It’s become fashionable to put down Barack Obama, just to compensate for the embarrassing fervor of his fans. But that too can go too far, and today I read something that reminded me what it is about him that genuinely appealed to me before he was a superstar. From an excellent Seattle Times column by [...]

When our children were little, their grandparents really liked talking “baby talk” to them. I’d watch as supposedly intelligent adults spent hours talking nonsense to unresponsive infants. Both baby and adult seemed to enjoy it. I hated it. Why? Because my wife and I were convinced that it stunted brain development. Because of that, and [...]

The title says it all. Key sentence: The payments now account for nearly half of the nation’s expanding agricultural subsidy system, a complex web that has little basis in fairness or efficiency. From the Washington Post.

Could this happen here? Government surveillance of all children, including information on whether they eat five portions of fruit and vegetables a day, will be condemned tomorrow as a Big Brother system. Changes being introduced since Victoria Climbié’s death from abuse include a £224 million database tracking all 12 million children in England and Wales [...]

Or is it that “the GOP and its media and energy constituencies will do everything they can to discredit attempts to deal with global warming or other issues that undermine their respective agendas. And they do it by playing the normal/weird card”? Jack Whelan at After the Future has a keen analysis of how the [...]

From the AP: WASHINGTON – Supporters of a guest worker program that would let illegal immigrants stay in the United States said Tuesday they don’t have enough Senate votes to overcome objections from conservatives who oppose the measure on grounds it amounts to amnesty. As negotiators worked on a compromise to let those who have [...]

Want 10K a month year for life after you turn 21? (I just corrected the month/year thing. BIG mistake. Thanks to Brainster for pointing it out.) Well, that’s the plan Charles Murray’s new book, In Our Hands : A Plan To Replace The Welfare State, puts forth and it is certainly intriguing…especially once you start [...]

The following happens every single day to millions of Americans. From the NY Times: Workers in some of Baltimore’s homeless shelters and soup kitchens had noticed something new and troubling about many of the visitors coming in for meals and shelter: they happened to have full-time jobs. So what do you do to make sure [...]

Listen, I agree that we should erect some sort of barrier to provide deterrence against people crossing the border. However, I disagree with the other measures he proposes because they are WAY too strict. We should be thinking about earned amensty for illegals who’ve joined our society, instead of prosecuting them, their families and anybody [...]

Knee jerk reaction coming up, but I think it’s significant to start talking about this right away. As I go over Alito’s record, there’s one case in particular that really doesn’t sit well with me this morning. I’m sure most of you could guess what that is, but it’s Planned Parenthood v. Casey. From SCOTUSblog: [...]

This is sure to make Indiana part of the “Are You Serious?” newscycle this week. Republican lawmakers are drafting new legislation that will make marriage a requirement for motherhood in the state of Indiana, including specific criminal penalties for unmarried women who do become pregnant “by means other than sexual intercourse.” According to a draft [...]

No, I didn’t spell that wrong. It’s simply how technology people choose to spell it… (NOTE: this might seem confusing, but the original title was War on Pr0n, but then I changed it back to Porn, but didn’t omit the striked sentence. Doh!) From the Wash Post. The new squad will divert eight agents, a [...]

Malcolm Gladwell, author of the best selling books The Tipping Point and Blink, points out an interesting correlation between poor dental health and poor people: People without health insurance have bad teeth because, if you’re paying for everything out of your own pocket, going to the dentist for a checkup seems like a luxury. It [...]

Robert G. Kaiser gets thinky in Helsinki and finds much to admire in Finland. Finland looks even more like the successful alternative-America than does Canada. Canada has been unfairly dragooned into that job by people too uncreative to study any nation they can’t get to by car, or people in such haste to beat up [...]

Recently I wrote about Omar Bakri Mohammed fleeing London for Lebanon after Tony Blair announced that terrorist sympathizers were going to be kicked out of the country. But now it seems that he’s had it so good in Britain, he’ll be back for the free medical care for his heart surgery. He receives £331.28 a [...]

Johann Hari advises fellow British citizens to question authority — even if the authority’s issue is multi-culturalism, and even if you don’t trust the motives of some of the other people who question it. Hari speaks from a particular perspective: I am the child of an immigrant myself, and I believe we should take more [...]

A new calculator/shaming device has been launched to show people how much they make when compared to the rest of the world’s population. Basically, the Global Rich List is a way to get you to donate money to CARE International. If after reading this you want to donate just one hour’s salary to fight global [...]

This is unfortunate. TWO fugitive London bombers have been living in Britain on state benefits, it emerged last night. Somalian Yasin Hassan Omar, 24, received £23,000 in housing benefit over six years while living at a flat in Southgate, North London, which was raided yesterday. Flatmate Muktar Said-Ibrahim tried to bomb a bus.

For as much as I hear around the blogosphere that we should be hearing more good news coming out of Baghdad, stories like this seem to give a more holistic view of the situation. Over 18 months, American officials spent almost $2 billion to revive the capital ravaged by war and neglect, according to Army [...]

The Counterterrorism Blog with a look at our ridiculous border control tactics: So far this year, the Border Patrol has apprehended some 119,000 non-Mexican illegal aliens along the SW border. That is an increase of 175% over last year, which was itself a record year for such apprehensions. What is the reason Homeland Security officials [...]