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February 28, 2006
Career options
Via NY Press: an account of one man's quest to visit 1,000 bars in one year.
Posted by bill at 05:42 PM | Comments (0)
February 27, 2006
The racist ABA
Many attorneys I know join the American Bar Association for the same reason they join the local bar: because someone put a form under their nose and paid their ABA dues. At some point I dropped my ABA membership and joined extremist, xenophobic, anti-woman, anti-choice, anti-minority Federalist Society. Steve Warshawsky exposes yet another reason I'm happy I did so.
Posted by bill at 05:26 PM | Comments (0)
February 24, 2006
An explanation
I hate Top 10 lists, but here are not the reasons I haven't been posting:
1. Work is a blast.
2. This week didn't involve a perfect storm of real world catastrophes and distractions.
3. I am sunning myself in Grand Cayman.
4. Finally finishing that book I've been meaning to read.
5. Studying the UAE port deal.
6. Re-runs of "24."
8. Catching up on sleep.
9. My new house is maintenance free.
10. Watching the Olympics.
I realize this is only modestly funny, at best. I will be back tomorrow (dammit).
Posted by bill at 05:00 PM | Comments (0)
February 23, 2006
Shameless cross-promotionalization
What's happening to country music? Brantley Smith offershis thoughts.
Posted by bill at 08:30 AM | Comments (0)
February 21, 2006
Lest we forget
Lots of people won't appreciate this from me, but now that SCOTUS will be reviewing the federal partial birth abortion ban in Gonzalez v. Carhart let's remember what's involved, courtesy NRLC.
Posted by bill at 04:54 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
With endorsements like this, who needs opponents?
Jimmy Carter says the idea of a threat from UAE-owned U.S. ports is a fabrication, which should serve to convince any Bush apologist holdouts it's a bad, bad idea. He also said the U.S. and Israel should fund Hamas.
Posted by bill at 01:18 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Keep our eyes on the ball
So writes Christopher Hitchens:
nobody in authority can be found to state the obvious and the necessary-that we stand with the Danes against this defamation and blackmail and sabotage. Instead, all compassion and concern is apparently to be expended upon those who lit the powder trail, and who yell and scream for joy as the embassies of democracies are put to the torch in the capital cities of miserable, fly-blown dictatorships. Let's be sure we haven't hurt the vandals' feelings.
Posted by bill at 01:09 PM | Comments (0)
February 20, 2006
Raising $4,214,748.18 for people they'll probably never meet
Want to feel good about something? Read thisstory about Penn State's annual Dance Marathon, which is the largest student-run philanthropy in the world. Read more about "Thon" here and if you'd like, send donations here.
Posted by bill at 08:12 PM | Comments (0)
February 19, 2006
Sunday reading
Pat Buchanan: My favorite Paleo-con.
Posted by bill at 10:40 PM | Comments (0)
February 17, 2006
Next Wednesday: Moonbattery on parade
Barf alert: MoveOn.org is organizing "Constitution Vigils" next Wendesday. Says MoveOn, "The president is breaking the law. Momentum is already mounting in Congress for a real, independent investigation into the president's illegal wiretapping program. But unless Congress knows that citizens are concerned, they'll shrink from their responsibility to act as a check on the president's power."
Bwaaah. What nonsense. Still, I've signed to attend the vigil at Federal Hall in Manhattan. Anyone care to join me? (Someone should notify Protest Warrior.)
Posted by bill at 12:59 PM | Comments (0)
Blind squirrel finds nut
It is not often that I agree with anything Bill Maher says, but I'll give credit where it's due. Over at Huff'n Post, Maher hands it to the White House over the State Department's statement on the Mohammed cartoons:
all the courage they could muster up was to say, "Anti-Muslim images are as unacceptable as anti-Semitic images, as anti-Christian images or any other religious belief." Well, I'm sorry, but that's just chickenshit. And that goes for Bill Clinton's statement as well.
Can you image Ronald Reagan giving some mealy-mouthed statement like that? He would have said, "Sorry. We believe in free speech, and that includes the freedom to critique your religion. Deal with it."[...]
Posted by bill at 12:44 PM | Comments (0)
Prediction
T-minus just a day or so until someone says, "It's Bush's fault."
