For a variety of reasons, I'm taking a bit of time off from blogging on current events, and focusing on other aspects of my life. The blog will stay up, and I will probably post something from time to time when there's something I'm particularly moved to write about, but there are other things more important than blogging for now.
Clearly, the network news folks need a remedial course on conducting intelligence gathering operations…either that, or they need to get out of the spy business. Apparently, a reporter for NBC attempted to go undercover to secretly record attendees at the DefCon security conference , and apparently did so even after having been asked when she arrived if she wanted a press pass, or to review the rules and regs of the conference for press. She refused both, then excused herself to go to the bathroom...
Time to fire up the fear engine: With another summer upon us, the media is again abuzz with news about the West Nile virus. News agencies across the nation are offering tips and advice on how to avoid contracting the disease. Advice ranges from the pragmatic (drain water on your property) to the impracticable (limit time outside at dawn and dusk, when mosquitoes are most active). Innumerable experts have been consulted and their consensus is clear: be afraid, very afraid. So begins a column from...
Perhaps I'm just old-fashioned, though I'm not yet 40, but isn't there something a bit strange about a waiter who thinks that it's OK to plop down at the table with you while taking your order? This happened to me last night while I was out with my family at a Cheesecake Factory restaurant, so it's not like it was some crazy theme restaurant, or a local diner where we were regulars. And as it happened, apart from his difficulty recognizing boundaries, our waiter was attentive, funny, and very helpful...
In the immediate aftermath of the Virginia Tech murders, I had numerous conversations with a friend of mine who graduated from VT. One of the points I made to him was regarding the response of the students was to wonder whether the "don't resist" policy we've been teaching for years really made sense anymore. My friend argued that the students were just following normal instincts, while I contended that culture and our attitudes towards guns played into it, too. Via Instapundit , I found an article...
...as if any more were necessary. Behold... Cooking with Bubba ! And as a side note, has there ever been another former elected official who was more of an attention junkie than Bubba? Really, I think he was always more interesed in being the Celebrity in Chief (thus the "boxers vs. briefs moment, playing sax on Arsenio, etc.) than in actually running the country. If only that were the case with Hillary...then we could just get her Rosie's slot on The View, and not have to worry about the disastrous...
According to this story , USC students disarmed and held for police a fellow student who had been asked to leave a party and who had threatened a woman. After 9/11, our collective attitude about hijacked airplanes changed. No longer could we assume (if we ever could) that the hijackers would release their captives if their demands were met. If, in the aftermath of the Virginia Tech shootings, we recognize that we cannot trust our safety to the unknown intentions of an armed assailant, I think that...
An awful thing happened at VT this week. A clearly unhinged person murdered more than 30 people, and in that act, demonstrated once again the inanity of the notion that policies against guns at schools, or banning guns in general, do nothing to prevent those who flout the law from committing heinous acts. Of course, there's no guarantee that if someone at the scene had been armed they would have been able to stop this madman, but can anyone doubt it would have improved the odds? This VT grad student...
In an earlier post , I pointed to an article on American Thinker about the problems with compact fluorescent bulbs, and also proposed a spoof of the "got milk" ad campaign to highlight the issue of mercury in CFLs. Now, American Thinker has been kind enough to pick up the graphic and put it on their homepage. My thanks to AT for their interest....
American Thinker has the story . Perhaps we should start an ad campaign...Got Mercury? Feel free to pass the above image along, if you're so inclined. UPDATE: I wanted to add a link to the Wikipedia article on CFLs , which confirms the 5mg figure cited in the graphic I created, and which is referred to in the article I link to. Note that the Wikipedia article also claims that the overall output of mercury from a CFL should be less, given the theoretical reduction in emissions from coal-fired power...
This story is pretty nasty. You have to wonder (or perhaps the answer is obvious) whether the cloak of anonymity (or even semi-anonymity), combined with a level of remove from the impact of one's actions, leads people who normally wouldn't think of threatening or attempting to intimidate others into doing so online. Regardless of the cause, it's foul, and I hope those responsible end up prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. As with the now-infamous Deb Frisch, who inadvertently made herself...
... after failed abortion. It's hard to know where to begin with this one. While one must acknowledge how painful it would be, having made the decision to abort, to find that you're still pregnant, it is nonetheless utterly appalling that someone would even consider such a suit. Imagine for a moment that you are this woman's child. At 2 years old, she is currently too young to be able to read news coverage of her mother's suit. But does anyone really think she won't find out about this when she's...
