Bookworm Room

I read someone today who said that Jesus must have been a socialist, because he didn’t seek profit, which is the hallmark of capitalism.  Instead, gave away his time, energy and skills to those who could not pay.  Since he didn’t have a profit motive, he must have been a capitalist.  QED.  It was a [...]

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Tonight marks the first night of Passover, the ancient Jewish holiday celebrating the Jews’ release from bondage and, I think, their reaffirmed commitment to God. I wrote the following post last year for Passover, and republished it once more a few months ago.  It focuses on Iran, but I think you could easily substitute Syria, [...]

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Via Frontpagemagazine.com comes an optimistic post about European organizations springing up to defend Israel, starting with a British group called “Muslims for Israel”. Like fireflies twinkling in the gathering dusk, this is a cheerful sight. May their light guide us through the night and into the bright dawn of a new day.    

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A little less than a year ago, after the French enacted the burqa ban that just recently went into effect, I published a post entitled When is a burqa, not a burqa?  When it’s a weapon, in which I wrote the following: Because Islamic religious trappings are not about man’s relationship to God but, instead, [...]

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Is our democracy germinating the seeds of its own destruction? Alexis de Toqueville warned, “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.” That day has come. It is not yet gone. Democracy  in ancient Athens lasted about 250 years. We in the United [...]

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Mr. Bookworm, after watching a pro-gun control documentary yesterday, told me that the Tea Party’s entire secret subtext is racism and fascism.  I sent him this video.  I don’t know if he’ll watch it, but I did read this article about Flint, Michigan, which he claims shows how the 2nd Amendment crowd is destroying America’s [...]

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I made my first Power Point presentation today.  It’s not for a speech, though.  I hate that.  People type everything up on Power Point, and then they just stand in front of the room and read it right back at the audience.  I’m always thinking “I can do my own reading, thank you very much, [...]

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Watch the EPA guy wiggle and squirm as he tries to avoid acknowledging that the EPA, in promulgating its regulations (without any oversight from The People), the EPA couldn’t care less about the effect its regulations have on jobs: Hat tip:  Earl The Bookworm Turns : A Secret Conservative in Liberal Land, available in e-format [...]

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When it comes to jiu-jitsu, my dojo is a pure Brazilian jiu-jitsu school.  I’ve even attended a seminar given by one of the Gracies.  Brazilian jiujitsu is a thing of beauty, since it’s all about the physics of movement. The people who run my dojo — and truly, you could not find nicer people anywhere [...]

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I really did mean to post more today, but after a double workout at the dojo this morning (I was having too much fun to stop), followed by housekeeping, shopping, chauffeuring the kids, and cooking dinner, I just ran out of steam.  Right now, I’m not Superwoman, I’m “hanging on by a thread woman” — [...]

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There are a lot of University of California campuses:  UC Berkeley, UC Davis, UC San Francisco (medical school only), UCLA, UC Santa Cruz, UC Santa Barbara, UC Riverside, UC Irvine, etc. Oh, about those last two:  UC Irvine and UC Riverside have become the hotbeds of pro-Palestinian, anti-Jewish activism.  The campuses are in the news [...]

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I didn’t know it, but there’s an official name for the organization that goes to the airport in Bangor, Maine to say goodbye to the troops as they head out from American soil:  the Freeport Flag Ladies.  They’re now trying to raise money for a special 9/11 commemoration.  If you go to their web page [...]

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I’m not actually sure what to make of this.  Is it a smart way to prevent life-changing impulse surgeries or is it another socialist medicine throwaway for the cause of the day? Hat tip:  Sadie

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We just had the pre-Passover edition of the Watcher’s Council, and it was good.  These were all wise sons: Council Winners First place with 2 1/3 votes! The Noisy Room – Rumors of Beck’s Demise are Greatly Exaggerated Second place *t* with 1 2/3 votes – Joshuapundit – Cringing Into Dhimmitude Second place *t* with [...]

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My husband and I recently watched two movies about the military.  Or rather, I should say, he watched one and I watched the other.  The movies’ tones were instructive, especially because I later got corroboration for my sense that Hollywood’s post-Vietnam hostility to the military has real world consequences (that is, it’s not “just” entertainment, [...]

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Unlike our esteemed Commander in Chief, Iowahawk is actually intelligent:

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Britain, apparently, has solved the puzzle of criminal recidivism (H/T Melanie Phillips of the Spectator). I know that this story provides us with a most important clue as to the greater disease that afflicts Western Civilization. I really just don’t know what to do with this story, so I am passing it on to all [...]

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My computer is in the shop for the final phase of its recovery from the virus attack last week. I should have it back around mid-day. Until then, have fun with an open thread.

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If you’ve ever been to Disney, you know what comes next in that song:  “Let’s all sing like the birdies sing . . . TWEET, TWEET, TWEET, TWEET, TWEET.” Over at the Watcher’s website, the Watcher himself has been urging council members to tweet the posts there.  We’ve been good soldiers about that and it’s [...]

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Not one of Klavan’s best, but still good enough to share:

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San Francisco is definitely up in the top five when it comes to “most Progressively governed cities in America.”  No surprise, then, that the city’s finances are in a shambles.  What is a surprise is the fact that, faced with a looming budget collapse, the City has suddenly discovered capitalist incentives:  it’s offering the big [...]

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The big “conservatives are evil” exhibit of the moment is conservative protests over at Fox about a J. Crew advertisement in which a mom happily paints her five year old son’s toenails pink.  I think it’s worth adding here that the boy clearly hasn’t had a haircut in a while.  In other words, if the [...]

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I know I’ve mentioned here before that I have lousy vision.  Really lousy.  I started wearing contacts when I was 12, and they served me well for decades.  Then, I had babies and my eyes rebelled against the contact lenses available 14 or so years ago.  Still, I don’t give up. Because contacts lenses are [...]

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I have been reading and enjoying Leslie Carroll’s Royal Pains: A Rogues’ Gallery of Brats, Brutes, and Bad Seeds.  Focusing on Eastern and Western Europe from the 12th century onwards, it’s a brisk walk through royal excesses. Having read about half the book now, I think that “bad seeds” is the operative phrase in the [...]

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After neatly exposing Obama’s deeply flawed thinking when getting the US into Libya, VDH dissects the differences between Iraq and Libya.  Whether one supported the Iraq War or not, it’s obvious that Bush at least had a rationale that conceivably benefited American interests; Obama does not.

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