Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.
Have you ever read Daddy Long Legs? Written in 1912, it's a charming story about a young orphan, Judy, who is sent to college by an anonymous trustee, her only obligation being to write him letters about her college experience. It's one of my favorite examples of an epistolatory book.
Continue readingFaith is a tremendous virtue — when it comes to religion. It has dubious value in the political field, as Thomas Sowell so neatly explains: What is more frightening than any particular policy or ideology is the widespread habit of disregarding facts. Former House Majority Leader Dick Armey put it
Continue readingI seem to be on a binge of books that make me wonder. Today's book is Jon Krakauer's Under the Banner of Heaven: A Story of Violent Faith. This is a book I mentioned before in connection with my reflections on whether a religion can abandon founding tenets and still
Continue readingFor a truly strange story about sex roles amongst the Saudis, and for a wonderful pun, go here.
Continue readingWhen is news not news? When it's rumor and propaganda — and this remains true even if every major news outlet prints it. I'm sure you haven't forgotten the New York Times' gruesome headline: "30 beheaded bodies found; Iraqi death squads blamed." The first paragraph repeated this point, and made
Continue readingJust to let you know, it's still me. I finally got the look I want, with a three column template and smaller font. Feedback is, as always, welcome.
Continue readingThe whole Cynthia McKinney kerfuffle is a distillation of entitlement run amok. McKinney, who belongs to a "protected" group (several, actually, since she's black, female and anti-Semitic), feels that she is entitled to treatment denied others: she is entitled to refuse to wear her Congressional badge, which alerts the Capitol
Continue readingI always find things like this fascinating: On Wednesday of [this] week: at two minutes and three seconds after 1:00 in the morning, the time and date will be 01:02:03 04/05/06. I won't stay up for it, but I'll still think it's pretty cool that I was there at that
Continue readingA couple of weeks ago, I blogged about a book called Female Chauvinist Pigs (see here), a book about how modern feminism has imposed on girls and women a view of sex and sexuality that is utterly devoid of self-respect and love. It was a profoundly depressing book. What's stayed
Continue readingI love Mark Steyn. If you don't have time to read his whole column (and who wouldn't have a few minutes for such a treat?), at least get a little fix here: [M]y point is there's no mass anti-war movement. Some commentators claimed to be puzzled by the low turnout
Continue readingThere's a move afoot to extend the voting age downwards to young children (their votes would get counted on a fractional basis). As a parent who interacts a lot with young children, I think this is stunningly stupid. As more evidence in the stunningly stupid category, I offer the beginning
Continue readingI glanced out my office window, looked over the hills and the water, and saw glowing in the sky a perfect rainbow. What a lovely gift. Since it's been raining ridiculous amounts in my neck of the woods, one hopes that the rainbow is a sign of a remembered promise:
Continue readingGail alerted me to the Mexica-Movement's proud photo-montage about the March in L.A. I think it's a great site, since it really gives you an idea about the marchers' goals and belief system. I wonder if, once you get insight into these things, you'll be for or against firmer border
Continue readingPatrick alerts me to Ace's take on the new, improved Democratic plan: An amazing new national security plan has two key provisions: 1) "Responsibly redepolying" US troops from Iraq (i.e., bugging out as soon as we can get the transport ships and planes in); and 2) "eliminating" Osama bin Ladin.
Continue readingDo you have a strong stomach? If you do not, definitely avoid this website, which collects information and photographs about the atrocities routinely committed against women, children and gays across the Muslim world. Here, you can see what it looks like when a person has been flogged hundreds of times
Continue reading