A Curious Little Blog

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...

I don't try to be disagreeable, but I seem to come out on the minority side of issues an awful lot.  Two such issues came up in the past week, so I thought I would give my side of the story in both of them. The first is the article Portis voices ugliness in NFL culture by Dan Wetzel.  The issue concerns comments made by Redskins running back Clinton Portis about having a female sports reporter in the Redskins' locker room after a game.  After playing football for 3 hours and getting sweaty and dirty, the first thing players do in the locker room is get a shower and change into regular clothes.  Male reporters have been going into locker rooms for years to get interviews right after the game, but when female reporters started to enter the scene, some players objected.  This is not a new issue:  there was an incident back in 1990 involving the New England Patriots' locker room and tight end Zeke Mowatt .  Some Patriots' players complained that report...

My eldest son, who is 10, has become extremely intereted in professional wrestling.  This is bad for so many reasons.  Even the good guys on wrestling make terrible role models for the most part, especially the constant bragging and trash talk.  Even worse is the false idea of violence that wrestling gives.  I'm not opposed to violence in principle, but I don't want my son to think that you can hit someone over the head repeatedly with a blunt object and he will still be able to get back up a minute later to keep fighting.  I fear that such a false impression might cause someone to do permanent damage under the impression that he is just doing normal wrestling stuff. I also enjoyed professional wrestling when I was 10.  It's understandable at that age.  But when the camera pans around the audience and shows normal-looking adults in the audience, it concerns me.  I'm not sure which is worse:  that they think the fighting is real, or that, th...