Bookworm Room

It’s vintage Mark Steyn, with Barney Frank diving into mosh pits, references to Cosmo magazine, and this gem-like writing: If you’re one of the dwindling band of Bay Staters who rely on the [Boston] Globe for your news, you would never have known that a Massachusetts pseudo-“election” had bizarrely morphed into a real one — [...]

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When the stimulus package passed, two of the smartest people I know told me it would result in hyper-inflation.  The price of oil has doubled and we see the effects at the pump, but, outside of that, there seems to be very little inflation at all.  So, where is the hyper-inflation my smart friends (and many others) predicted?  [...]

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The votes are in on last week’s Watcher’s Council submissions.  I was rather surprised that I won, and that Wolf Howling took second.  I thought Wolf Howling’s post was a tour de force, but I guess my post, which was completely off-topic from everyone else’s, had the virtue of standing out in a crowd.  As [...]

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I’d just like to remind you again that, if you are interested in what’s going on in Haiti — and the ways in which you can contribute to relief efforts — the Anchoress has a stellar (and tragic) series of posts on the subject.  Just toddle on over to her blog and check the whole [...]

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The last and best word on the subject is that Obama is going to Massachusetts to bring his prestige to bear on the upcoming Massachusetts Senatorial election.  You can hear Coakley confirm this, even as she makes the stunning statement — stunning considering that she’s hoping to represent Massachusetts in the United States Senate — [...]

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Saw another bumper sticker today.  “I Think, Therefore I Am Dangerous.”  Good thought, except that other bumber stickers on the same car read, “Obama” and “Jail Bush.”  The owner is not dangerous because he thinks, but because he thinks so unintelligently.

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I just heard the Beatles’ song Revolution, which I assume they wrote to express their frustration upon being tapped for political causes all the time.  (Just guessing there; I don’t really know.)  It occurred to me that Obama and his friends in D.C. might want to pay attention to the third verse, which indicates that [...]

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Just haven’t had a chance to blog this morning or even to process the day’s stories. Here’s an open thread for all of you, since I assume you are much more on the ball than I am.

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Drumline is a great movie.  Haven’t though about it in years, but saw a copy of it in the store today.  I highly recommend it.

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Last night, I went to hear Atul Gawande give a talk promoting his new book, The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right.  The book’s premise is a simple one:  In an increasingly complex world, even experts benefit from a routine checklist that requires them to focus on the essentials necessary to their task.  The [...]

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This no-fly failure didn’t make the headlines because it wasn’t a terrorist, but it is just as revealing of the failures in our system.  Instead, of bomber, this no-fly failure involved someone engaged in germ warfare.  A person with drug resistant TB decided that his desire to fly trumped the safety of several hundred people [...]

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I received the following email, which I pass on to you directly: Hello CLEC and friends, I am the leader of a group that is gathering signatures to get a petition on the November 2010 ballot in Novato [California].  We have over 50% of the signatures we need.  The group is called “Citizens for Legal [...]

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You might want to check out JJ’s comment on yesterday’s “Thought.”  It a rare glimpse at the working of network television from an insider (and thanks, JJ, for taking the time to share it).  Having said that, in my completely uninformed outsider way, I think there is a place in prime time at least for [...]

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I live in Marin County, one of the most affluent counties in America.  It is an extremely well-managed community (although budget cuts might have their effect here too).  Crime is low, streets are clean and well-maintained, and lovely flower beds and hanging pots brighten public walkways.  Our libraries are well-stocked and well-staffed, our town offices [...]

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One of my absolute, all-time favorite songs, by one of my favorite singers:

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I am distrustful of television, since it often creates a false reality.  When the Loma Prieta earthquake hit San Francisco in 1989, I was out of town.  The images shown on CNN made it look as if the whole city was in ruins.  I was terrified about what had happened to my family and friends.  [...]

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Obama’s nominee for heading the TSA, Earl Southers, is under a lot of fire, for being duplicitous, incompetent, antisemitic, anti-Christian, and ill-informed — in other words, soft on the real terrorism that faces America.  Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, writing at the Long War Journal, says that these accusations do not represent Southers’ true record, and that he [...]

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Yet another reason to vote for Scott Brown.

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A few days ago, I posted about the fact that, in England, it is illegal to defend yourself against an attack within your own home.  I shouldn’t have gotten so upset about the whole thing.  You see, it seems that I was operating from a ridiculous premise, which is that one actually has legal rights [...]

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You have to meet Dan Cnossen, who found himself in the middle of an IED four months ago.  I won’t say much more.  Just go and check it out (with specific attention, perhaps, to the climbing wall incident on December 9, 2009).  What a truly admirable human being, although I think it must help that [...]

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Heard the other day that Jay Leno’s prime time show is being mercifully laid to rest.  That’s hardly surprising, since it is hard to imagine a worse prime time show.  Letterman had better guests, better bits and, with the exception of Letterman himself, a better show in late night than Leno had in prime time.   The [...]

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You’ve already seen this video at a million internet sites, but I want it on mine too.  I think Scott Brown made a statement that transcends Massachusett’s politics and should remind each and every American that we are a government “by the People,” not by the politicians: As you’ve read, Scott Brown is raking in [...]

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I can think of a billion reasons to dislike Harry Reid.  The fact that he called Obama a “negro” is not one of them.  It simply shows his age.  (Although I do agree with Lloyd Marcus that it’s fine to be offended by Reid’s assumptions about white Americans.)  The problem, of course, is what we’re [...]

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The whole “No Drama Obama” theory, one that so enamored the media during the economic turmoil leading up to the election, is proving troublesome today.  It seems that what we  really have is “No Emotion Obama.”  Charles Krauthammer explains as well as anyone could: I think if you look back over the last two weeks, [...]

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Despite the fact that my tax dollars fund it, I pretty much ignore NPR, even when it pulls stupid stunts such as running an extremely crude little video cartoon that lambastes the Tea Party movement by promising to teach “How to Speak Teabag.“  Speaking “teabag,” of course, involves mouthing things that are either inane, or [...]

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