bush by Tony Blair's former communications director, Alastair Campbell in the Daily Mail ("Tony Blair 'talked to God over Iraq'"). Which shouldn't be much of a surprise to anyone who hasn't drunk the Bushitler-is-an-Evil-Dunce Kool-Aid.In some circles, I suppose the revelation that Tony Blair sought God's help would sound like an indictment rather than the

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-7203621007621414612007-07-09T07:59:00.000-04:002007-07-09T10:13:28.909-04:00

Tim Blair has the pic from the exceedingly lonely Brisbane venue where...Nearby, dozens of people milled around a traveling Corvette Club roadshow [instead]Can't blame 'em. How else are we going to get around when aggressive bipedalism is also out of favor on the left? I love Hewitt's take on Gore's narcissistic megalomyopia:Gore's... misfortune has carried him... further and further into a

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-89919565119089273372007-07-07T09:08:00.000-04:002007-07-07T09:07:46.880-04:00

Turns out Jimmy Carter's public melt-down at a 10K race in Catoctin, Maryland in 1979 may, in the opinion of some, have been the exception that proves the 'rule' that those on the left should not sweat. (Alas, an extensive search has failed to turn up any copies of memorable photos of an "ashen-faced", "rubbery kneed" Carter that made it into several national magazines and became emblematic of

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-54869843806120868192007-07-06T09:03:00.000-04:002007-07-06T09:02:47.206-04:00

I usually wait to finish a book before I review it; this one is way too good to withhold. Michael B. Oren's January, 2007 non-fiction work, "Power, Faith and Fantasy: America in the Middle East, 1776 to the Present" is a massive historical tour de force.Only two chapters in, Oren's anecdotes are proving the adage that history repeats itself--so regularly and closely as to demonstrate that human

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-13283451759679188662007-07-05T12:29:00.000-04:002007-07-05T12:28:10.216-04:00

Here's what's been emerging the last few days in Britain:A group of 45 Muslim doctors threatened to use car bombs and rocket grenades in terrorist attacks in the United States during discussions on an extremist internet chat site... Investigators have found no link between the Tsouli chat room and the group of doctors and medics currently in custody over attempted car bomb attacks in London and

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-65907864889745064582007-07-03T09:34:00.000-04:002007-07-03T12:49:52.698-04:00

I've been trying to hold back: staying away from the keyboard and mouse lest I cover them with paint from a sleepless, chemically induced fugue of productive activity redecorating our kitchen from dawn to dusk. Now however, with the She Snake weighing in on the Scooter Libby pardon, I absolutely cannot keep silent. The phrase 'bald-faced cynical hypocrisy' doesn't even begin to cover this one. (

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-40535295052157845652007-07-02T09:42:00.000-04:002007-07-02T09:42:17.133-04:00

Check out this informative and entertaining tour de force post by Patrick O'Hannigan over at Paragraph Farmer on the origins, missteps and positive returns of so-called Christian Rock....the power ballad was pioneered by Boston's "More Than a Feeling" in 1976 and the virtuoso-piano-overtaken-by-everything-else that Styx wove into "Come Sail Away" a year later... when the power ballad crawled off

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-80998663441994999142007-07-02T05:59:00.000-04:002007-07-02T06:02:29.390-04:00

This morning my teeth are chattering, not from the meds but because it's 49 degrees as I write this. In July.I'll admit to the temptation, as I sit here in full sweat-suit and fleece, to jump on the Al Gore/Nancy Pelosi "can you zoom in tight on this melting glacier?" school of anecdotal climate analysis and claim that my blue typing fingers are a good reason to disbelieve the hoopla over global

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-84378871243008446902007-07-01T16:03:00.000-04:002007-07-01T16:02:31.423-04:00

Those not already convinced that I'm prone to choppy manic rants may change their mind these next few weeks as some posts start to channel Hunter S. Thompson. In addition to my Espresso Jones, I've been told to embark on a two-week course of prescription oral steroids (Prednisone).Background: a really nasty case of poison ivy contracted running in the woods two weeks ago conspired with my, um,

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-25438350991878206022007-06-28T12:23:00.000-04:002007-06-28T12:28:17.959-04:00

I was planning to write about the Orwellianly labeled 'Fairness Doctrine' today--and I will. But first a neat little set-piece with Rupert Murdoch that puts it all in context:Murdoch isn't a party-line guy. He's a pragmatist. He likes strong politicians and change agents and winners; in recent years he has supported moderates like Tony Blair and Hillary Clinton. Did the author of the exclusive

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-39842028489323116262007-06-27T16:53:00.000-04:002007-06-27T16:52:22.166-04:00

John Bolton: "The current approach of the Europeans and the Americans is not just doomed to failure, but dangerous... Dealing with [the Iranians] just gives them what they want, which is more time..."The She Snake Who Shall Not Be Named: "After initial talks with Iran and Syria on Iraq, the administration says it isn't sure that we need any more discussions with either of them. I think we should

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-76287009973709889022007-06-27T14:07:00.000-04:002007-06-27T15:17:53.881-04:00

Fellow Boston blogger Jill Fallon has penned a lovely and thoughtful three-part tribute to her late mother Ruth, with the emphasis in all the right places: her full life, her 'beautiful' death, her illness. Amazing Grace on the bagpipes... please, someone remember to do that for me when I go...UPDATE: Speaking of family crises and the need for prayer, The Anchoress has an urgent one.

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-68505864048430507412007-06-27T09:23:00.000-04:002007-06-27T09:22:53.209-04:00

Ross Douthat, an Associate Editor at The Atlantic (he blogs here) and something of a progressive skeptic himself has written the most devastating, articulate, pointed and fun-to-read take-downs I've seen ('Lord Have Mercy') of Christopher Hitchens' book "God is Not Great" over at the Claremont Review of Books.It might be argued that the brevity of the book and the amount of ground it covers

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-10828661.post-33823829794596272132007-06-26T22:02:00.000-04:002007-06-26T22:15:50.755-04:00

Don't miss this excellent reading of the tea leaves out the Middle East over at Kingdom of Chaos. Same old cast of bad actors: Iran, Syria and Russia (where have we heard that line-up before?) plus a host of terrorist groups operating and making mischief in and around Israel--ashamed and in deep, projected denial about why it is thriving while they are decidedly not. Bottom line:"the Tehran

Kobayashi Maruhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08523741397349274589noreply@blogger.com0