Posted by bill at 12:07 PM | Comments (0)
February 16, 2006
Al Gore: Still in liberals' hearts
Hoop Dreamy Al Gore really is a menace. But among Democrats he's still considered a viable candidate for the White House, and he's been gaining ground.
Posted by bill at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)
I see stupid people
I hope someone reminds Gumball Bryant about his comments yesterday when the 2008 Summer Olympics are underway. Then again, it's hardly worth the effort.
Note to Gregg Bryant:
Posted by bill at 02:28 PM | Comments (0)
Australia 'will be Muslim in 50 years'
The other effect of abortion-on-demand Tony Blankley sees bad things coming -- will anyone else?
Meantime, CJ's Gene Lalor notes that the "insidious craze of multiculturalism/diversity could conceivably and permanently alter who and what we are as Americans."
Posted by bill at 02:08 PM | Comments (0)
February 15, 2006
The lost left
This is brilliant. Explains Mark Steyn, "even when they've got the bones of a case, you can always rely on the Democrats and the media to over-react and, in so doing, come across as a lot of prigs. Already, NBC's David Gregory, the George Clooney of the press corps, has been huffin' an' a-puffin' all over the TV demanding answers - multiple answers - about why he had to wait 18 hours to hear about the accident. Who cares? A "sinister cover-up" has to boil down to more than not giving David Gregory a press release. And, given that the media's spent the last two weeks telling the public why they don't need to see these Danish cartoons, it's hard to take them seriously as sudden converts to the public's right to know every detail, if only when it comes to minor hunting accidents."
Posted by bill at 02:05 PM | Comments (0)
Politics make your ears bleed? Me, too - sometimes.
Lots to talk about today like this and this which will unfortunately distract from this, which is probably the most significant story of the week. Nevermind all that, though. I am in the market for a new car:
This car could become the Official Car of Citizen Journal. If anyone out there wants to put in a bid on CJ's behalf, I have garage waiting for it.
Posted by bill at 01:24 PM | Comments (0)
February 14, 2006
On the Olympics
A friend of mine earns the quote of the week: "I was watching hockey today [Saturday] and I guess I was wondering why all the players were so small, and so slow. The score was also really lopsided, too. But I kept watching, because I was hungover. Anyway, I finally realized why: I was watching women's, Olympic hockey.
Posted by bill at 09:34 PM | Comments (0)
In the name of Allah
I get the feeling that, however this round of riots began, they're beyond it and are really just a lovely excuse to torch Europe and kill non-Muslims.
Posted by bill at 02:43 PM | Comments (0)
Someone hand that man a leather belt
Saddam Hussein's announced he'll be going on a hunger strike. Maybe we'll get lucky and Saddam will just get it over with and hang himself.
Posted by bill at 10:25 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
"In Defense of Ann Coulter"
Steven Warshawsky tells conservatives to hold their horses. I agree with the sentiment.
If we're in a war, we have enemies, too, and ridicule and caricaturing are not out of bounds in a war. God knows we can't count on clarity from Washington, and if Ann Coulter's willing to offer it, I am not among those who will pretend to be offended when she occasionally pushes the bounds of good taste.
Posted by bill at 09:19 AM | Comments (0)
February 13, 2006
Citizen Journal progress report: a prominent source for the incoherent and misspelled
Citizen Journal is a tremendous resource for those of you out there devising weird search phrases on Google et al. For instance, this website wins the bronze medal, taking third place for the following search: "citizen have rights why do the government have anything to say."We're also thirty fourth for: "citzen" at Yahoo Hong Kong.
Posted by bill at 08:26 PM | Comments (0)
FYI
I'll resume the commentary later today or tomorrow. Meantime, Michelle Malkin shows us that while Dick Cheney's handling of the hunting accident is "not looking good", Cheney's hoop-dreamy predecessor serves as a constant reminder of the alternatives.
Posted by bill at 01:38 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2006
Nanny state diaries
You -- with the steak! Drop your weapon!
Or better yet, take part in the U.K's knife 5-week knife amnesty:
Under the amnesty, which will run between 24 May and 30 June in England, Wales and Scotland, members of the public can leave bladed weapons in drop-in bins which will be provided at police stations throughout the country without fear of prosecution.
Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, said: "Tackling knife culture, especially among young people, is paramount to the safety of our communities, and I am determined to reduce the devastation caused by knife crime."
Meanwhile the Herald reported the "crackdown on knives," too, quoting Detective John, head of the the Department of Redundancy and Bloviation Department, who informs us, "A weapons surrender alone will not solve this deep-rooted problem. However, it is part of the contain and manage element of our long-term violence reduction strategy. No-one leaves home with the intention of becoming a murderer, but that's the chance you take if you carry a knife."
No word whether forks, broken tic-tac packages, or letter openers will be next. No word, either, whether the Herald considered the irony of running an ad, on the above story, that features a really big scissor which, when used correctly, could be considered a "knife":
Posted by bill at 04:20 PM | Comments (0)
Stop the ACLU
Stop the ACLU celebrates its 1 year blogiversary with "Top Ten Myths About the ACLU," which is a tremendous list of things the ACLU would prefer we'd never know.
Posted by bill at 09:48 AM | Comments (0)
"God save us from the voices of reason"
Charles Krauthammer on the "Curse of the Moderates" in the Danish cartoon mess:
The mob has turned this into a test case for freedom of speech in the West. The German, French and Italian newspapers that republished these cartoons did so not to inform but to defy -- to declare that they will not be intimidated by the mob.
What is at issue is fear. The unspoken reason many newspapers do not want to republish is not sensitivity but simple fear. They know what happened to Theo van Gogh, who made a film about the Islamic treatment of women and got a knife through the chest with an Islamist manifesto attached.
The worldwide riots and burnings are instruments of intimidation, reminders of van Gogh's fate. The Islamic "moderates" are the mob's agents and interpreters, warning us not to do this again. And the Western "moderates" are their terrified collaborators who say: Don't worry, we won't. It's those Danes. We're clean. Spare us. Please.
Captain Ed adds, "We have a choice in this instance - we either will declare that we will be ruled by fear or remain free, a freedom we offer all people regardless of their religion or ethnicity."
Posted by bill at 08:50 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 08, 2006
Misunderestimated again
President Bush is several steps ahead of the Democrats, again, this time on the Social Security reform they killed last year. Reports Newsweek (someone oughtta fact check this):
this year, with no fanfare whatsoever, Bush stuck a big Social Security privatization plan in the federal budget proposal, which he sent to Congress on Monday.
His plan would let people set up private accounts starting in 2010 and would divert more than $700 billion of Social Security tax revenues to pay for them over the first seven years.
...anyone who thought that Bush would wait for bipartisanship to deal with Social Security was wrong. Instead, he stuck his own privatization proposals into his proposed budget.
Posted by bill at 02:51 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Alt media editors doing what alt media editors are supposed to do
I was just about to mention that my favorite NYC alt-weekly, the NY Press, now has a blog, called "51st State." I thought it had some promise. Turns out, it may be done - as noted here, Harry Siegel, NYP's EIC, and two other editors have resigned from the paper. And it's because the higher-up weenies refused to publish certain Danish cartoons you may have heard about. In an email, Siegal explains:
New York Press, like so many other publications, has suborned its own professed principles. For all the talk of freedom of speech, only the New York Sun locally and two other papers nationally have mustered the minimal courage needed to print simple and not especially offensive editorial cartoons that have been used as a pretext for great and greatly menacing violence directed against journalists, cartoonists, humanitarian aid workers, diplomats and others who represent the basic values and obligations of Western civilization. Having been ordered at the 11th hour to pull the now-infamous Danish cartoons from an issue dedicated to them, the editorial group-consisting of myself, managing editor Tim Marchman, arts editor Jonathan Leaf and one-man city hall bureau Azi Paybarah, chose instead to resign our positions.
We have no desire to be free speech martyrs, but it would have been nakedly hypocritical to avoid the same cartoons we'd criticized others for not running, cartoons that however absurdly have inspired arson, kidnapping and murder and forced cartoonists in at least two continents to go into hiding. Editors have already been forced to leave papers in Jordan and France for having run these cartoons. We have no illusions about the power of the Press (NY Press, we mean), but even on the far margins of the world-historical stage, we are not willing to side with the enemies of the values we hold dear, a free press not least among them.
