A Curious Little Blog

Anyone following the debt-ceiling debate who is old enough to remember 1995 is bound to be thinking about it.  The Republicans had just won big in the off-year elections of a Democratic president, and their very first budget resulted in a showdown.  In that case, the Democrat won big, and was able to get re-elected in 1996. As a Republican, you have to be worried about this.  I am surprised to see them challenging Obama in a way that mirrors the negotiations with Clinton 16 years ago so closely.  Their position isn't even as strong now as it was then:  at that time, they controlled both houses of Congress.  Moreover, they did exactly what I would have recommended, which is to pass a budget and dare the president to veto it.  Then, I thought, the resulting government shutdown would clearly be Clinton's fault, and he would get the blame.  Instead, Clinton simply said that the Republicans needed to send him a bill "that I can sign," and for some re...

I have always liked the word "unicorn" for some reason that eludes me.  It just sounds beautiful.  And yet, why do we call it a unicorn?  The name is from Latin, "unus" = one, "cornus" = horn (e.g. cornucopia).  Every other animal, it seems, gets its name from Greek roots.  Thus, we have the hippopotamus, not the equuflumen, and the rhinoceros, not the nasocorn.  Dinosaurs have Greek names, too:  stegasaurus, "roof lizard," brachiosaurus, "arm lizard," and triceratops, "three-horn face."  (Although I should mention the oddity of tyrannosaurus rex:  tyrannosaurus is Greek for "tyrant lizard," but rex is Latin for "king."  Tyrannosaurus basileus, anyone?)  Even other mythical creatures usually have names of Greek origin, such as the phoenix and the chimera. According to Wikipedia, source of all knowledge, the unicorn originated in Greek myth.  Why, therefore, does it get a Latin name, unlike almost every ot...

I was reading some Democrats lamenting the loss of such an obviously great guy as Anthony Weiner as a public servant just because he cheated on his wife.  But wait, they say, he didn't even cheat; he just flirted.  And I had to ask myself whether what he did was worthy of losing his seat in Congress.  (Whether we are talking about removal by Democratic leadership or by his constituents is immaterial to me; I just want to establish whether we would want someone in Congress who did what he did.) Weiner has made it easy on us because of his reaction to the affair's discovery:  not only denying it (that is natural, albeit wrong), but actively accusing Andrew Breitbart of smearing him.  Anybody who can lie so baldly definitely deserves to be out of Congress, Republican or Democrat. Then there is the question of whether he knowingly flirted with underage girls, as it appears he may have come on to a high school student that he met at a rally.  Then there is t...

Obama finally decided to end the controversy about his birth by releasing his birth certificate.  This can only mean one thing:  he felt it was hurting his popularity.  He had a legitimate birth certificate all along.  Being an American citizen is a requirement for the presidency, and some people were questioning whether he qualified.  He was actually spending money to defend himself against lawsuits that requested him to prove his citizenship by releasing the birth certificate.  I thought the most likely explanation for his stubborness was that there was something embarrassing on the birth certificate -- perhaps it named him a Muslim -- that he didn't want made public.  Since there isn't, the only logical explanation is that he refused to release it because he wanted to keep alive the meme that his opponents consisted, at least in part, of nut cases.  (Well, everyone politician's opponents consist in part of nut cases, but let us say, a larger pr...

It's the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War (actually earlier this month, but it is being celebrated the whole year), and with it comes a whole new debate about the Confederacy, the right of secession, and the use of the Confederate flag today.  While most people probably associate Southern apologists with conservatives, I have been seeing many attacks on the Confederacy and the flag from conservative sources, one of which goes so far as to nominate Jefferson Davis as the worst person in American history.  It probably is true that most Southern apologists are conservative, but it is apparently far from true that most conservatives are Southern apologists. This is unfortunate, because the case for secession is at the core a case for liberty.  This is, of course, a controversial statement, but I think a defensible one -- in fact, the only logical one.  Here, then, is a brief but long-considered defense of the Confederate States of America. The CSA st...

What is it with Qaddafi?  He's been dictator for over 40 years, and he's still only a colonel?  Did it never occur to him to promote himself to general? I enjoy issues like Libya -- not for their content (killing is bad), but because neither liberals nor conservatives have pre-conceived notions about what should happen.  Therefore, both sides are divided and everyone is scrambling to come up with a coherent position.  It gives everyone a chance to think, which is nice for a change.

I regret, in a way, that Terry Jones did not go through with his plan to burn the Koran on the anniversary of 9/11.  I normally prefer to avoid provocative gestures, but the overreaction to his announcement was so thorough that I found myself rooting for him to complete it.  It was hard, I imagine, for liberals to condemn him in good conscience, since they have such an absolute ideal of free speech that includes, even promotes, provocative gestures against Christianity; nevertheless, they did so.  Conservatives have long advocated positions of "you have a right to say it, but I don't think it a good idea" (along with "I don't think the government should fund you"), so I wasn't surprised to see them objecting.  I was surprised, however, at seeing Jones condemned so uniformly in such drastic language.  National Review was all over him, including editor Jonah Golberg, who called it "stupid, irresponsible, and repugnant." Let's think about i...