Bookworm Room

Tweet There’s been a lot of finger pointing in the few days since Bhutto’s assassination. John Edwards blamed George Bush. Mike Huckabee went so far as to blame the entire United States, apologizing on our behalf. Robert Novak thinks the United States is also to blame for the fact that it neither provided security nor [...]

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Tweet I always enjoy Chris Muir’s cartoons, but some of them I enjoy even more than others — such as this one:

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Tweet The conservative side of the internet has been enjoying the fact that Americans have rather consistently been rejecting the anti-War films oozing out of Hollywood.  There’s a flip-side to this story, which is that Hollywood is slowly figuring out the wholesomeness sells: The family values era is dead – with Britney Spears and her [...]

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Tweet My apologies for not blogging the last couple of days.  Originally, we were supposed to be on the road, but weather intervened.  As I’ve repeatedly said to those who ask, I’m willing to drive to snow, but not through snow (which clearly shows my wussy West Coast roots).  Being home, of course, this turned [...]

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Tweet He died at 92, and he’d retired long ago, but I still feel a sense of loss that Michael Kidd, the brilliant choreographer, has died: Michael Kidd, the award-winning choreographer of exuberant dance numbers for Broadway shows like “Finian’s Rainbow” and “Guys and Dolls” and Hollywood musicals including “The Band Wagon” and “Seven Brides [...]

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Tweet In 1914, an obscure Archduke and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, a place that, to most Western Europeans and Americans, was the back of beyond. It should have been nothing more than a bloody moment in local history that quickly vanished into the backwash of time. It didn’t, of course. Instead, it set [...]

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Tweet I’ve traveled in America, Canada, England, Western Europe, Israel, Mexico and North Africa.  My experience about driving (and walking) in these countries, is as follows:  In America and Canada, roads are really exceptionally well-organized, with clear rules, and the drivers, for the most part, following those rules.  In England, roads are fairly well-organized, with [...]

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Tweet By now, I’m sure you’ve all heard that Canada’s Orwellian “Human Rights” Commission has accepted a complaint from some irate Muslims regarding Mark Steyn’s allegedly racist temerity when he quoted in a Canadian publication the Islamist supremacist words uttered by Norwegian imams. Steyn has a few words on the subject, the most compelling of [...]

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Tweet When my kids were little and we took them to the San Francisco Zoo my son would always need reassurance on the way home: “Are you sure the lions and tigers won’t follow us home?” “We’re sure. They can’t escape from the zoo. You saw the big moats around their cages, didn’t you?” “You’re [...]

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Tweet Today’s Wall Street Journal offers a history, not of Christ’s birth, but of the Christmas holiday.  I’m not sure any of it will be news to you, but it’s nevertheless interesting to see familiar bits of history packaged in one logical whole that explains the schizophrenia that characterizes Western celebrations of this holiday.

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Tweet My best wishes to all of you for a very Merry Christmas! And my favorite Christmas song, written by a Jew, sung by an Irish Catholic, and beloved around the world: Learn more about this very American Christmas song here.

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Tweet I’m going to try to keep blogging over the next few days, but it’s going to be spotty.  We’re leaving tonight for dinner with friends, and tomorrow I’m getting ready for a family dinner at my house.  Wednesday we’ll be on the road, and I probably won’t have computer access until sometime Thursday.  So, [...]

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Tweet Time is running away from me so quickly.  I think it’s the time of year.  With work projects, school deadlines, and holiday planning, I can’t seem to keep up with things but, instead, keep finding myself staggering along, always a little behind.  Which is why I’m only getting around today to posting the Watcher’s [...]

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Tweet Self-dealing, platinum parachutes, obscene profits — all these corporate acts inflame people, but I’ve now read a story that shows corporate executives sinking to a new low, engaging in an act that only the most depraved minds could imagine, let alone put into effect. Hold on to something tight because this story, out of [...]

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Tweet Bloody Mary — or Mary I, her more official title — was Henry VIII’s oldest daughter by his first wife, Catherine of Aragon. Raised by staunchly Catholic parents, she too was staunchly Catholic. By the time she was about 16, however, Henry VIII was troubled by Catherine’s inability to bear a son (because the [...]

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Tweet If you haven’t yet seen this Kimberly Strassel article, make the time to read it. Here’s a taste: Mr. Huckabee is starting to get a look-see by the press, though whether the nation will have time to absorb the findings before the primaries is just as unknown. The small amount that has been unearthed [...]

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Tweet Not only does Peggy Noonan, herself a very religious woman, get what was wrong with Huckabee’s Christmas ad, her description of the scene’s careful staging puts the lie to Mike’s assertion that the whole cross image was just a fortuitous accident (kind of like seeing Christ in a tortilla, I guess): I didn’t see [...]

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Tweet It’s a little early for Christmas, but I wrote the following for part of an American Thinker Christmas trilogy, and offer it to you here, as well: Last week, I attended the “Winter Concert” at my children’s public elementary school. It was a very good concert. The kids – all 75 of them – [...]

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Tweet I did a post yesterday in which I quoted from an interview with Michael Cappi regarding the fact that Islam, unlike Judaism or Christianity, is not a religion that concerns itself with broader moral issues that rise above mere tribal law. I’d actually made precisely the same point in an earlier post, here. In [...]

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Tweet Phibian sent me over to a fun ABC News/USA Today site where it asks you to answer multiple choice questions about your beliefs on some national and international issues, and then ranks your answers against candidate positions to pick your perfect candidate.  I came out precisely as you’d expect me to if you read [...]

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Tweet I just read this over at American Thinker’s blog and I agree.

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Tweet To me, news is just the facts, while editorials may have facts but also have spin and opinion.  Tell my what you think of the opening of this purported “news” story from AP: The demise of the bridge to nowhere notwithstanding, Sen. Ted Stevens and other Republicans remain the kings of pork-barrel spending, proving [...]

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Tweet The military apparently knows exactly what’s going to happen if the Dems take the White House and control Congress, and they’re already brainstorming solutions.

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Tweet Cinnamon Stillwell is an amazing person:  witty, charming, personable and wonderfully intelligent, with a strong analytical bent.  It is these last two characteristics that appear in the forefront of an extremely important article she wrote in, of all venues, the San Francisco Chronicle.  Beginning with CAIR’s pernicious attacks against the self-admittedly inflammatory Michael Savage, [...]

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Tweet No comment (’cause you can guess what I’m thinking): The Mexican government reported the results of recent studies on Tuesday showing that 68 percent of Mexicans who migrate or try to migrate to the United States do so without documents and 55 percent of them hire immigrant smugglers. The report, timed to coincide with [...]

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