Friday, January 29, 2010

RIP Howard Zinn

Glad I was never assigned his tome when I was college, though I got fed other leftist takes on American history. I much prefer Paul Johnson's A History of the American People, because it is more about the actual people over the years, and not about academic radicals' projections of oppression & revolution onto history. America is more than the sum of her sins, and always has been.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Obama state of the union address

I let the kiddiwinks stay up and watch about 30 minutes of it for their education. When he mentioned how he had averted a second great depression, my oldest said, in her sulky 4th grade girly voice: "I don't want a second great depression!"

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Legalize drugs?

I know that there's not 100% overlap between liberals and people who want to legalize drugs. But still, it's weird, those that do overlap. On one hand they say that the government is bought & paid for by big business interests, that corporations are running the show. One the other, they offer smiley-face fantasies about "tightly regulating" drug cartels once drugs become legal. the cartels are exponentially richer and more ruthless than any hedge fund manager you'd care to name--pluse they have guns. Just who is going to bring them to heel, and how?

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

Georgia Work Ready Certification

In 2006, Georgia Work Ready Certification was launched. It is now being more heavily advertised in response to the economic downturn. The idea is that prospective employees can take some tests, get "certified" that they will become good employees, and thus get a leg up in their hunt for a job.

Well, good luck to all concerned. But I just think it's a shame that a Georgia high school diploma doesn't perform the same "certification" function.

Don't forget Haiti

The story will begin slipping from the headlines in a few days, maybe weeks. But the hardhips from this disaster are going to last for years. Do your due diligence, find a charity or investment vehicle that really helps the Haitians, and give what you can.

Saturday, January 09, 2010

Amazing Computer Generated film

Everything and everyone in here looks so real, but the description says it's all computer generated. Play it in full screen, on an HD monitor if you have one.

The Third & The Seventh from Alex Roman on Vimeo.



Via Foreign Dispatches

Friday, January 08, 2010

In Memoriam, Richard John Neuhaus



It's been one year since Fr. Richard John Neuhaus was suddenly summoned home. Too early, too early...

I admired him since I first encountered him, in the pages of The Wittenburg Door in the mid 80s. He recounted his journey from Sixties activist to conservative Catholic priest. He kept up his insistence for justice in Vietnam after the communists won, but was told by his fellow activists that the communists were on the correct side of the world revolution and were not to be criticized. Later on, I discovered First Things, don't remember how. Much of the contents resonated with me (though I continue to deplore their toleration of Intelligent Design charlatanry in their pages), and became part of my inner furniture.

In fact, I used to theme this blog as a running appreciation of FT. After a while I drifted out of schtick--I didn't have the intellectual firepower to do more than just link, it turned out. But I still resonate...

By chance, his memorial mass is just now starting, in New York City. Insert moment of silence here.

More. And more.

Tim Wilson

Just discovered the novelty country music artist Tim Wilson. See what you think: LiveLeak's crappy code doesn't seem to let the embed work, but it you double-click on it, it'll take you to the hosting site. It's worth it!



Saturday, January 02, 2010

Random Rock Bloggage

The Youngbloods' "Get Together", from the late 70s No Nukes concert:

The Jihad--enemy of the civilized world

I find it fruitful to consider who do terrorists consider to be their enemies? RW militias in the U.S. hate the federal government. The IRA hates Britain. The Tamil Tigers hate the Sri Lankan government. The ETA hates the Spanish national government.

But Islamic jihadists attack everyone. Chechen jihadists attack Muscovites. Thai and Filipinio jihadists attack their nominal co-nationalists. Arab jihadists take it as a religious duty to attack non-dhimmified Jews. French “youths” burn cars, among less visible mischief. British jihadists are only the most visible part of the stealth jihad in that land. “Islam has bloody borders”, as someone once said.

That doesn’t include all Muslims, certainly. But it includes enough of them to constitute a serious problem for the peace of the world. There’s nothing directly comparable to the omni-fronted Jihad in any other militant movement in the world, not since the fall of expansive communism.