Author: Don Quixote

We spent the day in and around Dubrovnik, in Croatia, on the northeastern edge of the Adriatic, roughly across the waters from Venice. If you like your history old, Dubrovnik is the perfect place to visit, because it is a gem-like medieval walled city. The current version of the city

Danny and CM have been doing the heavy lifting today, so let me just jump in with a quick hit.  I plan on doing a longer piece sometime on today’s song lyrics, but one current song worries me and I wonder if I worry needlessly.   Picture a teenage girl who has

We arrived in Rome late Tuesday night, but didn’t have to board our cruise ship until 3 pm on Wednesday. The question, of course, was what to do with our morning. We elected to pay a small fortune to hire a private driver so that we could squeeze in a

We’ve had some interesting comments in the last day or so.  JJ has suggested we might have to scrap our government and start over.  Y-man has pointed out that democracy is not the only form of government around.  Moose and others have suggested that eventually the United States may no

During our many days in London, my husband remarked to the kids that London  has a long history.  I thought about that and realized that he’s half right. Yes, it has a long history, but so does every other inhabited place on earth. What distinguishes the British is that they’ve

First of all, welcome!  Please make yourselves at home and join in the fun.  Second, don’t be concerned if your first comment does not appear at once.  The first time you comment, that comment goes into a “pending” queue until the author of that post approves it.  Once that comment

I’m opposed to term limits.  I mention this because jj made a spirited and persuasive argument in favor of limits in a comment to a recent thread.  I’m opposed on both practical and philosophical grounds. As a practical matter, you don’t want an amateur deploying troops in Afganistan.  You don’t

I just had an odd thought.  Republicans have drawn a line in the sand:  no new taxes, no restoration of the old tax levels, all deficit reduction must be accomplished by budget cuts.  This is a fairly extreme position.  While most Americans aren’t eager to have tax increases, I think

San Francisco police shot and killed a man last night. http://www.ktvu.com/video/28575181/index.html The man was running away.  If you didn’t know the facts, would you think it is more likely that the police shot an unarmed man for no reason or that they shot an armed man who was shooting over

Sadie suggested we discuss the debt ceiling.  I’m no expert and haven’t followed the matter that closely, but I have some random thoughts to get the conversation started. 1.  The budget is like a patient in need of a life-saving operation.  Those on the far right argue against raising the

First try at inserting a YouTube video, that is both funny and relevant to our discussion (sort of):   [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7stz35gN44&feature=player_detailpage[/youtube]

Zach’s claim that blacks still vote for Democrats “because many Republicans won’t even support the simple justice of laws guaranteeing equal access to public accommodations” is the purest form of nonsense, of course.  There is zero chance that Republicans would take away equal access even if they completely controlled all

I’ve recently read Primetime Propaganda, The True Story of How the Left Took Over Your TV, by Ben Shapiro, about which more in a later post or two.  It’s a good book, though it practically ignores whole areas of television programming, those areas that now dominate the ratings and tend

It appears that one of the things that got dropped between the old server and the new is Bookworm’s report on her second day in London, so I’m reposting it:   We spent almost all day today at the Tower of London. It is an amazing structure, encompassing almost 1000

The system problems seem to be slowly working themselves out.  If you are reading this, you are probably back to normal and in the right place.  Let the discussion re-commence.