From the AP: Ashtrays have been disappearing in cars like fins on Cadillacs, and so could smoking while driving in New Jersey, under a measure introduced in the Legislature. Although the measure faces long odds, it still has smokers incensed and arguing it’s a Big Brother intrusion that threatens to take away one of the few places they can enjoy their habit. “The day a politician wants to tell me

From the WSJ (subscribers only, so I’ll quote at length): In his two years on the appeals bench, Supreme Court nominee John Roberts has authored about 40 opinions, but it’s a one-and-a-half page dissent that has Ted Kennedy fulminating. The Senator from Massachusetts is outraged about a Commerce Clause case called Rancho Viejo v. Norton, which, in the Kennedy legal interpretation, threatens “Social Security, Medicare, the minimum wage” and the

1.  First, re-read my original post on “Why Rhetoric Matters”.  2.  Then, go here and read how that post is packaged and presented by a guardian of the “reality-based community.” Pay particular attention to how the author alters my terminology and, in a stunning display of intelletual ineptitude, manages to miss the entire thrust of the argument. 3.  Return here, scratch head / weep for the country, and discuss. ****

It occurs to me that I’ve yet to comment on the now infamous (and oft misrepresented) Tom Tancredo remarks concerning potential US military responses to a WMD attack on American soil—remarks that a number of rightwing bloggers (as well as just about every blogger on the left side of the ‘sphere, given the subject matter) have been quick to criticize—often quite forcefully. Thankfully, Juliette, Instapunk, Froggy, and Allah have saved

Blogging will of necessity be light today as I sit back and allow baseball and fresh air to act as a sort of mental sorbet, cleansing my brain of this bit of Atrios idiocy, in which the crowned prince of anti-Bush cant and his band of verbose cheerleaders manages to blame the shooting of a London terror suspect (who turned out to be nothing more than an illegal running from

I wonder if all those who’ve spent the last month wringing their hands over the Valerie Plame “leak”—in particular, those thousands upon thousands of progressives suddenly so concerned with protecting “covert” CIA agents and enforcing the Espionage Act that they’re willing to do so at the expense of the free flow of information inside the beltway—are going to express their outrage over this. BECAUSEOFTHEHYPOCRISY! Sure, it’s thinly sourced story—and the

I’m just spitballing here, but how close is Aruba to the Bermuda Triangle, anyway…?

…And Leaning to the Right wants to know why we’re not “all Egyptians now.” Well, I certainly can’t speak for everyone, but for my part it’s because of the rampant anti-semitism in Egypt, and the fact that they don’t have many Jewish citizens.  But the innocent victims of the terror attacks are in my thoughts and prayers, nevertheless. For detailed coverage of the attacks and their aftermath, keep visting here.

From the Times Online (UK): On his last visit to relatives in Pakistan this year, one of the London bombers, Shehzad Tanweer, boasted of wanting to die in a revenge attack over the way Muslims are treated. While his family in Leeds had no idea about his suicide mission, Tanweer confessed to his cousin his ambition to become a “holy warrior”. At his father’s home village 30 miles from Faisalabad,

1.  The latest news in Nadagate involves a State Department memo, Ari Fleischer, the Washington Post, the New York Times, a gaggle of (un)subpoenaed reporters and subpoenaed White House records, Bloomberg News, the scarlet letter “S”, Murray Waas—and now, former CIA analyst Mel Goodman, last seen, after signing this letter the left is using to trumpet the seriousness of Rove’s “crime” (I’m still not at all convinced any such crime—or