Bookworm Room

The venerable Rev. Spooner in England was famed for transposing letters and whole syllables in words and phrases, as well as muddling up ideas.  Although many stories attributed to him are apocryphal, he himself admitted that he said “Kinkering Congs Their Titles Take.” My person favorite arose when he entirely reversed an idea.  Thus, when [...]

5 Comments »

What a conscienceless sleaze.

3 Comments »

It’s the start of another school year, and I’m filling out forms again.  This year, many of the forms are on-line, which is mostly a blessing.  The “curse” part, though, is that the forms do not allow for any flexibility in answering a question that invariably irritates me, which is the one that forces us [...]

43 Comments »

The SEALS who gave their lives in Afghanistan were all young (of course) and many had families.  If you’d like to help those families, you can contribute at the Navy SEAL Foundation. Hat tip:  Richard Baehr

2 Comments »

Too tired to expand on the above post caption, but if you read Zombie’s essay, you’ll know what I’m talking about. By the way, this is what wholesome used to look like in America:  

14 Comments »

What is it with the world?  I go away for one month, and everything goes to Hell in a hand basket?!  Can’t I leave the world alone for a second without having to worry about things? Apparent not. Let me state unequivocally, though, that I had nothing to do with the London riots, which started [...]

19 Comments »

It really does seem to be pointless, done for the thrill of it: http://xfinity.comcast.net/articles/news-general/20110807/EU.Britain.Riot/

10 Comments »

Sadie sends this along.  I doubt there’s anything to it, but it is an interesting story, anyway:   Many people have suspected that LBJ was behind the killing of JFK. Johnson was one of the biggest scumbags in American politics. He was crooked and dirty. Plus, he despised JFK who was his rival for the [...]

10 Comments »

In California, Gov. Brown just signed a bill that would require the state’s electors to vote for whoever gets the majority in the presidential election nationally, regardless of the vote in California.  This idea has always struck me as strangely undemocratic, but nowhere more so than in California.  Consider that California is solidly a Democrat [...]

24 Comments »

Being a consummate intellectual snob, I quickly realized (and you can check my past writings to confirm it), that Obama’s smarts are purely of the feral kind, albeit with a Leftist, anti-American tilt. At last, others are calling Emperor Obama out on his UPDATE: on the missing Obama.

12 Comments »

Here’s DQ’s take:   I admit ignorance here, as I haven’t read the official explanation by S & P.   I’m not sure I’d believe it anyway.   One theory I heard was that S & P was happy as a clam as long as everyone understood that the debt ceiling was a completely meaningless number [...]

41 Comments »

Here’s an interesting little tidbit from Climate Depot, a site that’s skeptical of the AGW hoax. Apparently the High Priest of Hoaxdom, Al Gore, was seen melting at a big AGW confab a few days ago. The Dorothy who was destroying his “beautiful climate change wickedness” is the growing legion of people who see through the [...]

6 Comments »

Over at The American Interest, Walter Mead has written an interesting piece, “American Tenderbox,” on the recent spate of strong-arm robberies and attacks on whites by flash mobs of young black men: http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2011/08/07/american-tinderbox/ After succumbing to weariness over a seemingly endless attempt by one contributor on another thread to paint sociology as a legitimate science, I suggested [...]

10 Comments »

Thanks again, Sadie:   In an age of visual media, a picture is no longer worth a 1,000 words. It’s a photo “shoot” and if by “shoot” your intent is to maim an image. MM asks: Who’s in charge of Newsweek cover graphics now — a Media Matters Soros Monkey? A random Daily Kos commenter? [...]

15 Comments »

Money Problems Cause Divorce Basically, it’s spenders vs savers plus values. Organizing your divorce Again, basically it’s create a budget, cut monthly spending, consolidate and reduce. Seems simple enough advice from Divorce.com. Isn’t it where we are now .. in the divorce court of public opinion. Alimony and child support issues are not much different [...]

3 Comments »

Question: At what age should economists stop public speaking?   “The United States can pay any debt it has because we can always print money to do that. So there is zero probability of default” said Greenspan on NBC’s Meet the Press.   Answer: After checking his birth date, I’d say 84 (he’s 85 currently) [...]

10 Comments »

From Sadie:   Can’t resist an opportunity for a pun and commentary – Watts Going On? LONDON (AP) — New unrest erupted on north London’s streets late Sunday, a day after rioting and looting in a deprived area amid community anger over a fatal police shooting. Police deployed extra officers on London’s streets to prevent [...]

8 Comments »

If this happens, it will be very intereting to see how the public reacts to such a transparent move. From Sadie: The White House is also counting on the Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal big-screen version of the killing of Bin Laden to counter Obama’s growing reputation as ineffectual. The Sony film by the Oscar-winning [...]

15 Comments »

In light of our discussion about whether sociology is really a science (hint: it’s not), Sadie has this great find about how scientifically sociology is being taught these days:   News Flash: Men and Women ARE Different by Amanda Swysgood 08/07/2011 Last semester, I had the horrible idea of taking a sociology class. I didn’t [...]

19 Comments »

We’ve been discussing jj’s claim that laws change the Constitution all the time.  People have pointed to Kelo, Roe and gun laws as examples. I suspect we all know how the system works, but please allow me a short review.  The legislature may not pass a law that violates the Constitution.  The legislature passes law, [...]

25 Comments »

Sadie’s daily tour of the Internet revealed this little tidbit: S&P execs’ donations have favored Democrats in recent cycles By Bob Cusack and Christopher Goins – 08/05/11 09:46 PM ET Senior executives for the company that downgraded the nation’s credit rating on Friday night have made political donations to Democrats over the last several years. [...]

6 Comments »

So, what’s wrong with profits?   I propose that much of the uncivil discourse currently taking place in our country distills down to fundamental misunderstandings of, combined with mean streaks of envy toward, profits.   I just love the incongruity of the Left hammering profit-making corporations while bewailing the fact that public pensions are going [...]

9 Comments »

One of the last things I read before leaving the cruise ship this morning was a New York Times headline claiming that 82% of Americans are angry at Congress for focusing on deficit cutting rather than “job creation.”. (Translation: Americans hate job-destroying “terrorist” Tea Partiers.) Assuming for the moment that this headline was an accurate [...]

5 Comments »

In Rome, I got internet access just long enough to learn about the crash in Afghanistan that killed 30 Americans, including 22 SEAL team members. The media is obsessed with whether the SEALS who died were involved in the bin Laden raid, which would allow (I imagine) for faux-meaningful articles about karmic retribution. I, on [...]

32 Comments »

If there were ever any doubt that the media leans to the left (I know, I know, there’s not) it shows in its treatment of disagreements between Republicans and Democrats.  When Democrats want to change something and Republicans disagree, the Republicans are the bad guys, standing in the way of progress and “Hope and Change.”  But [...]

21 Comments »