Bookworm Room

I agree with Jonathan Tobin, who notes the Pope’s missteps and tone-deafness while in Israel, but then goes on to add this important caveat: But to say that Benedict is not John Paul should not be an excuse for Israelis or Jews to spend this week bashing either the Vatican or the Pope. While there [...]

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You’ll laugh when you read this.

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Pastor Martin Niemoeller, after the war, penned the famous “first they came for the Jews,” with regard to the way non-Jewish demographics turned a blind eye to Nazi depredations, confident that the Nazis would stop after the Jews, and then after the Communists, and then after the gays.  But they never stopped. The interesting thing [...]

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The Marin IJ is running two polls today, one concerning employing illegal immigrants and the other asking whether “most Marin residents are environmental posers.”  As to the latter, with 375 votes cast, 82% of voters have answered that, yes, Marin residents are environmental posers.  I was vote number 375 in that regard. It’s a good [...]

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Domino fashion, state legislature after state legislature is rushing to pass bills authorizing gay marriage.  New York is about halfway there, although the New York Senate may be less easy for gay marriage proponents than was the Assembly.  If the bill becomes law, New York will joint Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, Vermont and Iowa as those [...]

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If I remember correctly, nobody on the Democratic side of the aisle complained when the CIA went gunning for the Bush administration.  That being the case, do you feel sorry for the Dems who are now crying foul about the CIA’s decision to defend against Bush administration attacks by turning the spotlight on Senate and [...]

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Obama may have forgotten that a fund manager isn’t some self-aggrandizing plutocrat, but the fund managers haven’t: During the aborted attempt to save Chrysler from bankruptcy, Obama oversaw billions of dollars loaned out to the struggling automaker — and then saw those “loans” forgiven and converted into outright gifts. Obama’s plan was thwarted  when some [...]

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There’s a certain inevitability to the fact that a President who continuously surrounds himself by Grecian columns, and who takes in stride the fact that his followers attibute to him God-like powers, would want to be closely associated with the Olympics.  You and I think sports.  He thinks of his true home, Mt. Olympus. But [...]

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Mona Charen has one of the better columns I’ve seen pithily summarizing the strong anti-Israel pressure emanating from the Obama administration.  It’s worth reading just to collect talking points for the next time you find yourself conversing with a liberal. If you ignore his wafflings in the first three paragraphs about a two state solution, [...]

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Richard Cohen, after an opening paragraph in which he basically begs Leftist bloggers not to attack him (“I hate Cheney more than you do”) goes on to do a pretty honest evaluation of the merits of Cheney’s claim that “enhanced interrogation techniques” save lives (and throws in a nice little attack on Pelosi’s embarrassing efforts [...]

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If you’re on facebook, you have the opportunity to guide $3 million into the pockets of Operation Gratitude, an organization that sends care packages to our troops year-round.  Target is hosting a contest on facebook, asking people to vote for the organization to which it should give its $3 mil.  All of them are worthy [...]

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Rick Richman gives one of the most succinct explanations I’ve ever seen for the fallacy behind the Leftist desire to assign victim status to the Palestinians.

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Right now, Church of England officials are upset that the BBC’s religious programming department (which is, apparently, a very important department) is going to be headed up by a practicing Muslim.  It is unclear whether he got the position as a result of political correctness or employment mandates, but there he is.  Of course, the [...]

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Do you remember that a few weeks ago I did a post about the atheist’s problem when trying to communicate to someone who has suffered a great tragedy or illness?  To save you the bother of clicking back and forth, here’s the gist:  I noted that in my Bookworm version of Facebook, which is conservative, [...]

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A mixed review from our household.  My review:  “By no means a perfect movie, but very enjoyable.”  My husband’s review:  “It sucked.”

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I’m trying to tell myself this is a joke, but I’m not sure it is.  Two thoughts:  ick and oy vey. UPDATE:  Okay.  I got it from the horse’s mouth:  It’s a joke, and a good one too.  As I told the Anchoress, nowadays, it’s hard to tell, both because photoshop is so good and [...]

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I don’t have deep thoughts, but others do (thank goodness).  Herewith some links: This letter of amends from a Berkeley liberal deserves wide, wide distribution.  Incidentally, I already knew about the political-social thuggery the letter describes from my years at Berkeley in the late 1970s. The place had a cliquish me-tooism that already disturbed me [...]

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From BNO News: Roxana Saberi has been freed after a court suspends her prison term.about 1 hour ago from web Roxana Saberi, sentenced to eight years in prison in Iran on charges of spying for the US, will be freed in less than two hours.about 3 hours ago from web Iran to free jailed US [...]

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My kids and I have been watching the 1935 movie Captain Blood, which was on TCM a few days ago.  It’s a wonderful swashbuckler of a movie, based on Rafael Sabatini’s book of the same name.  Captain Blood follows the adventures of an apolitical Irish doctor who falls afoul of the Bloody Assizes when he [...]

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One of the beauties of satellite radio is that I get to hear music that’s a bit off the beaten track.  That’s how I ended up hearing the theme music to The Third Man.  Anton Karas’ incredible zither music that haunts the entire film.  It’s amazing music, because it’s both cheerful and twisted.  It’s the [...]

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Your incredibly inspiring tearjerker for the day.  It gives one faith that our American troops will survive the worst the Obama administration has to offer. UPDATE: Larry Sheldon is right. The autoplay is beyond irritating. Since I couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it, I just deleted the video. You can see the [...]

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Jennifer Rubin pithily sums up the insanity of the government’s cheerful report on increasingly higher unemployment numbers: So to be clear: we’re headed for double digit unemployment, the very thing the stimulus bill was supposed to stave off. We didn’t keep unemployment anywhere near 8% as the administration predicted — but we did rack up a [...]

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If you can stomach the 1:18 minutes of your time, it’s worth watching, not just for what one black woman says, but for the glee with which the media and the president respond to her exceptionally vicious and ill-informed attack against Rush Limbaugh: Please note, too, Sykes’ belief that “a little waterboarding” is a good [...]

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A big bouquet for all you mothers out there.

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Okay, so it took me three as many words, and about two thirds less elan, but I think I said here, exactly the same thing Mark Steyn says here about Colin Powell (including the Woodward snipe and the mourning for those poor Kurds Powell betrayed): Is conservatism over? Well, of course it is. Everyone from [...]

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