Bookworm Room

A couple of weeks ago, I ranted about the way bureaucracies are relentless in pursuit of some imaginary perfection.  My focus was health care, but I noted that bureaucracies will always keep going, trying to nail every detail down, so much so that life becomes impossible.  Britain perfectly proves my point about bureaucracies: Local government [...]

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I can’t say better than this:  This week’s submissions, both Council and non-Council, are spectacular: Council Submissions The Colossus of Rhodey – Black-white relations poorer now than year ago GrEaT sAtAn”S gIrLfRiEnD – Hail Columbia! Mere Rhetoric – Unbelievable – J Street Crops Daniel Levy’s Anti-Israel Quote, Then Blasts “Far Right-Wing Blogs” For “Misreporting” It [...]

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Excellent video, combining Depression era songs and images with Obama-era damage: Hat tip:  JoshuaPundit, via Watcher of Weasels

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Chris Christie for domestic management, and General Petraeus for overseas insights and national security.  But I still wish they both looked like Keanu Reeves.

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You recognize the famous words in my post caption.  Boston lawyer Joseph Welch spoke them to Joseph McCarthy during the Army hearings, marking the long-overdue end of McCarthy’s political ascendancy: As an amazed television audience looked on, Welch responded with the immortal lines that ultimately ended McCarthy’s career: “Until this moment, Senator, I think I [...]

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My blog has enriched my life in so many ways.  At the most obvious level, of course, it’s allowed me to engage in all the political discourse that would be inappropriate in my normal, suburban mom life.  Aside from the fact that I live in a liberal enclave, which makes political discussions very fraught, the [...]

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I’ve known for some time that the new movie “I Want Your Money” had the potential to be good.  I’m now happy to report that one early review (from a conservative, of course, since I doubt any so-called liberals will see it), says that it’s lived up to its potential. Sadly, because I live in [...]

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I keep hearing people yammering on about what a great disappointment Obama has been, which is in itself disappointing. I agree with pundits on the Left and the Right that Obama has stuck true to his values (even Karl Rove evinced admiration for Obama on this point). Fact is, he has, with the help of [...]

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Even green garbage is expensive.

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This is how it works if you’re a Democrat:  They’ve got your back, fighting against our nation’s mortal enemies (so you don’t have to), and you respond by stabbing them in their collective back, by denying them their constitutional right to have a say in our government.

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Some of you may have been aware of a very ugly situation that started when NewsRealBlog concluded that one of its contributors (not an employee, but a contributor), displayed a truly unhealthy sexual interest in young children.  Although the editors at NewsRealBlog are conservative, they also respect an individual’s right to privacy.  However, if an [...]

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Stole this one from The New Editor: I’m still giggling.

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Andrew McCarthy hits the nail on the head in these paragraphs: Obama sought the presidency as the candidate who would turn the clock back to the 1990s. He idealized the Clinton years, when terrorism was treated only as a crime, when preventing it was decidedly secondary to prosecuting it and the courthouse was the only [...]

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A couple of months ago (or so), we got word that Vasko Kohlmayer was terribly ill with a ruptured appendix, in Russia yet!  I’ve had several good friends unfortunate enough to have ruptured appendices, and they barely pulled through in American hospitals.  Vasko must have a constitution of iron because, not only did he recover, [...]

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The wonderful and fascinating story is that the miners in Chile are emerging from their underground prison.  The story of grace is . . . well, check out the Anchoress to find out.

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“Begin at the beginning,” the King said gravely, “and go on till you come to the end: then stop.” — Lewis Carroll I was struggling to figure out how to write my annual post about the Admiral’s Reception that closes out Fleet Week festivities, until it occurred to me that the answer, as is often [...]

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I’ll write more about this later, but I wanted to say that one of the delightful Chiefs we met last night was inspired to join the Navy because of Hollywood movies made when Hollywood still liked the military. That inspired me to go hunting in the archives and to find this song from a 1955 [...]

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I had a lovely time last night at the Fleet Week reception on the USS Makin Island, and will write about it at greater length later today.  Until then, though, I have some documents to assemble, and that gets priority even over the blog.  (Sigh.) Have fun with this Open Thread.  You know that all [...]

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I love Zombie’s most recent post, which does away with the stupid Left/Right dichotomy, which is a legacy of the Parliamentary seating during the time of the French Revolution.  Give the post a whirl, and I bet you’d be surprised at who shares your world views.

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Tonight is the Fleet Week reception on board the USS Makin Island — and I have laryngitis!  I’m in the pink otherwise, but a throat tickle that’s been dogging me for weeks has settled in my voice box and shut me down!  I can’t even squeak.  Hot water mixed with honey tastes good, but it’s [...]

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Re friendly fire and the risks about which we ought not to complain: What he says. Re the WaPo’s cowardly, dhimmi decision not to run a Wiley cartoon: What he says. Re the execrable Jimmy Carter and his non-stop reminiscences and hectoring:  What he says. Re the question “if you’ve lost Time Magazine, have you [...]

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Another week, another round of sterling Watcher’s Council submissions that received appropriate honors.  And speaking of appropriate honors, please check out the link for this week’s Watcher’s Council winners, since the Watcher has put up a lovely tribute to Medal of Honor winner Staff Sgt. Rob J. Miller.   The only thing I want to add [...]

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The election is between a conservative ditz who is being savaged by the mainstream media and a hardcore Leftist whose past is being ignored or sanitized by the drive-by media. This sounds like a replay of the 2008 election.  In fact, it’s what’s happening in Delaware right now. The analogy isn’t quite perfect.  You and [...]

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Mike Devx said something in a recent comment that really hit home. The dominant memes in a society or civilization are what controls the behavior of most of the people in that society. I think that this is true…we won’t really change our society unless we change attitudes. So, I would like to recommend a [...]

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I’ve probably mentioned here about a couple of thousand times the fact that I just love Fleet Week.  It’s the one weekend of the year when I get to step out of my suburban lawyer/mom rut, and do and see things that are entirely different from my ordinary life.  I’m too old and too set [...]

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