The Cheesecake Factory Must Die

Warning: I am about to vent. If splenetic ranting is not your thing, back outta here now, for I am seriously pissed off.

Published
Categorized as Culture

How low can they go?

Here’s another one for the file marked “Bush’s opponents are so deranged that they are good reasons to support him”. At The Corner, via InstaPundit, Tim Graham has this report: Driving in, I had to sample some “progressive talk” on the SOTU [State of the Union address]. At the Stephanie Miller Show, they were laughing… Continue reading How low can they go?

Published
Categorized as Politics

Evidently, I am lightning.

You Are Lightning Beautiful yet dangerous People will stop and watch you when you appear Even though you’re capable of random violence You are best known for: your power Your dominant state: performing What Type of Weather Are You? This is incorrect in one respect. I do not engage in random violence.

Published
Categorized as General

Oh, Canada! Oh, delicious!

Stephen Harper, the newly-elected Conservative prime minister of Canada, is huffing and puffing about Canada asserting its sovereignity over the arctic waters of the Nortwest Passage. “The United States defends its sovereignty; the Canadian government will defend our sovereignty,” said Harper at the end of a news conference, promising to deploy naval icebreakers into the… Continue reading Oh, Canada! Oh, delicious!

Published
Categorized as Politics

Look over there…

I haven’t posted for a while because my blogging energy has been going to the debate over at Cato Unbound. I may write an essay about Gramscian damage in the near future, however.

Published
Categorized as General

If the Shoe Fits…

From Confederate Yankee comes the story that an Iraqi journalist named Ali Fadhil claims U.S. soldiers invaded and shot up his home, then hustled him off for questioning before inexplicably returning him unharmed. What’s supposed to make this especially shocking is that he was working for a British newspaper, the Guardian.

Published
Categorized as Terror

The War Against Humorlessness

From Iowahawk: WICCANS DECRY ‘WAR AGAINST SOLSTICE’ Wiccan Coven Association President Ozrius Ravenclaw announced today that his group would continue a formal economic boycott against several major US retailers “until they cease their relentless and cowardly attack on the Solstice.” Retailers affected by the boycott include Target, WalMart, Dollar General, Mills Fleet Farm, Victoria’s Secret,… Continue reading The War Against Humorlessness

Published
Categorized as Culture

Live by government regulation, die by it too

Teresa Nielsen Hayden, a blogger and much-respected figure in the science-fiction community, is staring at the ruin of her life, and she’s enraged about it. And rightly so. As her husband Patrick explains, she’s a narcoleptic, and the FDA has just banned the only drug that keeps her functional.

Published
Categorized as Politics

Thoughts on the Prisoner of Narnia

Since writing the essay C.S. Lewis is morally incoherent I have finished rereading the entire Narnia series. I could go on at length about how the writing deteriorates as Lewis’s imaginative impulse is more and more smothered by the clanking and wheezing of his allegory machine, but Adam Gopnik makes the point better than I… Continue reading Thoughts on the Prisoner of Narnia

Published
Categorized as Culture

Utter IDiots

Leon H. at RedState writes in Intelligent Design (The Debate Isn’t Helping): In other words, my feeling about Krauthammer, Derbyshire, et al is basically this: if you wish to denigrate ID and insult its proponents, go find an ID discussion board (they are legion) and do so there – don’t use the pages of NR… Continue reading Utter IDiots

Published
Categorized as Culture

The smell of victory, part deux

Aha. The Sunnis say they want to work with US. This comes hard in the heels of reports that the Baathist dead-enders protected al-Qaeda polling places from jihadis during the just-concluded elections, in which turnout pushed 70% even in the heart of the Sunni triangle.

King Kong is a gigantic mess

My wife Catherine has written an excellent review of Peter Jackson’s King Kong, which we saw just last night. I concur with it; the movie is a meandering, flabby, over-long, self-indulgent mess that will be deeply disappointing to many of the fans Jackson attracted with the Rings movies. I hope it bombs, and he learns… Continue reading King Kong is a gigantic mess

Published
Categorized as Culture

Is that victory I smell?

The last two days have seen a triple whammy for the Islamofascists and their Western quislings. The Iraqi elections were a thumping success; congressional Democrats voted in a resolution supporting prosecution of the Iraq war; and the Patriot Act failed to be renewed.

Pornography redefined

Long-time readers of this blog will be aware than I’m fascinated by the semiotics of pornography. Not by pornography itself; as I wrote in Why does porn got to hurt so bad? I find most pornography ugly and unappealing. No; I’m interested in the meaning of pornography, the code it’s written in and what it… Continue reading Pornography redefined

Published
Categorized as Sex

No War For Magnetite!

I contemplete this news story: Earth’s north magnetic pole is drifting away from North America and toward Siberia at such a clip that Alaska might lose its spectacular Northern Lights in the next 50 years, scientists said Thursday. The story goes on to say “exactly why this happens is a mystery”. No it isn’t, or… Continue reading No War For Magnetite!

Published
Categorized as Politics

Secret prisons

I’m having real trouble understanding the current flap over allegations that the CIA is running secret overseas prisons for terrorists and enemy combatants. I would prefer not to believe this is just another outbreak of reflexive anti-Americanism, but I don’t see any principled case against what is being alleged. Can anyone explain it to me?