Happy New Year’s Eve

Hi, everyone. Thanks to everyone who has taken the time to come visit me here in my little corner of the blogosphere. At the very least, I hope you’ve been entertained. At most, I hope you’ve been educated, enraged and inspired. I guess I’d be satisfied with anything in the middle.
As 2008 fades to 2009, [...]

Israel roundup

Hello. I like Israel. Alone in the middle of a swarm of culturally backward vermin, it should be a beacon to all who look upon it. It is not. The reason is that a) there is much misunderstanding as to what Israel is, how it came into existence, and what it means to free peoples [...]

Palestinian victim of Israeli strike blames—Hamas

Palestinian Girl: Hamas responsible for war
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Tags: Israel, Hamas, terrorism, Gaza

More Israeli attacks against terrorists Hamas

navy attack 12/29/08
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Tags: Israel, Hamas, Gaza, terrorism

Israel defending itself.

Israeli Air Force destroys underground Hamas rocket launching facility
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Tags: Israel, Hamas, terrorism, Gaza

Go get ‘em.

Israeli Air Force Strikes Hamas Government Complex in Gaza, 12/30/08
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Tags: Israel, Hamas, terrorism

Reminder—do not trust the mainstream press

This from Reuters on the Israeli bombing of Hamas:
GAZA (Reuters) – Israeli warplanes bombed the Islamic University in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, a significant Hamas cultural symbol, in the latest of a series of aerial attacks in the coastal territory, the Islamist group said.
An Israeli army spokeswoman had no immediate comment on the strike. [...]

The Community Reinvestment Act

A nice visual of how we got into the economic mess we’re in…because it’s always better to have an idea about these things rather than issuing a heavy sigh and blaming it on ‘powers that be’.
As some are fond of saying, “everything happens for a reason”…though I would suspect in this case that people who [...]

Keep ‘em coming.

The Duggars had another one.
C’mon, you’ve seen their show. I know I can’t be the only one.
It’s sort of like Jon and Kate…except lots worse. If you’ve ever got time to kill in an airport, I recommend checking it out for a few minutes if it’s on. That is, unless you’re working on a particular [...]

Yes, Virginia, you are being brainwashed.

Go ahead, tell your kid right now that down is up and up is down. Tell him every day for the next 3 years. Then send him out in the world.
Now imagine millions of kids being told the same thing. Every day. For years.
Down is not up and up is not down but in all [...]

Sad.

Embedded Video

Tags: SheaStadium, Mets

Preemption

This is a fascinating take on the President’s authority to engage in a preemptive war:

Article I Section 10 of the Constitution provides:
No State shall, without the Consent of Congress, lay any duty of Tonnage, keep Troops, or Ships of War in time of Peace, enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State, or with [...]

If movie stars ran the world…

Remind me never to ask Kate Winslet to babysit.
When asked by a reporter about her feelings on portraying a character who has sex with a 15 year old boy, Winslet opined:
Winslet: I’m so sorry, “statutory rape”? I’ve got to tell you, I’m so offended by that. No, I really am. I genuinely am. To me, [...]

Cartoon nation

In a typical cartoon (and by cartoon, I dont’ mean Simpsons or Family Guy 30 minute ‘animated’ episodes…I mean cartoon ’shorts’…like the old Tom and Jerry or Popeyes used to be) there isn’t much time for plot. Something OBVIOUS happens (like Bluto swooping down in an old prop plane to whisk Olive off into the [...]

Are you smarter than a 5th grader?

Tax 1,000 people less, and those 1,000 will take home more money. They’ll spend that money. Save that money. Invest that money.
Tax 25,000,000 people less and…well…you get the picture.
Tax those same people MORE, and there will be LESS money to be spent…saved…invested…so naturally, less money will actually be spent, saved and invested.
In an optimum economy, [...]

In which I rail against free markets . . .

The New York Yankees yesterday signed somebody named Mark Teixeira (pronounced ‘Ta-share-a’ for those not familiar with notions such as these to an 8 year contract worth $180million. That’s a lot of money. You don’t have to follow baseball to realize that. You make XX dollars a year at your job, and Mark will make [...]

Big Wheel

Last night, after we put Nico to bed, Amy and I put together Nico’s Big Wheel and hid it in the utility room behind some empty boxes and other odd junk. He’s only 22 months, but already I’m worried about how I’d explain it to him if he stumbled across it during one of his [...]

My Christmas gift came early.

I know it’s wasteful and I know I don’t NEED them…but I’m a man of a certain age and a certain diminished maturity so I absolutely HAD TO have these. So THANK YOU, Amy for allowing me this guilty pleasure. I owe you one…or twelve…or is it up to 64 by now? I love you [...]

I’m back

In case you were wondering (and I can tell from the traffic that maybe a handful of you were) I’ve been unable to put my mind to anything more serious the past few weeks than cough drops, thermometers and break of dawn comfort sessions with my fevered little baby. Seems that about 3 weeks ago, [...]

Before you travel…

Have you checked in on the quality of the local security/police forces who have (ostensibly) been charged and trained with the (seemingly) very important task of keeping you safe? If upon the occasion of your long awaited trip to Mumbai, for example, you had the benefit of this report, would you have followed through [...]

Big Picture

As always, Melanie Phillips offers clarity:
The atrocities demonstrated with crystal clarity what the Islamist war is all about – and the western commentariat didn’t understand because it simply refuses to acknowledge, even now, what that war actually is. It does not arise from particular grievances. It is not rooted in ‘despair’ over Palestine. It is [...]

Hostages brutally tortured before dying.

Pretend that this was all in a far away place all you want or that the ‘group’ that took credit for it was not technically named ‘al Qaeda’, but what happened in Mumbai last week was chilling. It could happen here. If we don’t want it to, we’ve got to keep doing what we’ve been [...]