Bravo, gentlemen. May some of your journalistic colleagues grow a pair, too.
Posted by bill at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)
February 07, 2006
"Good show"
Today, Jimmy Carter likened Coretta Scott King and her husband to Islamic terrorists, and the civil rights movement to terrorism: "It was difficult for them [the King family] then personally with the civil liberties of both husband and wife violated," Carter said, "as they became the target of secret government wiretaps." Meantime the left is giddyover the awful spectacle the became of King's funeral service. (Details here.) I commented there, asking Kos readers (call it a flame, I guess, to "Put yourself in the shoes of people who knew this woman and who were there to honor her memory as a human being." One of the quick responses was, "Good show."
Posted by bill at 07:21 PM | Comments (0)
February 06, 2006
NSA hearings: a primer
Via Realclearpolitics: "The Quick and Dirty Guide to the NSA Hearing":
...the Democrats will do what they do best, from all indications. Russ Feingold intends to call the AG a liar, and judging by the six 'questions' put forward by the Democrats, they intend to make this hearing a referendum on the 'imperial presidency' of George W. Bush. I say that because their questions are not questions at all, but rather requests for massive amounts of documentation more in line with discovery during a criminal trial than any good faith effort at contributing anything of value to the debate.
Over at Kos the Kidz say Dems are hitting an "important point" -- expanding the program to inlude solely domestic intercepts:
If the President maintains he'll do everything to prevent another 9/11, why doesn't his program apply to purely domestic Al Qaeda-to-Al Qaeda calls? The terrorists that attacked us on 9/11 were within our own borders, communicating domestically.
Posted by bill at 01:22 PM | Comments (0)
The absurdity of it all
"Piss Christ versus Cartoon Jihad":
Christianity is routinely mocked and vilified in most counties where Islam is the dominant religion. Countless thousands of Christians have, in recent years, paid the ultimate price for practicing their faith among Muslims, including three young Indonesian girls butchered by Muslim psychopaths as they walked to Christian school. Hate-filled anti-Semitic cartoons pepper the pages of Arab and Muslim newspapers. Programs meant to incite hatred of Judaism and violence against Jews are regularly featured on Arab Muslim television networks. And yet, politicized Muslims, who rarely, if ever, categorically condemn the barbarous acts of their co-religionists and often cheer those same acts, behave as if they desire to see "infidel" blood spilled over a series of provocative drawings.
Updates at Michelle Malkin:
Bakala! Muhammad jihad! Allah derka derka Muhammad jihad! Muhammad jihad!
Posted by bill at 10:21 AM | Comments (0)
February 05, 2006
"Exquisitely Refined Multicultural Sensitivity"
Mark Steyn on the most sensitive war ever:
One day, years from now, as archaeologists sift through the ruins of an ancient civilization for clues to its downfall, they'll marvel at how easy it all was. You don't need to fly jets into skyscrapers and kill thousands of people. As a matter of fact, that's a bad strategy, because even the wimpiest state will feel obliged to respond. But if you frame the issue in terms of multicultural "sensitivity," the wimp state will bend over backward to give you everything you want -- including, eventually, the keys to those skyscrapers. Thus, Jack Straw, the British foreign secretary, hailed the "sensitivity" of Fleet Street in not reprinting the offending cartoons.
No doubt he's similarly impressed by the "sensitivity" of Anne Owers, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Prisons, for prohibiting the flying of the English national flag in English prisons on the grounds that it shows the cross of St. George, which was used by the Crusaders and thus is offensive to Muslims. And no doubt he's impressed by the "sensitivity" of Burger King, which withdrew its ice cream cones from its British menus because Rashad Akhtar of High Wycombe complained that the creamy swirl shown on the lid looked like the word "Allah" in Arabic script. I don't know which sura in the Koran says don't forget, folks, it's not just physical representations of God or the Prophet but also chocolate ice cream squiggly representations of the name, but ixnay on both just to be "sensitive."
Posted by bill at 02:06 PM | Comments (0)
February 03, 2006
Bridging the gap
My local news "decided not to show" the offending (to some) cartoons so I feel I should fill in.
Long live the blogosphere! (Inspired by Michelle Malkin.)
Posted by bill at 07:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Fugghedabotit -- hear me now!
