Author: Bookworm

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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) […]

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 […]

One of the things I struggle to explain to my kids is that “the military,” in the abstract, is neither good nor bad. Nor does size matter. David and Goliath is an inspiring story, because we like to see the little guy win. However, David also had right on his side. As I’ve said time […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Seasickness. It’s an utterly vile condition, worse, I think, than any other type of motion sickness. When you’re seasick, your entire body is rebelling against you. Worse, there’s no escape. You’re trapped in the middle of an endless ocean, feeling about as bad as it’s possible for a human to feel. Add something to that […]

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 […]

Ted Bromund is worried that Obama, by going to both Buchenwald and Dresden in the same trip is about to do something symbolically awful. Buchenwald, of course, was one of the infamous Nazi labor camps located right in Germany itself. It was not a death camp, and was not used specifically to exterminate Jews, but […]

I have an idea to throw out for you guys to chew on. Laer, at Cheat-Seeking Missiles, in an email asked why Jindal’s speech, which looks great on paper, got such a bad reception. The reception was bad on both the Left and the Right, so its being dissed wasn’t just a matter of media […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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. […]

This morning, I asked a question about the sexual innuendo behind the word “teabagging” (since other bloggers have noticed a sneering, locker room quality to MSM reports on the Tea Parties). To date, there have been 94 comments on that post. The first few dealt with the question itself. Then, a liberal came to visit, […]

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 […]

In an earlier post, I directed your attention to the incredibly disturbing footage of Pakistani village authorities brutally whipping a teenage girl before a throng of men, because she violated Sharia norms by being seen in public with her father in law. The footage is disturbing on many levels, not the least of which is […]

While we were having lunch today, my dear friend Don Quixote asked “Do you think Barack Obama is evil?” I hedged. “That’s an interesting question. Why do you ask?” “I’m getting the feeling,” he answered, “that conservatives are starting to define Obama as being evil. At least, that’s the impression I get from the emails […]

Drudge’s latest headline is to the effect that Obama wishes to exert ever tighter controls over American businesses by having the government establish limits on salaries. (Now we know why he was whipping up AIG hysteria, don’t we?) Obama is busy creating the slippery socialist slope and, unless we put the brakes on, we’ll slide […]

My 9 year old son was looking at his book about fighter planes through history. That triggered this question and answer session: Son: Why were the Germans so bad? Me: Humans have always fought. It’s part of the human condition. They’ve also always killed their enemies, including destroying whole villages, or cities, or even countries, […]