Penguin Press elevates Obama to an oratorical pedestal he is ill-suited to occupy
My friend Zhombre was at the bookstore perusing the shelves when he came across a Penguin Press book entitled "The Inaugural Address, 2009." That's well and good. I'm sure there are some in America who want to clutch this banal speech as tightly to their chest as Chinese citizens were forced to do with Mao's Little Red Book. The only...
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An old Jewish joke and Kennedy's Catholicism
The news lines are aflutter with the fact that the Vatican has kept mum about Kennedy's death. This is scarcely surprising given that Kennedy, although raised a Catholic, took (and sought to use his political power to impose on America) political positions that are anathema to the Church: Edward Kennedy, it can be said, was not cut out for the...
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Ignore Obama's eulogy. Mark Steyn gives Teddy the eulogy he deserves
Obama spouted a maudlin mess about Kennedy today. He didn't even bother to mention by allusion to Kennedy's "flaws" that little problem at Chappaquiddick: Today we say goodbye to the youngest child of Rose and Joseph Kennedy. The world will long remember their son Edward as the heir to a weighty legacy; a champion for those who had none; the...
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Why pay $10 for Julie & Julia just to suffer gratuitous insults?
Last night, I went with a friend to see Julie & Julia, a movie that abruptly lost me exactly halfway through. Although it's a movie that has all the trappings of a good chick-flick, with enough beautifully photographed food to appeal to male foodies too, it contains some calculated insults that should drive all conservatives away from the theater without...
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If it's a case of follow the money, we're all going to be Muslims soon
When I was living in England, all of my friends carried perpetual "overdrafts." If they wanted more money than their account had, they'd go to the bank and basically arrange an informal, short-term loan by which the bank allowed them to draw on money that wasn't really (or, as my friends saw it, wasn't yet) there. They weren't concerned about...
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Obama's personality limned almost 200 years ago in a Jane Austen novel
Although I can't track it down now, I vividly remember reading a New York Times story about Obama in which a colleague said that Obama had the knack, at meetings, of making everyone in the room think that he agreed with them, even if the meeting was divisive. That is, he mouthed banalities with such conviction that each person ascribed...
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"Let's not, but let's say that we did."
Rusty Shackleford is spitting bullets about the fact that the Taliban have kidnapped Pvt. Bowe Bergdahl and are parading him for propaganda purposes. Although it's easy to get all tangled up about international law and whether the Geneva Convention should extend to these people, Dr. Shackleford gets to the core point, which is the fact that America's enemies have an...
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The world gobbles up blood libels against Israel (with update)
Most of the world's media members, if asked, would undoubtedly identify themselves as sophisticates, who are too cynical and world-weary to take anything at face value. Their mental self-image almost certainly falls somewhere between wise-cracking Cary Grant (His Girl Friday) and idealistic Woodward and Bernstein. They care deeply, but they've seen it all. To which I would respond that it's...
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Sterilizing our way to Paradise
If you read Michelle Malkin, you already know about Zombie's post exposing the unrepentant eugenicist past of John Holdren, Obama's science czar. Writing in the early 1970s, when the trendy concern was the population explosion (promising every a brutish Malthusian future), Holdren eagerly espoused a world order with forced abortions; mandatory sterliziation of those deemed unfit; birth-control chemicals running freely...
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All violence is equal, but some violence is more equal than others
Movie review one: The movie is a viscerally exciting, adrenaline-soaked tour de force of suspense and surprise, full of explosions and hectic scenes of combat, but it blows a hole in the condescending assumption that such effects are just empty spectacle or mindless noise. [snip] Ms. Bigelow, practicing a kind of hyperbolic realism, distills the psychological essence and moral complications...
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An open letter to the people of Iran
People of Iran: Traditionally, the president of the United States has been the spokesperson for the people of the United States -- or, at least, for a majority of the people of the United States. For the first time in modern history, however, we have a president who appears incapable of giving voice to the American people. I therefore address...
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This is what a totalitarian state does to its own people
Please watch this only if you have a strong stomach and a true desire to see what life is like in a totalitarian regime. This is not about watching a snuff film (although it felt like it). This is a reminder to Americans about the government Barack Obama is currently backing. Obama may be a political pragmatist, but he's also...
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Am I missing something in this liberal ode to Iranian democracy?
Here's the article from an extremely Progressive San Francisco blog. Here's my distillation: 1. Liberals truly care about freedom, because they protested their hearts out over the illegal U.S. war in Iraq. 2. For all that screaming against the evil U.S. government, American liberals really weren't risking anything because, unlike the Iranian people, they don't need to fear their own...
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Liberal ickiness watch, Doonesbury style
I'm not quite sure if it's hypocrisy, or if it's just another disgusting example of liberal opportunism, hence the wishy-washy name of this post. Whatever it is, it sure left me feeling icky. Oh, you're wondering what the "it" I'm talking about is, right? I'm talking about the magical way in which liberals have suddenly changed their observances of Memorial...
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"Don't hate me because I'm beautiful"
If you're over thirty, you remember the shampoo commercials that had the tag line "Don't hate me because I'm beautiful." If you've forgotten, you can refresh your memory here. That slogan started repeating itself in my head with the attacks on Sarah Palin. I won't repeat here (or link to) the startling savagery of the hatred heaped upon her, but...
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I prefer clarity to agreement
Charles, at LGF, is concerned that the "extreme right white supremacist" (his phrase) BNP party in England is gaining political ground. If you check out the party's blog, though, racial purity a la the Nazis or the KKK is not part of the party's platform. As far as I can tell, it wants to close Britain's open borders, back off...
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Did blacks just call themselves stupid?
I'm sure I'm misreading something here. Help me out. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, husband and wife team Abigail Thernstrom and Stephan Thernstrom discuss a case coming up to the Supreme Court, Ricci v DeStefano. The issue is a simple one: The issue in Ricci was simply stated by Judge José Cabranes, dissenting from a cursory, unenlightening opinion by...
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Torture, real and imagined
Paul Begala wrote an article at HuffPo contending that, following WWII, Americans executed Japanese as war criminals for water-boarding. While I'm certainly willing to concede that water-based tortures numbered amongst the myriad tortures the Japanese used against POWs, it is absolutely ridiculous to believe that these Japanese soldiers were executed because of the water tortures. In the grand scheme of...
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Life imitates the Simpsons
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano: "I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur." The Pentagon: "This administration prefers to avoid using the term 'Long War' or 'Global War on Terror' [GWOT.]...
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Score: 