Been on a NYC subway lately? It's not your father's IRT but it's still on the map as one of the sure fire places to inhale the stench of stale (hopefully) urine; and it's riddled with service that's Atlas Shrugs-ian, rising fares, service cuts, maintenance problems, an antiquated infratructure, etc. Many stations are filthy and the P.A. system is useless.
Now, riders will contend with braindead cell phone yammerings regarding the kinds of things that, for the duration of human existence until 2006, were considered non-essential while riding the subway. Granted, a cell signal would be lovely in the event of the occasional subway disaster but the relative calm of the commute home will soon be shattered -- count me among the "just shut up already" camp.
Posted by bill at 05:15 PM | Comments (0)
CJ Mailbag
I love it when readers write for me. Sherwin from Los Angeles writes:
I have not or had not considered myself that conservative until "Brokeback Mountain" became a cultural tour de force. It just seems that Hollywood is getting desperate for new material and does not really care how far this place sinks (since I live near Hollywood and I'm in the industry). I do not have anything against gay people, but with statistics suggesting that homosexuality stands at eleven percent, perhaps we could say that the tail is wagging the dog?
Posted by bill at 03:05 PM | Comments (0)
Blogging, Instapundit style
Posted by bill at 09:39 AM | Comments (0)
February 02, 2006
History according to Google - Tiananmen
Tiananmen at Google:
Tiananmen at Google China:
H/T: Splodgenoodles, Under the Fez (via RFDTH).
Posted by bill at 10:41 AM | Comments (0)
February 01, 2006
Shamelss cross-promotionalization
Have you seen Flightplan? Before you bother renting the DVD, be warned.
Posted by bill at 01:56 PM | Comments (0)
MSM hearts MSM
On Sunday I noted that coverage of reporter Bob Woodruff's injuries in Iraq seemed headed in the wrong direction, owing to the media's inability to report the story with much-needed perspective. Today (via Drudge) the UPI reports that the American military is noticing the same thing:
In Iraq, and throughout the military, there is sympathy and concern for anchor Bob Woodruff and cameraman Doug Vogt, but there is also this question:
"Why do you think this is such a huge story?" wrote an officer stationed in Baqubah, Iraq, Monday via e-mail. "It's a bit stunning to us over here how absolutely dominant the story is on every network and front page. I mean, you'd think we lost the entire 1st Marine Division or something.
"There's a lot of grumbling from guys at all ranks about it. That's a really impolite and impolitic thing to say ... but it's what you would hear over here."
The UPI story attempts a mea culpa, acknowledging soldiers have a legimate gripe. It also lists all known casualties last week from IEDs in Iraq -- which looks like hand washing. And the report's not without plenty of explicit rationalization for the MSM's self-absorbtion; the story continues:
Having a personal connection to someone injured or killed on the battlefield is a relatively rare experience for journalists. Fewer than 1 percent of the U.S. population is part of the military; very few reporters have served. The war is comfortably distant, until a fellow journalist is affected. It could have been me, we think. The full weight of war is hard to comprehend until it happens to you, or someone you know, or someone like you.
Incidents like the serious wounding of Woodruff are rare. It has never before happened to any anchorperson for any of the U.S. television networks. Consequently, the event had significant news value.
Nice try. The reporting of the Woodruff injury is symptomatic of the same big-headed elitism we saw, for example, when Peter Jennings passed away in August. At the time I thought it bore reminding that "The world lost a mortal soul today, not an elite one. May he rest in peace, and may his former colleagues learn to understand God doesn't differentiate." Such things, I think, simply don't resonate with many journalists. They simply don't get it.
Posted by bill at 10:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
The morning after: post-SOTU/Alito mish mosh
I don't have time for much of a post on the SOTU but someone should send a whaaaambulance down to Huff n' Post. They're apoplectic. If you want something a little more uncrazy, Captain Ed live-blogged the speech.
Also, a few people have complained/noted that our articles aren't in the bestest of places - sort of out in the CJ hinterlands. Where? Here's a hint:
In the latest, Andy Hobin writes that with Barrack Obama's maneuvering on Samuel Alito, we should remind ourselves that Obama is busy laying the groundwork for a White House run and note our "first hint of his true colors."
Posted by bill at 09:13 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
