I recently wrote about Patch, the Hemingway cat we adopted when she had serious medical problems after giving birth. She had two kittens. This is one of them, Jean, a quiet cat who loves the warmth the satellite TV receiver produces. Like her mother, she has very soft, rabbit-like fur. She accepts attention but doesn’t really seek it out, at least from me; she prefers … Continue reading Feline Friday: Jean
I’ve worried before about the similarities between the present and the 1970s. Allan Meltzer sees the parallels, and worries that the Federal Reserve is duplicating the errors of the 1970s that led to stagflation. He foresees significant inflation, as do I. Rich Karlgaard prescribes the cure—slowing the growth of the money supply, restoring strength to the dollar, and cutting taxes—that worked to cure us back … Continue reading Back to the 70s, Again
Jonah Goldberg captures the political half of the course I’m now teaching precisely: I think the fundamental difference, the difference that defines the difference between American, Anglo-American conservatives and European welfare states, leftists or liberals, is Locke versus Rousseau. Every philosophical argument boils down to John Locke versus Jacques Rousseau. Locke holds that we have natural rights, rights that inhere in us as human beings … Continue reading Locke v. Rousseau
Victor Davis Hanson talks about the forgotten Americans, people who take on mortgages they can afford, don’t borrow against the value of their houses, don’t go deeply into debt to buy cars, boats, vacation houses, etc., and, in short, live their lives responsibly. These are the people Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama want to tax to bail out those who are in some cases unlucky … Continue reading Forgotten Americans
Ilya Somin makes the case against government subsidies for college tuition at the Volokh Conspiracy. His point is that the higher-than-inflation increases in the cost of college over the past forty years are justified by the even greater increases in expected returns on a college education. According to a 2002 Census Bureau study, a college graduate, on average, earns $1,000,000 more than a high school … Continue reading The Cost of a College Education
…may be one step closer. BBC reports (HT: Jihad Watch): Turkey is preparing to publish a document that represents a revolutionary reinterpretation of Islam – and a controversial and radical modernisation of the religion…. Its supporters say the spirit of logic and reason inherent in Islam at its foundation 1,400 years ago are being rediscovered. Some believe it could represent the beginning of a reformation … Continue reading An Islamic Reformation…
Legendary Pittsburgh Steelers broadcaster Myron Cope died today in Mount Lebanon. Continue reading In Memoriam: Myron Cope
William F. Buckley, Jr., has died at his home in Connecticut. UPDATE: This makes me feel a bit better about the condition of my own office. Continue reading In Memoriam: William F. Buckley, Jr.
Muslim medical workers in Great Britain are refusing to sanitize their forearms for religious reasons. To wash according to guidelines, some Muslim women say, forces them to bare their forearms up to the elbow, which, they think, is forbidden by Islam. (HT: Lydia McGrew) Dr. Semmelweis discovered the significance of sanitizing hands and arms in 1847—some 1,215 years after the death of Mohammed. Requiring medical … Continue reading May I Have Another Doctor?
Paul Mirengoff points out that, if Barack Obama is a centrist, he’s one with no one to his left. He recounts a number of instances in which Obama has sided with the most extreme of the Senate’s Democrats. Here are ratings from a variety of activist groups, indicating that in 2005 Barack Obama, Dick Durban, and Tom Harkin were the three most liberal Senators. And … Continue reading “With No One to His Left”
The View from Alexandria 