Bookworm Room

A friend sent me a link to a post at Whatever, a blog that John Scalzi runs.  Scalzi, who describes himself as a “pinko commie socialist,” is interested — truly, not snarkily, interested — in the views Republicans/conservatives/libertarians currently hold when looking at the Republican primary field.  Having the luxury of my own blog, I [...]

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If you’re in California, it’s easy to figure out which people should get your vote:  Fiorina over Boxer, Whitman over Brown (and yes, that’s something of a nose-holder), anyone over Pelosi, etc. It gets much more confusing when you get to the numbered items on the ballot.  Prop. 23 is easy:  Vote for that unless [...]

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Have you ever been in a debate with a Liberal/Lefty and been so overwhelmed with either the vapidity of their arguments or the absolute volume of misstatement, sloganeering or fact-twisting that you are left open-mouthed and unable to respond. After the interchange, you kick yourself by thinking, “I should have said….”. Happens to me all [...]

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Question for all of you: A friend thinks that we shouldn’t get our hopes up over November and beyond. He thinks that, aside from the concern political junkies are exhibiting, most Americans actually don’t care enough about the political scene to vote for politicians who would put a stop to this. They got their voting [...]

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As part of a longer rumination about the stability that the Cold War provided for our political system, James Taranto makes the following observations about yesterday’s House vote: Why did it happen? Last November voters sent what seemed to us a pretty clear message by rejecting Democratic candidates for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, [...]

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It’s a done deal, awaiting Obama’s signature.   I am truly too disheartened to write anything tonight. Please use this open thread to share your thoughts, provide insight and inspiration, give practical advice, etc. I’ve already received several emails from conservative groups (the GOP, Republican politicians, etc.) urging fund raising.  (Just FYI, in less than 1 [...]

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One of the things the last few elections has revealed is escalating voter fraud in America, fraud of the type that aligns us more closely with a banana republic than with a traditional Western nation.  Thus, we know that groups such as ACORN have registered thousands of non-existent people.  And because America has traditionally had [...]

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Here’s a beautiful matched set: The first part of the set is Daniel Henninger’s truly brilliant article about the way in which President Kennedy’s 1962 executive order allowing federal workers to unionize “transformed the Democratic Party into a public-sector dependency.”  Henninger thinks this dependency broke down yesterday in Massachusetts. The second part of the set [...]

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Thinking about it, Scott Brown’s election as the Senator for Massachusetts may be more significant than any election in my lifetime, including the Reagan Revolution and the 1994 Congressional takeover.  I know this sounds silly.  In 1980, the political shift involved a President, not a mere Senator; in 1994, it was an entire Congress, not [...]

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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 parents think about what a school should do for their children, they think in terms of the three “Rs,” plus a lovely layering of science, history, and other subjects that maketh a full (and employable) man.  The politically correct Nanny State, however, cares little for education and a great deal for ideology.  It should [...]

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In the wake of the 2008 election, Republicans and conservatives were paralyzed.  They’d been trounced, not so much by sweeper percentages (that is, the elections were all just over the slightly 50% mark), but by huge numbers of elections in which Democrats edged out Republicans by those few percentage marks.  If there are 100 races, [...]

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I had a lovely time last night at a reception on the Bonhomme Richard, and plan on writing about it later today.  However, other work calls, so I thought I’d fill this space with recommendations for interesting stuff you may want to read.  In no particular order: William Katz, a witty, erudite man who has [...]

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What do I get?  I get why people are voting Democrat.  It’s all explained in this clever little film: And be sure to visit VerticalBlu’s website, if for no other reason than to show that a company that manages to put together a great little video like that deserves traffic. Hat tip:  LGF

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The moment I saw the boastful headline yesterday announcing that, if the election were held today, either Obama or Hillary would beat McCain by a mile, I suspected that something was wrong. The numbers just didn’t sound right. And of course, they’re not: However, a closer look at the poll’s internals reveals that the poll’s [...]

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