Category: Bits and Pieces

From Eric Hoffer’s The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements (at pp. 36-37), written in 1950: The attitude of rising mass movements toward the family is of considerable interest.  Almost all of our contemporary movements showed in their early stages a hostile attitude toward the family, and

My nephew is autistic.  While his body sometimes resists his efforts at control, he is blessed, not only with acute intelligence, but with the type of analytical insight that many adults never attain.  Every year, he puts in writing his thoughts about the meaning of Passover.  This year, he had

Very long story short, we don’t celebrate Passover in my home.  So I forgot that tonight was the first night, until I was reminded by emails and blogs, both Christian and Jewish. To all my Jewish readers, a belated (since they’ve already signed off) Happy Passover!

In the lead-up to the election, I wrote about Obama’s lies — these are lies that are exposed by hard contemporaneous evidence (videos, photos, documents), but that Obama boldly told anyway, bolstered both by his own narcissistic approach to truth (“the truth is what I say it is”) and by

Daniel Hannan explains the problems with nationalized health care: [youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KI6uyhRcZLY[/youtube] (Sorry about all the videos today, but good stuff is coming through and I just want to make sure you have the option to view it all.)

A moderate Muslim, a doctor living in America, is dedicating himself to rescuing Islam in America from the radicals — and in making us alive to the threat those radicals present. This is a powerful video. I urge you to watch it and to send it friends and family:

Over at Small Dead Animals, you can take a quick, enjoyable poll on one of today’s news stories.

Got two jokes out of a 1945 joke book.  This is the first: The teacher was classifying a new pupil.  “Who gave us this beautiful school?” she asked. “President Roosevelt,” he replied. “Who gave us our wonderful transcontinental railroads?” “President Roosevelt.” “Who makes the trees grow and the flowers blossom?”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lWHgUE9AD4s[/youtube] Hat tip:  Danny Lemieux

I found this squiblet in the Chron: Judge John Dearman, 78, has announced his retirement after 32 years on the bench. Dearman is the law partner of former Mayor Willie Brown and known as the Dean of the Court. But Presiding Judge James McBride said he’s better known in the

From Thomas Sowell:  “I am so old that I can remember when music was musical.” Feel free to read the rest of the article about Obama’s impulse to repeat the worst of the 1930s, since it’s as good as anything Sowell writes.  But do linger a minute on that first

There are a raft of articles and posts today about Obama’s spectacular timing in calling for nuclear disarmament at almost the precise moment the Norks launched their missile.  Obama’s contention that he’s not naive reminded me of Nixon’s claim that he was not a crook.  Whether they’re delusional or dishonest,

I was a lousy blogger yesterday, but I have a good excuse:  a bonanza of good books from the library.  When my work day ended, I simply couldn’t tear myself away from the books.  Since I believe in keeping an open book in most every room in which I do

As in, I hope the CIA and God-knows-what-other-relevant-government-acronym-organizations are keeping an eye on the same things that Rusty Shackleford is watching. Free speech?  Yes.  Free press?  Yes.  Vigilance against those who use our freedoms to destroy us?  Yes.