And besides, who would we rob the next year?

Pajama TV’s (and Declaration Entertainment’s) Bill Whittle, working with material from the always readable Iowahawk, doing a little ‘splainin’ about why the schemes of Michael Moore (and others on the left) to confiscate the wealth of the wealthy to solve the nation’s funding problems are simply useless, irrational – and dangerous – harangues. Note that this presentation doesn’t even touch on the debt problem, but solely on annual spending – nor does it really address the moral issues around the confiscatory “solutions,” but one thing at a time, I suppos...

The unique depravity of willfully murdering your own flesh and blood for the sake of a hassle-free orgasm

Quote of the Day for Friday, April 15th, 2011: Edward Feser, blogging recently on the perceived phenomenon of what he calls the “temporizing bishop,” operating in an ecclesial milieu afraid to be seen as “reactionary” in the eyes of the modern, liberal establishment: Homosexuality and abortion he cannot keep silent about, because they are matters of current political controversy.  Regarding homosexuality, then, he will issue a vague statement to the effect that the Church believes that we are all called to honor the Creator’s plan for sex and marria...

The idea of the good is the highest knowledge

Quote of the Day for Saturday, April 2nd, 2011: Socrates on the knowledge of the good, in Plato’s Republic (Book VI, Jowett translation): When little things are elaborated with an infinity of pains, in order that they may appear in their full beauty and utmost clearness, how ridiculous is it that we should not think the highest truths worthy of attaining the highest accuracy! … [Y]ou have often been told that the idea of the good is the highest knowledge, and that all other things become useful and advantageous only by their use of this. . . [Witho...

Teens don’t even have an authority to rebel against

Quote of the Day for April Fools’ Day, 2011: Townhall.com columnist Kathryn Lopez, writing last week on the appalling apparel that dominates the American teen girl’s consumer environment: Two generations, in other words, are feeling the pain of the feminism that has wreaked havoc on the sexes, leaving us with a boundary-free horizon where teens don’t even have an authority to rebel against. I grabbed this quote not because I thought the article was all that interesting, but because Lopez nails a tremendously important point here about the repercuss...

No Child Left Unbooted in Natick

Natick, MA Superintendent of Schools Dr. Peter Sanchioni, putting a whole lot of clever lipstick earlier this month on a “looky what I found!” decision to raid a high school construction project’s (borrowed) contingency fund to underwrite – with tax dollars – a newly discovered necessity for educating teenagers: personal laptops for everyone: "What we feel, and the case we’re going to make to the MSBA, is that they’ve totally underestimated what a technology budget should be in a 21st century school," Sanchioni said. "We don...

An article that was never worth dying for

Quote of the Day for Wednesday, March 23rd, 2011: From a New York Times article, published on Boston.com, from four Times’ reporters who had just been released from several days of captivity in the loony bin of wartime Libya, relaying some of the details of their ordeal, including this moment of realization that their Libyan driver had likely been killed by the soldiers who’d captured them: From the pickup, Lynsey saw a body lying next to our car, one arm outstretched. We still don’t know whether that was Mohammed. We fear it was, though his body has yet...

The mind is dulled, not fed, by inordinate reading

Quote of the Day for Tuesday, March 8th, 2011: More from A. G. Sertillanges’ The Intellectual Life, from the section “Reading” in the chapter “Preparation for Work,” on “not reading much” as a prerequisite to intellectual vitality: What we are proscribing is the passion for reading, the uncontrolled habit, the poisoning of the mind by excess of mental food, the laziness in disguise which prefers easy familiarity with others’ thought to personal effort. The passion for reading which many pride themselves on as a precious intellectual quality, is in realit...

In each case the body count was in the millions

Quote of the day for Sunday, March 6th, 2011: Newsweek is one of the last places I’d expect to find sober political commentary (maybe being sold for $1 has stunned the company out of its indulgent stupor!), but this on-line article last week from Niall Ferguson, entitled Un-American Revolutions, is one of the sanest opinions I’ve read on the tumult shaking the Muslim world: Time and again, Americans have hailed revolutions, only to fall strangely silent as those same revolutions proceeded to devour not only their own children but many other people’s too....

Sympathy is the Gift of Self

Quote of the Day for Wednesday, March 2nd, 2011: Another passage from A. G. Sertillanges’ The Intellectual Life (pg. 130): But there is something else still more important, namely, to submit not only to the discipline of work, but to the discipline of truth. This submission to truth is the binding condition for communion with it. Prompt obedience is what invites it to visit us. To this sacred meeting we must bring a respectful soul. Truth will not give itself to us unless we are first rid of self and resolved that it shall suffice us. The intelligence wh...

“Libyans don’t want anyone but Gadhafi. He gave us loans.”

Quote of the Day for Saturday, February 26th, 2011: From an AP story by Maggie Michael and Ben Hubbard, as posted on boston.com this afternoon: Supporters in about 50 cars covered with Gadhafi posters drove slowly around the square, waving green flags from the windows and honking horns. A camera crew filmed the procession. A taxi driver, Nasser Mohammed, 25, was among those who had put a picture of Gadhafi and a green flag on his car. "Have you heard the speech last night?" he asked. "It was great. Libyans don’t want anyone but Gadha...