I was listening to the radio the other day and heard an ad for a Pete Seeger concert.
Pete Seeger? He’s still alive? And singing? I thought he must be a thousand years old now, because he already seemed old when I was young. Continue reading →
Reading the Obama tea leaves at the New Republic
In a TNR article with the extraordinary title “Contra Expectations: Obama isn’t Jimmy Carter—he’s Ronald Reagan,” Eli Lake demonstrates exactly what Obama meant when he wrote in his book The Audacity of Hope:
I serve as a blank screen on which people of vastly different political stripes project their own views.
I’d change Obama’s statement in one way Continue reading →
Slim Pickens for energy alternatives?
You’ve probably heard the radio ads. T. Boone Pickens, the man with the thickest Oklahoma/Texas accent any side of the Pecos, has a plan to reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Pickens’ plan relies heavily on wind turbine power and natural gas. Pickens himself has sunk a lot of money into wind power lately, so he stands to gain an awful lot if his plan is implemented.
This doesn’t mean he’s wrong, or that the plan is a poor one. Continue reading →
Barack fumes about the cover….
…and the blogosphere squawks, but it’s the article inside that really skewers him.
What cover, what article? Why, the New Yorker, that totally liberal rag, appears to have broken ranks and turned on Obama. Continue reading →
Tony Snow tribute: on “losing the fight” against cancer
Susan Estrich has written a lovely tribute to Tony Snow.
Yes, Susan Estrich, she of the grating voice (with an abrasive timbre almost identical to that of Carol Channing) and the liberal viewpoint. But that didn’t stop her from liking and admiring Snow, with whom she was friends. Apparently, if you knew him, it was hard not to be his friend.
I especially like the following observation of hers. Continue reading →
Obama’s withdrawal proposal a withdrawal from reality
At the end of January of 2007, shortly after Bush proposed the surge, Barack Obama countered with a Senate bill featuring a plan for withdrawal from Iraq by March 31, 2008, which would have been fourteen months later.
Fortunately for Iraq, the bill didn’t pass. Instead the surge came to pass.
But at the time of Obama’s proposed bill all that was in the future, and it must have seemed to Obama that it was his move, not Bush’s, that was bold and forward-looking. Continue reading →
Beware the giant artichoke
I’ve written about the wondrous cantaloupes we’re having this season, but last night I got burned by some artichokes. Continue reading →
RIP Tony Snow
Tony Snow has succumbed to colon cancer at 53. His philosophy was to make the most of his remaining time after his diagnosis, and from the looks of it he did.
I enjoyed Snow’s tenure as press secretary, especially after the lackluster and obviously uncomfortable McClellan. He will be missed.
Nation building and the war on terror: not contradictory
In an Ann Althouse thread about how she was turned off by Obama’s saying “you’re not listening” to critics accusing him of changing his Iraq stand, my attention was caught by a pro-Obama statement in the comments section:
And he’ll refocus the war on terror on fighting terrorists instead of nation building.
This idea that the nation-building involved in the aftermath of the Iraq War and the fight against terrorists are mutually exclusive doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It’s not either/or; they are linked. Continue reading →
Iran’s missile-rattling
Amidst all the brouhaha involved in our interminable election campaign, Iran not-so-quietly continues on its course to obtain nuclear weapons. It’s also recently fired off a few demo long-range missiles with enough reach to target Israel, and although that’s gotten more press, it’s the nuclear program that’s particularly worrisome.
What’s the solution? Continue reading →
The case of the flying thong buckle: I can relate
A 52-year old woman has sued underwear giant Victoria’s Secret for an eye injury caused when a metal clip securing a rhinestone heart to a thong flew off and injured her cornea. This is another example of just how readily litigious our society has become—not to mention how dangerous it is to wear thong underwear.
Monica Lewinsky proved the latter point quite some time ago. Maybe that’s the reason fashion seemed to at least attempt to go the other way for a while, with boxer shorts for women becoming popular in recent years—complete, in some cases, with vestigial flyfront but no rhinestone hearts. The shorts look good on the models—but then again, so would gunny sacks. That doesn’t mean everyone should go for them; not very flattering to most.
But back to Macrida Patterson, the plaintiff in this case; no boxer-short-wearer she. Continue reading →
On bringing a pen to a gunfight
Ralph Peters knows that in any battle between a mere pen and a ruthless sword, the sword will win, despite the proverb to the contrary:
Billions of words have been hurled at Sudan’s government. The misery in Darfur not only continues but deepens. While intellectuals wrestled with compound sentences, Darfur degenerated from selective oppression to savage anarchy.
Yes, despite all those fine words that make writers feel good about themselves, the carnage will continue when the offenders don’t give a hoot about public opinion. Continue reading →