Paul Musgrave, writing for The Hoosier Review, says that I can’t draw. How Paul Musgrave, writing for The Hoosier Review, presumes to know this is anybody’s guess — given that Paul Musgrave doesn’t know me from Adam. Fact is, I can draw quite well. Quite well. And I’ve never, to my knowledge, said otherwise — either to Paul Musgrave, The Hoosier Review, or anyone affiliated in any way with either.

Hollywood maverick Rod Steiger died today. He was 77.

So I’m gonna take off here in a little while to go get myself a copy of The Royal Tenenbaums on DVD. Then I’m going to watch it. And I might even watch it while enjoying some strong, chilled hooch. Blogging will no doubt suffer for it. Along those lines (he said, attempting a rather hamfisted segue), here are a couple of links to The Weekly Standard’s amusing Point/Counterpoint debate

Anybody catch the most recent Red Neck olympics? ‘Cause you missed some good stuff if not, I can tell you that much. For instance, I saw some sum’bitch spit a watermelon seed 147 yards into an old Crisco can — without even taking the piece of straw he was chewing on out of his mouth! Granted, the banjo pickin’, cousin bangin’, stockcar racin’ “triathelon” struck me as kinda strange —

Writing in the National Review, Jonah Goldberg takes on Stanley Fish (and postmodernism more generally), reacting to Fish’s recent Harper’s cover piece, “Postmodern Warfare: The ignorance of our warrior intellectuals.” Writes Goldberg: […] what’s set me off is Fish’s claim that postmodernism is simply “a rarefied form of academic talk.” Fish would have people believe that postmodernism is simply what postmodernists do in their hidden English-department laboratories. Well, not only

“Australia — the rugged land of the Outback, famously shark-infested waters, and an inscrutable version of football whose basic point seems to be inflicting physical punishment — is now threatening to become the free world

Adrian Melott, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas in Lawrence and a founding board member of Kansas Citizens for Science, writes, “Intelligent Design Is Creationism in a Cheap Tuxedo.” In Physics Today. [via Arts&Letters Daily]

Well, here’s a shocker*: An EU study concludes that Globalization reduces poverty. From Reuters: Far from creating poverty as critics claim, rapid globalization of the world economy has sliced the proportion of abject poor across the planet, according to a controversial new study released on Monday. It says that freer commerce, epitomized by the cutting of tariffs and the lifting of trade barriers, has boosted economic growth and lifted the

Here’s a thoughtful bit from Jay Nordlinger’s latest NRO “Impromptus” column: One thing the people around John Ashcroft will tell you is that we are in an uncertain new world, and we are sort of feeling our way around, as far as rights, reactions, and protection are concerned. Those most knowledgeable about the law have the greatest sympathy for what the Justice Department is facing. Those who are ignorant simply

Charles Krauthammer says should MLB players strike again, he ain’t coming back to the game this time. As a baseball nut (and an addicted fantasy leaguer), I’m not sure I could stay away — though another strike would go a long way toward pushing me toward permanent withdrawal. Writes Krauthammer: The players have it made. And they’re ready to strike to keep it that way. They think that the fans