Monthly Archives: January 2013
January 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
If you want to know the basic facts about “assault rifles” and “assault weapons,” this primer by Regis Giles at Girls Just Wanna Have Guns is an excellent summary. Giles’s exhortation to young women not to be victims was one of the highlights of CPAC 2011. An excerpt: The second correct definition of an assault rifle is based on cosmetic features set by politicians. These rifles are all semi-automatic, or
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January 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
I don’t believe we have written anything about the terrorist attack on the Algerian gas plant at Ain Amenas. News accounts have generally been sketchy, but with the siege now over, more details have emerged. The Associated Press reports: Algerian bomb squads scouring a gas plant where Islamist militants took dozens of foreign workers hostage found 25 more bodies on Sunday as they searched for explosive traps left behind by
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January 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
We saw a terrific evening of fights last night at the Minneapolis Convention Center. The main event featured local middleweights Caleb Truax and Matt Vanda; I previewed their bout here. We had a table in the interior section of the arena near the ring. You needed credentials to get there, like at a political convention: Our guests included a professional boxer and a long-time fight fan who formerly covered Minnesota
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January 20, 2013 — John Hinderaker
On Meet the Press this morning, Chuck Schumer promised that this year, Democrats will finally adopt a budget: The third-ranking Senate Democrat says Democrats will pass a budget proposal this year that includes new taxes and “our Republican colleagues had better get used to that fact.” Word is that the Republicans will agree to raise the debt ceiling for 90 days if the Democrats will agree, in return, to pass
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January 20, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Ahmad Hashemi worked for the Iranian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as an English, Turkish and occasionally Arabic interpreter. He is now a refugee from the regime. The Times of Israel has posted Hashemi’s testimony regarding the aims of the regime under the heading “Don’t be fooled: Iran wants the bomb.” It’s a timely reminder of a development that will likely come to fruition or be dealt with during Obama’s second
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January 20, 2013 — Scott Johnson
In May 2010 we posted a report on (Democratic) Michigan Supreme Court Justice Diane Hathaway under the heading “Tall tale for a short sale.” With the assistance of reader and Philadelphia attorney Martin Karo, who provided an account better than any to be found in the press either now or then, we noted that Hathaway had “screwed her bank and the taxpayers who bailed it out.” We quoted Steve Fishman,
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January 19, 2013 — Steven Hayward
Churchill’s description of Hitler’s autobiography Mein Kampf, written in his World War II memoirs in 1948, includes a comparison with contemporary significance: All was there—the programme of German resurrection, the technique of party propaganda; the plan for combatting Marxism; the concept of the National-Socialist State; the rightful position of Germany at the summit of the world. Here was the new Koran of faith and war: turgid, verbose, shapeless, but pregnant
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January 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I saw this out of the corner of my eye on one of the cable news channels yesterday. All I can say is it made me laugh. I kept waiting for the follow-up question: And whom did you vote for? I guess we can draw our own inferences. Or does that mistake the genre of the video? At Hot Air, Allahpundit calls it “a psychological experiment in serial form.” Pending
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January 19, 2013 — Steven Hayward
One of the wonderful things about Fox News is how it drives the Left out of their minds. Talk about having no sense of proportion: even though Fox kills CNN and MSNBC in the ratings, Fox News’s viewership is still just a fraction of audience for the nightly news broadcasts of the Big Three legacy networks, which I confess I still watch for the pure schadenfreude of seeing the unstoppable
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January 19, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Last night, Brian Ward and I covered the good–a terrific interview with Roger Simon and his wife Sheryl Longin–the bad–Lance Armstrong–and the ugly–the bizarre controversy over Manti Teo’s nonexistent girlfriend. This is how Brian described the podcast over at Ricochet: The Hinderaker-Ward Experience (HWX) podcast returns for a special Friday night edition. Over some Sierra Nevada Ruthless Rye and a hardcore brandy and eggnog, the boys bump their heads up
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January 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
I want to draw your attention to Judy Shelton’s article “Money in bad faith,” in the new issue of the Weekly Standard out this morning. The Fed’s QE-Infinity project cannot end well. In my opinion, it should remain near the top of the reasonable man’s list of worries. Shelton writes: If we want to preserve the morality of a free-market system, we cannot permit our central bank to carry out
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January 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
Phil Everly — the younger of the Everly Brothers — turns 74 today; older brother Don Everly will turn 76 next month. In the Cosmic American Music the Everly Brothers have a constellation all to themselves. They brought the close harmony singing of traditional country music into the mainstream of American popular music. More than a few great musicians learned harmony singing by listening to their records. In his multimedia
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January 19, 2013 — Scott Johnson
One would like to think that liberal self-mockery informs the cover of the new online edition of Newsweek, tied to Evan Thomas’s cover story. Or perhaps an allusion to Yeats’s great poem, asking “what rough beast, its hour come round at last/Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?” Or perhaps the liberals at Newsweek/Daily Beast recognize that, like Communism, liberalism has become a secular religion. Or perhaps, as Brent Baker suggests,
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January 18, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Tomorrow night the biggest Minnesota boxing event of 2013 will take place: long-time favorite Matt Vanda will challenge Caleb Truax for the Minnesota middleweight championship. And, for the first time ever, I will be at ringside. The heavily-tattoed Vanda has both won and lost a lot of fights; his record is 44-14. But he has fought some big-time boxers, like Julio Cesar Chavez, twice. Six years ago, he battled Tony
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January 18, 2013 — John Hinderaker
There are a number of liars in the news these days–Lance Armstrong, Manti Teo (or somebody), and more. Michael Ramirez lines up three notorious liars: My only suggestion is that he could have included Jack Lew. UPDATE: I can’t resist a personal note. My youngest daughter got home from school a few minutes ago–8:15 on a Friday night, a sign of the times–and reported that she got a perfect score
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January 18, 2013 — John Hinderaker
The folks at Intellectual Takeout sent us this image, which they describe as their most popular ever: As Steve might say: Discuss.
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January 18, 2013 — John Hinderaker
Chuck Hagel has acquired another dubious supporter in his bid to become Secretary of Defense: former Alaska Senator Mike Gravel. Gravel’s political history is checkered, to say the least. He served two terms as a Democratic senator from Alaska, and eventually joined the Libertarian Party. Gravel first became known as a rabid opponent of the Vietnam war. In later years, he bitterly opposed the Iraq war and has expressed support
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