Archive for September, 2009
Bookworm on Sep 10 2009 | Filed under: Hollywood
Many, many years ago, I had the good fortune during the Aspen Music Festival to be present in someone’s living room when some of the guests, musicians all, decided to do some sight reading for their fellow attendees. I’m sure many of you have had similar experiences, although perhaps not quite the same caliber of [...]
Bookworm on Sep 09 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
The news has me down, so I’m trying to cheer myself up:
Bookworm on Sep 09 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Read Charlie Sheen’s imagined conversation with Barack Obama. Then read the comments. Then get really depressed. And they try to paint us as crazy for wanting to see the school transcripts proving Obama’s much-vaunted brilliance.
Bookworm on Sep 09 2009 | Filed under: Hollywood
Back in 2006, I wrote an optimistic article for American Thinker in which I saw some hope in Hollywood’s approach to manliness. I’m going to quote here at some length from my earlier article, because I want to make the point that I was lauding an enormously successful movie because it celebrated traditional male virtues: [...]
Bookworm on Sep 09 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
No deep thoughts today (at least, not yet), so I’ll just piggy-back on the deep thoughts of others: It says something about the pent-up demand for intelligent conservative thought in today’s America that conservative books cling tenaciously to the top of the best seller lists, despite the MSM’s equally resolute cold-shoulder to the books’ authors. [...]
Bookworm on Sep 09 2009 | Filed under: Crime and punishment
Saw this snippet at BNO News. It’s the perfect 21st Century crime: Nine young women have been rescued after being held and abused in a Turkish villa for 2 months in what they thought was a Big Brother show.
Bookworm on Sep 08 2009 | Filed under: Democrats, Military
Here I sit with no computer access and a phone delivered just two days ago — and a job to do, but no resources with which to complete it. Why am I in this predicament? Before last week, I was productively working for the Navy trying to integrate kinetic (shooter, missiles, things that go boom) [...]
Bookworm on Sep 08 2009 | Filed under: Barack Obama
My daughter, who attends middle school, told me that she understood the the take-away message from Obama’s speech to be “The future is your responsibility,” a thought she found unpleasantly burdensome. Generally, she thought the speech was long and boring. As for the “tomorrow belongs to you” aspect of Obama’s little talk, my mind irresistibly [...]
Bookworm on Sep 08 2009 | Filed under: Barack Obama
There’s an absolute gem in Jake Tapper’s question-and-answer session with Press Sec’y Gibbs. Before you read it, think of Einstein’s definition of insanity as “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” Okay. You got that? Here goes: TAPPER: Well, OK. One other question, then. You talked about all the things [...]
Bookworm on Sep 08 2009 | Filed under: Energy
Our travels this weekend took us over the Altamont Pass, home of one of America’s largest windmill farms. The children were amazed by the endless vista of spinning windmills, and my husband waxed rhapsodic about the clean energy. Being contrary, I mentioned that the windmills kill lots of birds. Indeed, I said, there was something [...]
Bookworm on Sep 08 2009 | Filed under: Health
Lest anyone, including Maine’s Olympia Snowe, get too excited about the newly proposed trigger option in the health care proposals: President Obama has decided that another oration will rejuvenate his health-care agenda—despite having given 27 speeches entirely on health care, and another 92 in which it figured prominently. We’ll see how tomorrow night’s Congressional appeal [...]
Bookworm on Sep 08 2009 | Filed under: Anti-Americanism, Barack Obama
From Jennifer Rubin: Far from assuming the role of an “honest broker” in the Middle East (that would be an improvement at this point), Obama is affirmatively choosing sides, making every effort to identify with and sweet-talk the “Muslim world” as he conceives it. But this is not only a pro-Muslim tilt or identification. It often [...]
Bookworm on Sep 07 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
In this scene from Monty Python and the Holy Grail, at about 1:00, you’ll see why it’s a good joke about the inevitable rationing under socialized medicine:
Bookworm on Sep 07 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
I’m down in the Central Valley right now. Went into a Foster’s Old Fashioned freeze (love their chocolate dipped vanilla cones) and saw, right on the counter, a packet of materials from the local Marine recruiter. Wouldn’t see that in Marin, that’s for sure.
Bookworm on Sep 07 2009 | Filed under: Barack Obama, Israel
The Obama administration, without making any demands on the Palestinians who haven’t abided by any parts of the Road Map, insisted that Israel freeze all settlement activity, including such little things as bathroom additions and new floors on houses. The Israeli administration just thumbed its nose at the US: Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak approved [...]
Bookworm on Sep 07 2009 | Filed under: Barack Obama, Education
Had we in the conservative world not made an uproar, I have no doubt but that the Obama speech, and the supporting teaching materials, would have encouraged children to come to the cult of Obama. Thanks to the uproar, the speech shows that the cult of Obama is pretty much comprised of one member — [...]
Bookworm on Sep 05 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
I’ll be incommunicado for the next couple of days. Hope you all enjoy a wonderful long weekend.
Bookworm on Sep 04 2009 | Filed under: Silly Stuff
Two videos to make you laugh:
Bookworm on Sep 04 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
My absolute favorite story of the day . . . or maybe the week, or even the year. (Be sure to watch the video.) And remember that, if you rely only on the cops to defend you, no matter how good they are and how well-intentioned, you will have abdicated your own ability to defend [...]
Bookworm on Sep 04 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
gpc31 left a comment that so perfectly amplifies the point I was making in my American Thinker article, it deserves to be elevated to post level: I’d like to sketch a few conjectures on why we, or at least our intelligentsia, bend over backwards to deny the reality of modern enemies: 1) I think that [...]
Bookworm on Sep 04 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Back in the 1950s, after WWII and as America grappled with Jim Crow, Oscar Hammerstein wrote about the way in which people have to be “carefully taught” to hate: You’ve got to be taught To hate and fear, You’ve got to be taught From year to year, It’s got to be drummed In your dear [...]
Bookworm on Sep 03 2009 | Filed under: Barack Obama
I posted yesterday about the usefulness of comparing Obama directly to Hitler (not useful at all), a comparison I believe is triggered by the vast distrust the American people are developing towards Obama as they realize they were duped. Tiresias left an eye-opening comment about Hitler’s skills versus Obama’s skills, and about the nature of [...]
Bookworm on Sep 03 2009 | Filed under: Uncategorized
Best post title I’ve seen in ages. I hope they catch that flesh-eating punk. And kudos to grandpa for going in swinging — even if he did leave a little of himself behind. Oh — and speaking of cannibalism and its intersection with health care politics, consider this, from England.
Bookworm on Sep 03 2009 | Filed under: Watcher of Weasels
I galloped through these. I roared through them. Altogether an excellent batch of submissions from the Watcher’s Council: Council Submissions Joshuapundit – Ted Kennedy Stumbles Offstage The Provocateur – Going Viral The Glittering Eye – Healthcare As a Right, Again Rhymes With Right – Arlington National Cemetery Desecrated By Burial Of Traitor Soccer Dad – [...]
Bookworm on Sep 03 2009 | Filed under: Watcher of Weasels
As I’m about to embark upon a new round of reading and voting as a member of the Watcher’s Council, let me bring you up to date on last week’s winners. As always, I urge you to check out the Watcher of Weasels site, because the Watcher has an eye for interesting news about politics [...]