Bookworm Room

Have at it my friends.  I’m regrouping:  reading news, thinking, and (gasp!) doing actual legal work. I do have a few suggestions, though: I’ve always known it’s an irrational way for me to think, but I’ve never been able to shake the feeling that there’s something symbolic about the Muslim loathing for dogs.  Dogs are [...]

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Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose….

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Another week, and another opportunity to read the stellar collection of material at the Watcher’s Council.  As for that first one on the list, from Mere Rhetoric, I blogged about the Apache sales last May, when it was a mere rumor.  Now, Omri blogs that the rumor is probably true, and that Obama, too cowardly [...]

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Bill Whittle’s videos are wonderful.  This one praises and explains the Tea Party movement, and then says that the Republicans should shape their goals to match Tea Party goals, ensuring electoral victory, rather than allowing the Tea Party to become a full-fledged competitor, dividing conservative votes, and ensuring a conservative loss at the polls.  I [...]

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Rob Miller, who blogs at the stellar JoshuaPundit (and is a fellow member of the Watcher’s Council) had a mild heart attack on Monday, followed by surgery.  His wife reports that he’s doing well and, while that alone is a reason for thanks, it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t be sending him our thoughts and [...]

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Two days ago, I brought to your attention the fact that the San Francisco School Board — despite facing a $113 million dollar budget shortfall over the next two years, despite its admission that it will be cutting summer school and academic programs, and despite the fact that there has not been a sudden outbreak [...]

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Most if not all of us that follow and participate in the Bookworm Room agree that our country is in very serious trouble. Most of us would also agree that government is a cesspool of profligate waste. So, I would like to position us as solution providers. Can we put our heads together and, assuming [...]

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James Taranto makes an interesting suggestion:  In the coming months, Obama is going to try to make Republicans look good so that, in November, one-party rule ends and he can tack to the center, more or less guaranteeing himself a second term. What do you think?  Does Taranto make a good case for this strategy [...]

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GMail was kind enough to have its server scan my mail, note its political content, and suggest that I visit a “support Barbara Boxer” website urging me to help defeat “Tea Baggers.”  As you’ve noticed, that is now the only term by which the Democratic party refers to this grassroots collection of angry Independents and [...]

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This is Sousa’s own band, under his direction.  I find interesting how different his interpretation is from modern approaches, which tend to be brassier, crisper, faster, and a little more bombastic.  This is almost relaxed compared to modern interpretations, with a stronger reed presence and less brass and percussion: Just by way of comparison, here’s [...]

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I’d like to think that Climategate, this extraordinary winter, and myriad other evidence about the fraud that is Anthropogenic Global Warming will finally de-Gore-ize a scarred world.  In a logical place, change should come about given information distributed in posts such as this one, at American Thinker, attacking IPCC methodology and myriad climate frauds; or [...]

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I think I’m going to take a break from thinking for a while.  Thanks, Bookworm, for letting me share this blog with you and thanks to all who commented and made me feel like the thoughts were worth expressing.

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As part of a larger opinion piece giving thanks that America is still un-European enough to resist Obama’s European-izing efforts, Jonathan Rosenbloom has this to say about the modern European character: In A State Beyond the Pale: Europe’s Problem with Israel, Robin Shepherd analyzes the cast of mind that predisposes Europeans to hate Israel so [...]

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It doesn’t get better than this:

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I’m not sure it will matter in the polls in November, but the GOP is showing a certain charm and humor this February.  You can send GOP Valentine e-cards to your loved ones (or just good friends) this Valentine’s Day. I’m trying to decide between the Pelosi/Reid card (“We crafted this Valentine’s card behind closed [...]

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Bruce Kesler spoke with Tom Campbell directly about Israel, and the responses are more nuanced and less hostile than other reports indicate (see my earlier post, for example).  Please check it out.  The best voter is a fully informed voter.

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Rod Serling was certainly a creative genius, but who knew he was a clairvoyant, with the ability to predict the future?  Or, more specifically, who knew that, back in November 1961, he had the ability to predict the Winter of 2010, a record-breaking American winter playing out against the hysteria about Global Warming and imminent [...]

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As I gear up to submit one of my own posts and someone else’s post to the Watcher’s Council for its weekly vote, it behooves me to let you know the outcome of last week’s vote, one distinguished by stellar submissions, even by the Council’s already high standards: Winning Council Submissions First place with 2 [...]

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A friend emailed me with a question about an initiative poised for California’s November ballot, called the “Simple Majority” initiative.  I’ll let the Wall Street Journal explain: Two groups are pushing ballot initiatives they say would purge that chaos from Sacramento’s budget process. A bipartisan group, California Forward, is pushing a reform to let legislators [...]

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Just stuff I found interesting: As a word person, I was delighted with Jeannie DeAngelis’ American Thinker article explaining why George Bush’s vocabulary errors didn’t matter, and why Obama’s should. “Corpse-man” is just the gilding on the lily of Obama’s disconnection from the world of true communication and real values. Come election time, third parties [...]

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One of the bludgeons used to beat opponents of socialized medicine is the claim that everybody in Canada/England/Northern Europe/Etc., is soooo much happier with health care than we are.  A doctor friend of mine has been scouring the literature, and she’s discovered that this isn’t true.  Polls show that people in countries with socialized medicine [...]

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I’m afraid we in the Bookwormroom underestimate Obama.  We believe he is hopeless away from his teleprompters, but he did quite well in an unscripted (if ever-so-polite) exchange with the Republicans.   We think he can’t move to the middle, but he supported Bernanke, shifted his foreign policy away from the positions of his most extreme followers and [...]

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I’ve had four tabs open in my browser all day, and want to pass them along to you before they get lost. The first two are from England, and touch upon two issues I often raise here:  the reasonable accommodations a democracy has to make for minorities and the fact that Britain is becoming Germany, [...]

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[UPDATE:  The school board stopped mulling and decided to act.] Last week, I wrote a long, ruminative post questioning how far a democracy must go to protect its minorities.  Stepping in, right on cue, the San Francisco School District, which is facing a disastrous budget shortfall, is considering a huge expansion in a program aimed [...]

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I think it’s pretty clear that Audi meant to show that its car is so environmentally pure, it can withstand any scrutiny.  (Michelle Malkin shows just how committed to environmental “purity” Audi purports to be.)  However, its Superbowl commercial very effectively (and probably inadvertently) managed to show precisely what life will be like in a [...]

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