Conservatives deal with facts and reach conclusions; liberals have conclusions and sell them as facts.
Tom Rogan has very bravely done something I lack the courage to do: He watched the ISIS video of James Foley’s execution. (The video actually skips the complete execution, by going directly from the moment they begin sawing off Foley’s head to the moment when they place his head on
Continue readingWe are a tribal people, whether we like it or not. The brutal murder of thousands of Yazidis appropriately excites our horror and compassion, but the murder of reporter James Foley is a direct attack on us, rather than an attack on undeserving others. He is one of us: An American
Continue readingYesterday, the phone or the doorbell rang every 10-20 minutes all afternoon and evening. We had a rotating cast of characters for dinner, one of my dogs hid for the day, and the other dog barked itself into laryngitis. I have no complaints, as I like a social house, but
Continue readingOne of the things I’ve noticed about modern medicine is that, once doctors start poking around inside the human body, they find all sorts of things that aren’t picture perfect. I remember a long ago hearing an NPR story about a small town with a scary increase in the number of
Continue readingNo ruminations today. I’m just diving into the post: We have met the enemy, and it isn’t us, it’s ISIS One of the tocsins I’m relentlessly ringing on my “real me” Facebook is that what we’re seeing in the Middle East — in Syria, in Israel, in Iraq, in Egypt
Continue readingLast week, I posted this image: Some commenters at both my “real me” and my Bookworm Facebook rightly (and politely) pointed out that those who attack the Twin Towers are not the same people as those whom Israel is now fighting. Israel’s enemy calls itself Hamas, while al Qaeda was
Continue readingThis video has a few errors (there were no Starbucks in Beirut in the 1970s), but its overall points are correct. Israel is on the side of the angels. Hamas is not.
Continue readingI told my sister that I had reached out a few days ago to a relative in Israel, who assured me that she and her family, who live around Haifa, are currently far enough north that they’re not affected by the rockets. “What rockets?” asked my sister, who has been
Continue readingThe Watcher’s Council spoke last week, anointing winners, placers, and showers in both the Council and non-Council categories. As always, I couldn’t agree more with the outcome. If you haven’t already read the nominations, now is a good chance to do so. Also, the Watcher’s Council had a very interesting
Continue readingMy cousin, the former prison chaplain, has some more interesting words about Islam: Muslim agitators have us (meaning liberal democracies) over a barrel. We sincerely think that our proclamations of toleration, multi culturalism, free dialogue, and mutual understanding will bring cooperation and mutual respect. Muslims have repeatedly told us: We
Continue readingBarack Obama self-identifies as a Christian. He seems, though, to find Christianity troubling. Meanwhile, although he denies being a Muslim, he obviously finds it an emotionally and aesthetically attractive belief system. Why do I say this? Because someone was good enough to assemble a list of his statements about both religions,
Continue readingI spend a lot of time at this blog speaking critically of those Muslims who, even if they would never dream of committing acts of violence themselves, nevertheless make no effort to speak out against terrorism in Islam’s name. I’d therefore like to take a moment here to give a
Continue readingAll of the predictable people are expressing predictable outrage about the revelation that Roger Ailes once proposed what he thought was a clever way to keep the new World Trade Center from being the target of another Islamist terrorist attack. What he allegedly said was, “We should fill the last
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