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LIKELIHOOD OF CONFUSIONPosted by Ron Coleman on December 5, 2007
I once fancied myself something of a neo-victorian. Perhaps there’s something to that. As Harvey says:
The venerable Archbishop of Canterbury has criticized America’s imperialism, saying that the United States wields its power in a way that is worse than Britain during its imperial heyday.
I find myself agreeing with him.
Me too. Read why.
Posted in Americana, Jocularity, Past is prologue | 2 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 5, 2007
The New Yorker considers the question. Excerpt:
Albany is the arbiter in New York’s ceaseless upstate-downstate tug-of-war, which simultaneously pits rural Republicans against big-city liberals, and Rust Belt Democrats against supply-side suburbanites. The proliferation of cross-purposes and strange bedfellows makes for pernicious and complicated arbitrating. This is one (but far from the only) reason that Albany is home to what may be the most dysfunctional state government in the nation.
There they go again. Why does New Jersey never get any respect?! NB: Smarty-pants Ivy boy Spitzer misuses the word enormity early on — and it evidently whizzes right past the New Yorker. No respect for anything in this world!
Posted in Metropolis, Politics and Poker | 1 Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 4, 2007
Here’s what it looks like when people really — really — know what they’re talking about. On both sides of an issue. In this case, the issue is Guantanamo.
(Via Glenn.)
Posted in Lex scripta | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 4, 2007
[Stairway to Heaven] song is not just atypical of Zeppelin’s music, it is unique among their epic tracks in that it privileges melodic/lyrical development at the expense of rhythmic exploration and timbral/psychoacoustic experimentation.
Yeah, well, sure. Actually he makes some great points about what I’ve always considered the album-rock anthem of the ’70’s and how it both did and undid Led Zeppelin, as well as this surprise truism: “As Erik Davis points out in his unsurpassed book on the fourth album, ‘Stairway’ is so familiar to us that it’s a real challenge to listen to it.”
True. My “favorite song” as a teenager, I can’t stand it any more.
Posted in Ars Longa | 9 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 4, 2007
Posted in Homo sapiens | Leave a Comment »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 4, 2007
Frank J losing his lunch over Mike Huckabee:
Ahh man; he’s on FOX News right now arguing for the closing of Gitmo. Whoever started the Huckabee train, please hit the brakes.
Slam!
UPDATE: More unhappiness.
Posted in Politics and Poker | 4 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 4, 2007
From Shannon Love, the distaff-side “Chicago Boy” :
Instapundit links to an article by Melanie Scarborough that purports to show that either a telecom engineer or the Bush administration is lying about the domestic “wiretapping” with the clear implication that Bush is the liar.
Unfortunately, her premise is based on a complete misunderstanding of how modern telecommunication works. Both parties are telling the truth.
It depends on the actual, physical, boots-on-the-ground facts. Something that journalists, and a lot of the rest of us, hardly ever care about before slinging our opinions.
Posted in Americana, Medialites, Nuvo-Techno | 3 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 4, 2007
I was shocked when I got an email from Princeton a couple of weeks ago announcing a new fundraising drive. Old Nassau wants to raise $1.75 billion. That’s new money, folks. Hardly surprising, according to BusinessWeek.com (via Above the Law):
The $5.7 billion in investment gains generated by Harvard’s endowment for the year that ended June 30 exceeded the total endowment assets of all but six U.S. universities, five of which were Ivy Plus: Yale, Stanford, Princeton, MIT, and Columbia.
The article is probably wrong about how austerely earlier generations of Ivy Leaguers and their ilk lived — I wouldn’t say they did at all, based on contemporary standards, and in some respects they still lived better than today’s college kids. Through the ’80’s Williams College students still had their beds made for them by chambermaids.
But something’s way out of whack here.
Posted in Americana, Gelt | 7 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 4, 2007
The Jerusalem Post reports on a story that proves that environmentalists’ tunnel vision and 
tin ear to public sympathy is more or less universal:
In a campaign that has spread like wildfire across the Internet, a group of Israeli environmentalists is encouraging Jews around the world to light at least one less candle this Hanukka to help the environment.
The founders of the Green Hanukkia campaign found that every candle that burns completely produces 15 grams of carbon dioxide. If an estimated one million Israeli households light for eight days, they said, it would do significant damage to the atmosphere.
“The campaign calls for Jews around the world to save the last candle and save the planet, so we won’t need another miracle,” said Liad Ortar, the campaign’s cofounder, who runs the Arkada environmental consulting firm and the Ynet Web site’s environmental forum.
Well, this campaign is sure to get support from England, France and of course the Muslim world — see, everything really is the Jews’ fault! Fifteen grams of CO2 per Jew!
What dim bulbs.
Posted in Faith and Works, Sisyphus | 5 Comments »
Posted by Ron Coleman on December 4, 2007
Robert Spencer has a … “road map,” let’s call it:
At the [Islamaphobia] Conference these wise souls will spend two days bemoaning hostility directed at Muslims and scratching their heads over why anyone might be upset with them. And although the participants will no doubt enjoy the two days in Constantinople, I could save them the trip. In the next two minutes, I will solve the problem of “Islamophobia,” right here, right now. That’s right! And there is nothing up my sleeve, ladies and gentlemen!In the first place, attacks on innocent civilians are never justified. Louts, thugs and vigilantes have no excuse, and anyone who targets random Muslims and commits violence against them deserves to be punished to the full extent of the law.
But if one wants to understand why it is happening, and what can be done to end it, no two-day star-studded conference is needed — unless, of course, that conference is meant to highlight the victim status of Muslims and divert attention from jihad terror activity. if Muslims want to end “Islamophobia” instantaneously, here’s how they can do it:
Go there and read it.
Posted in Faith and Works, Oppression, Sisyphus | Leave a Comment »
