It’s so hard…

…being a watchdog. This must now be the complaint of one guzzler at the public trough, Pentagon Inspector General Joseph E. Schmitz. Yes, an IG, whose sole function is to identify and stop fraud, waste, and abuse. Well, here’s one watchdog who is not only deaf, dumb and blind to waste, but [...]

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John Bolton in context

Context can be revealing of ground truths. The current opposition to John Bolton is at once ephemeral, and based on the foreign policy establishment’s longtime distate for us ugly Americans and our culture. As is often the case, the Wall Street Journal provides clarity on the true nature of Mr. Bolton’s opposition. [...]

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“go whack some guy”

The full quotation, from Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg, is “When Tony Soprano says go whack some guy, that’s not protected speech.”‘ That should be obvious, but apparently it is not to those who hate freedom, have a death wish, or both. Or perhaps are simply stupid. The context [...]

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The Nuclear Option

I suppose it’s all in how the question is put to the public. A poll taken by [lie follows] an unbiased organization [/lie ends], Washington Post-ABC News Poll, shows, according to the story’s headline, “Filibuster Rule Change Opposed” by “a strong majority of Americans.” As far as it goes, this is [...]

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A connection?

A connection, that is, between the number of criminals in prison and the crime rate. Well, in the category of things sometimes being just as they seem, we’ve got this story lead on the “soar[ing]” U.S. prison population:
While the U.S. crime rate has fallen over the past decade, the number of people in prison [...]

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Dog bites man

In what should be a scandal, but is just another day, another dog-bites-man story, we have this headline (Reuters via IOL): Saudis arrest 40 Christians for praying. The essence of the story:
Saudi Arabia has detained 40 Pakistani Christians for holding prayers at a house in the Muslim kingdom, where practicising any religion other than [...]

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“ends-oriented activist judge”

This is quite a charge, coming from one of the meanest and most liberal of senators, Pat Leahy of the Ben-and-Jerry’s State formerly known as Vermont. As if liberals could properly get their pro-death and statist agenda across were it put to the actual people they claim to represent. As if an activist [...]

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"Life"

Anyone who has read right-of-center blogs or conservative publications such as the Weekly Standard and National Review knows all-too-well of the selective use by the liberal media of what are usually called “scare quotes” around what would otherwise be an obvious English usage.
Reuters and their patent refusal to label terrorists as anything but “terrorists” comes [...]

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"nonconformism"

Consider this bit of wisdom from the new pope:
The obligation of the Christian is to recover the capacity for nonconformism.
This is provided in a rather snarky piece by E.J. Dionne, a reliably liberal voice on Catholic matters. Snarky how? Dionne continues to refer to Pope Benedict XVI as Ratzinger. But if [...]

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"dictatorship of relativism"

You’ve got to hand it to Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the late pope’s enforcer of orthodoxy in the Catholic Church. The phrase was part of a homily he delivered before the cardinals went into closed door session to choose the next pope. While especially relevant for matters of faith, the phrase may also [...]

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Mouth-frothing left

That would be Frank Rich (no relation, God be thanked), who was demoted to the op-ed page of the Gray Lady. Bill Safire left, and they replaced him with this? Well, it is the New York Times. In today’s marvel, Rich froths and at the mouth like the rabid lefty he is. [...]

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Good Pope, Bad Pope

If it weren’t so tiresome and predictable, the laments of Catholic “dissidents” would be amusing. Here are folks who for cultural and other reasons consider themselves to be Roman Catholic, yet have grave problems with what it means to be a Roman Catholic. What is also as predictable as hot weather in [...]

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Death and Taxes…

The only sure things? Except when it comes to liberal politicos who attempt a twofer. The estate tax, also known as the death tax, is on its way to a well-deserved death. The story, in the New York Times, seems to give equal time to both sides. And there’s the [...]

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Death and Taxes…

The only sure things? Except when it comes to liberal politicos who attempt a twofer. The estate tax, also known as the death tax, is on its way to a well-deserved death. The story, in the New York Times, seems to give equal time to both sides. And there’s the [...]

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Terror connection after all?

Last year, the angry left kept up the chant, “Bush lied, men died!” Usually followed by the scream, “Halliburton!”, which is angry leftie code for everything that they claim to be wrong with the universe. What the president is alleged to have lied about (and how come no conservative will ever get [...]

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“sometimes”

An innocuous word. Yet, as with so much in life, context is everything. The word appears in an editoral in today’s Washington Post, and the context is this:
The United States sometimes needs to stand up to rogue political appointees or gangs of autocrats at the United Nations (emphasis added)
So, in the worldview [...]

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I never touched him…

When is a handshake not a handshake? Apparently, when it involves one of the Axis of Evil’s surviving partners. The story is unremarkable, actually. Two world leaders, gathered together as part of a ceremony not directly involving either of the nations, greeting one another just as if they were both children [...]

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A Protestant View

The spectacle of the Pope’s funeral in Rome is both awe inspiring and, frankly, vulgar. John Paul was a great man, a man who walked in the way of the Fisherman…to a point. I seriously doubt that Jesus would have been much at home in the Vatican palaces, with the billions and billions [...]

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Darfur Accountability Act

This fairly modest piece of legislation is a good start, although the entities to which it would assign responsibilities are not likely to be effective. The Darfur Accountability Act, does, however, call genocide in Sudan by its proper name.
Very few mainstream media heavies seem to have noticed that an Arab government [...]

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JPII – A great difficulty

John Paul II was a mighty man, although he suffered from one great difficulty — he was a faithful disciple of Christ. Being Catholic and faithful to his church, JPII was, indeed, a modern rock, a Peter, beaten about by the tides of trendy and destructive forces. What would be amusing, [...]

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