Bookworm Room

Tweet How seriously can you take a presidential candidate who announces on a late night talk show?  There’s a lack of gravitas here that I find disturbing, both when I think about McCain and when I think about the whole American election process.

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Tweet Because the Left is so exquisitely attuned to pejorative words, a Florida Democrat wants to ban the State government’s use of the phrase “illegal alien,” preferring the oh so much more polite and non-judgmental “undocumented immigrant.” Please pass me the barf bag. This attempt to dress up illegal conduct in pretty words is making [...]

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Tweet We finally got around to watching something TV captured for us last week: a PBS program profiling the Marines. What was amazing about the show, considering the source, was how laudatory both Mr. Bookworm and I thought it was. It could not emphasize enough the rigors of training, the camaraderie, the bravery, the history [...]

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Tweet What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. –William Shakespeare Have you ever noticed that, while conservative publications refer to the “Left” and the “Right,” and to “Liberals” and “Conservatives,” liberal publications never do? They refer to the “Right,” but not the “Left,” and [...]

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Tweet When you’re dealing with people in an alternate universe, they’ll often try to convince you that the evidence of your own eyes is wrong and that black is actually white or vice versa. This is happening on the far Left side of the blogosphere where the new meme, apparently, is that LGF is anti-Semitic. [...]

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Tweet Two personal anecdotes and then I’ll get to my point. 1. When my first Little Bookworm was born, I went into a fairly deep funk. She was a lousy sleeper, and I’m generally not very good at handling change in my life. Between fatigue and my own personal inflexibility, all I could do — [...]

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Tweet My long-ago post about the Marin County NIMBYs who were upset that Habitat for Humanity was coming to their neck of the woods, sparked quite a debate. The very first comment, which I understand was tongue in cheek, struck me strongly, though. Because I agreed with the NIMBYs, who feel you can’t just go [...]

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Tweet My Jewish readers may enjoy this one, which I got from a friend: In keeping up with the Levy’s and the Zimmerman’s, It is with great stress, emotional and physical fatigue and incredible financial sacrifice beyond comprehension, that we invite you to join us as our wonderful son Jonathan Samuel is called to the [...]

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Tweet Light blogging continues as I re-immerse myself into the news world.  Last night, thanks to the miracle that is TiVo, we caught up on all the Jay Leno shows that we missed.  It was a weak week’s worth of shows, but I enjoyed a moment when Mitch Fatel, one of Leno’s funnier contributors, visited [...]

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Tweet I’m back — and have been so busy unpacking and tidying, that I haven’t even read the headlines.  I did, however, want to tell you that, if you find yourself near Goleta, California (north of Santa Barbara) in winter, you absolutely must visit the Coronado Butterfly Preserve.  Tens of thousands of monarch butterflies spend [...]

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Tweet Except in the rare circumstance when genocide is the goal, war is never an end in itself. It is always a means to the end of a better negotiating position. Someone in one of these threads mentioned the old saying that war is diplomacy by other means. With this in mind, consider Judyrose’s question, [...]

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Tweet I was told yesterday that I am a “warmonger.”  I opposed the invasion of Iraq.  But I’m a warmonger.  I believe that war should be used only as a last resort.  But I am a warmonger.  Why?  Well, because I refuse to denounce all war as evil.  Because I believe that when someone declares [...]

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Tweet Are you proud to be an American (or a German, or a Brazilian, or whatever nationality your are)? Why, or why not? I’ll share my answer with you tomorrow. I look forward to reading yours. My Answer: I am proud to be an American, but sad as well. I’m proud that America created the [...]

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Tweet Rather than start a new thread, I’m going to let the one from yesterday run another day.  The conversation is the most important one we could possibly have here, and it appears to just be gaining momentum.  I invite everyone reading this to read the comments to that post and add your own fresh [...]

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Tweet At your command, BigAl. In fact, my first post will feature you. A couple weeks ago I asked for everyone, but especially liberal readers of this blog for their positive ideas on what America should do now to counter the jihad that is being waged against us. After a false start, and to his [...]

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Tweet I’m off for a few days (ski week, although we’re not skiing) and I’ll be without computer access.  I’m therefore keeping my fingers crossed that DQ will have the time and the inclination to blog here.  I always love coming back to my blog after he’s taken over, because his posts are so thought-provoking, [...]

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Tweet As you know, I agree with Ann Coulter, who considers Obama a singularly uninspiring orator. She thinks he’s given a pass because he’s black. I think he’s given a pass because, in our inarticulate age, he’s able to string sentences together (something, sadly, that President Bush can’t do). Take, for example, Obama’s performance in [...]

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Tweet John Edwards is clearly attempting to attract the European vote. It was Europeans after all, who opined in large numbers that Israel is the most dangerous nation in the world. In a clear effort to attract Europeans to the polls in 2008, Peter Bart’s column reports on this gem: “Perhaps the greatest short-term threat [...]

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Tweet Swimsuit, circa 1900: Swimsuit, circa 2007: Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose. del.icio.us | digg it

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Tweet The West has developed a sophisticated capacity to destroy but, unlike any culture I can think of, it’s also developed a staggering ability to create, save and nurture: A premature baby that doctors say spent less time in the womb than any other surviving infant is to be released from a Florida hospital Tuesday. [...]

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Tweet One of the best ways to mask a bad argument is to conflate similar, yet entirely separate ideas, one of which is valid, one of which isn’t. Juggle these ideas around often enough and your reader will lose track of their separate identity and eventually give to both a status that can legitimately only [...]

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Tweet There’s much consternation in Denmark today after a jury found four men guilty under the country’s new anti-terrorism laws, and a reviewing panel of judges promptly overruled the verdict as to three of the men, based on insufficient evidence: The panel of judges hearing Denmark’s first trial involving suspects charged under new strict anti-terror [...]

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Tweet Sorry for the complete blackout today.  I meant to come up to my office, read the paper and other stuff and blog.  What happened instead was that the kids went to play with neighbors, so I sat down for a minute with a book.  The dog jumped on my lap and, as always happens [...]

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Tweet Many of us put a great deal of faith in conventional wisdom, because we assume that it’s a useful distillation of actual facts. If that’s your view, and you draw your conclusions based on CW, rather than on actual facts, you need a reality check and you can get one, absolutely free, here. By [...]

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