Bookworm Room

Checking in with Twitter, I just learned that actor, Neocon and journalist Ron Silver is dead. That’s a great loss. My deepest sympathy to his family and friends.

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Thanks to Mike Devx, who found it at Right Wing Video:

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Sorry I didn’t blog today, but I had absolutely nothing to say.  Part of it is that I have a cold (my first this winter, so I’m not complaining), which means that my brains have temporarily been transformed into cotton wool.  And I think part of it is, as you all discussed in a thread [...]

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Richard Baehr is one of the most astute political commentators around.  So when he turns his gimlet eye on Obama’s performance, every word he writes is worth reading.

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One of my ongoing themes here is the fact that I keep my conservatism very, very low key.  Most situations in my life don’t involve politics, but when politics come up, I’m quite careful.  I have no wish to be savaged.  Jim Miller, who lives in and writes about an equally liberal environment — the [...]

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An Israeli man just didn’t get lucky.  First, he lost his foot when he stepped on a land mine.  Then, when he was within feet of being hauled into the rescue helicopter, he fell to the ground, and subsequently died. I have to admit to being a little less sorry about his death — and [...]

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I find it interesting that Obama is using his daughters’ spring break as an excuse to avoid the annual Gridiron Club dinner, making him the first President since Cleveland to miss the affair.  The break really is a weak excuse to avoid attendance.  After all, according to the same article, we learn that the family [...]

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This morning, Mr. Bookworm asked me “Who is Charles Freeman?”  Because he reads only the Times, he’d never heard of him before today.  I gave a brief summary of Freeman’s views re China, the Middle East and 9/11, as well as the fact that he lives in Saudi and Chinese pockets financially.  Mr. Bookworm listened [...]

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I would love to see the recession cut America’s top universities, which have become intellectually polluted institutions that have nothing to do with education.  Heather MacDonald — in a larger article about how Yale, even as it tightens its belt panders more deeply to the LGBT community — sums up perfectly the expensive grievance culture [...]

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We all know that the Obama administration, through statements by Rahm, Hillary and the Obamunist, views America’s economic woes as an opportunity to advance its agenda.  Never waste a good crisis, they say, and what better thing to do than to create the crisis that they then intended not to waste.  Jonah Goldberg, in one [...]

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I don’t know why I didn’t blog about the Charles Freeman story.  Certainly it had all the perfect elements for yet another point of concern about the Obama administration:  the Director of National Intelligence (!) selects Freeman, the Obama administration disclaims about knowledge of the selection, and Freeman turns out to be both a lunatic [...]

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It’s not just that a furious Muslim mob jeered at British soldiers returned home from Iraq and Afghanistan, although that’s bad enough.  What really got me about this story is the picture, about a third of the way down, of the Muslim women who joined in the protest. Again, remember, contary to the meme on [...]

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It took me long enough, didn’t it?  But you don’t need to wait any more.  I’ve finally got the results for last week’s vote at the Watcher’s Council.  As always, I had a hard time voting, since everything impressed me. Winning Council Submissions First place with 2 points! – The Colossus of Rhodey – How [...]

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Sean Hannity was righteously hammering away at the fact that the Dems’ (and Obama’s) tax plan, by dramatically raising taxes on society’s producers, de-incentivizes work.  Democratic callers professed themselves bewildered: “The people who work will still have more money after taxes than if they hadn’t worked.” Hannity agreed, but couldn’t get through to them that, [...]

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Work — it’s a good thing (even if it keeps me from blogging).  This is your open thread until I can get my hands back on my blog.

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As you know, one of my main reasons for supporting Proposition 8, which amended the California constitution to define marriage as a relationship between one man and one woman, was because I believe that move to redefine marriage has the potential to put the State and religion organizations — especially the Catholic church — into [...]

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Americans who are like my sister, and don’t actually read news, but just scan the headlines at the grocery store checkout, are getting an eyeful this month.  The side-by-side magazine covers were Vogue announcing “Michelle Obama : The First Lady the World’s Been Waiting For” (with the inside article revealing that she’s apparently a fashion [...]

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I spent more hours than I can count playing Barbie when I was a child.  For me, therefore, Barbie is a nostalgic figure of childhood fun.  For Jeff D. Eldridge, Democrat, she is a figure of consuming evil who must be destroyed.  It’s good to know the Democrats are in line with the Ayatollahs.

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Greyhawk is trying to put the pieces together in Iraq and Afghanistan when it comes to troop rotation.  Right now, on the information available, it looks as if their’s some sleight of hand going on with regarding to troop movements and the American public.  What do you think? In the mid-19th Century, Palmerston called the [...]

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We finally received from Netflix HBO’s six-part production on the life of John Adams.  It’s very good, although it tends to take itself a little bit too seriously, which reveals itself in the . . . very . . . slow . . . scenes . . . as . . . if . . [...]

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If a normal person messes up, he says, “I’m so upset.  I messed up.”  If a narcissist messes up, he says “I’m so angry.  You made me mess up.”   I leave it to you to figure out in which category Barack Obama falls (but there’s a hint in this Jennifer Rubin post).

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I’ve been a soccer Mom for the last six years.  Every fall, without fail, soccer has dominated our lives.  I think that era is finally over, though. Neither of my kids qualified for competitive teams this year, and both refuse to do rec.  He wants to concentrate on baseball and martial arts; she wants to [...]

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I’m a nincompoop when it comes to learning languages.  My pronunciation is flawless, but my inability to grasp foreign language grammar structures (despite being quite adept at my own), coupled with my lazy memory, mean that, despite have studied myriad languages, I’ve never mastered any. Daniel Tammet is a linquistic horse of a different color.  [...]

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The gal who started the Marin conservative gatherings that I’ve had the pleasure of attending sent out a broadcast email reminding all conservatives, especially those trapped in blue communities, that it’s not enough to sit at home, read the blogs and complain.  We have to work towards a change in 2010.  If we wait to [...]

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In one of his most brilliant columns, Mark Steyn uses the unequal gift exchange between Gordon Brown and Barack Obama to delve into Obama’s personality and his plans, and the cataclysmic effect both will have, not just on America, but on the world.  Here’s just a taste: I would make a modest prediction that in [...]

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