No, I'm not talking music. Having grown up in Ypsilanti, MI, about a half-hour east of Detroit, a fixture of my youth was pop (called soda here on the east coast), and not just any pop, but Faygo, which is celebrating it's 100th anniversary . I remember enjoying many a bottle of Faygo in my youth, especially Red Pop (although a competing pop, Mello Yello, was a close second for pop-chugging contests). It's truly a mid-west and American classic. Faygo is one of many immigrant success stories from...
A bit off the beaten path, this post doesn't deal with politics or anything similar. Rather, I wanted to share a bit of a cautionary tale for those, like myself, who are either trying to lose, or in the process of losing, extra weight. Some years ago (around 1999-2000 or so), I felt that I had gotten a little beyond a reasonable weight, so I embarked on the Atkins diet at the encouragement of a co-worker (who later moved on to The Zone, and did very well on it), and lost around 30 pounds or so. I...
...hooking up, that is. At least according to an email sent out recently by the Harvard Dean of Freshman Activities , entitled "Hooking Up: Hot Hints For Making Your Harvard (or Future) Sex Life Great." Ignoring for the moment the stunning impropriety of a school administrator encouraging destructive sexual behavior (for those of you who've been living in a cave, "hooking up" makes one-night stands look like long-term relationships), as a college graduate myself, I don't seem to recall anyone around...
After a long battle with cancer, Doug Reilly, a colleague and co-author, has died. His wife shared the news with his many friends, colleagues, and fellow geeks via his blog , which she took over recently as his cancer progressed to the point where he could no longer do so himself. My thoughts and prayers go out to his wife, Jean, and their children Tim and Erin, and particularly to Doug, who was one of the bravest men I've known. He lived his life in the face of a rare form of cancer that he has...
This article describes how an off-label use of the medicine in the sleeping pill Ambien has allowed many patients supposedly in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) after injuries to their brains to speak, walk, and even carry on some more advanced physical activities like running and horseback riding. The article is a wonderful example of the sometimes accidental benefits of modern pharmaceutical medicine, and should also serve as a caution to those who attack the supposed "greed" of the pharmaceutical...
Discover Magazine has a list of five lessons we should learn from the Avian Flu outbreak . Strangely enough, "don't buy into pseudo-scientific hype and doom-and-gloom stories" doesn't appear in the list. What's more, many of their "lessons" (#5 starts out "We are at the mercy of viral evolution.") could be construed as buying into the notion that we barely dodged a bullet in avoiding a major avian flu pandemic. The subhead of the article, "Work, Watch, Wait, Worry, and Wonder," only reinforces this...
It's long been clear that there are major, systemic problems in the academy. But the University of Texas professor described in this article truly takes the cake. Austin is no doubt one of the most liberal cities in America, and doubtless has more than it's fair share of both students and teachers who think that Bush is responsible for genocide against Muslims for going to war in Afghanistan and Iraq. So you'd probably expect that they'd be a little concerned when one of their own advocates killing...
Last month, I posted a link to a powerful article in the Washington Post that described the increasing trend towards aborting children with physical disabilities, such as Down's Syndrome. Today, the post publishes a chilling profile, entitled " One Woman's Choice ," of a woman who aborted her son after her doctor informed her that he would be born with Down's. While I would not for a minute underestimate the challenges and the pain that can come with raising a child with disabilities (even profound...
If you see a veteran today in your travels (or any day, for that matter), why not take a moment to say "thank you" for their service to our country?
Thanks to all of our veterans for the sacrifices they've made and continue to make to protect our freedoms and our lives.
Reading this story in the Toledo Blade about rioting in the wake of a planned (but not actually completed) rally by a neo-nazi group in Toledo, the question that comes to mind (apart from why idiot neo-nazi groups continue to pursue their warped agenda, for which there is probably no coherent answer) is why we, as a society, continue to excuse inexcusable behavior. The rioters didn't attack the few (apparently around 15) actual neo-nazi rallygoers who showed up. No, instead, they went on a rampage...
This is kind of scary: There are ominous signs that the Earth’s weather patterns have begun to change dramatically and that these changes may portend a drastic decline in food production– with serious political implications for just about every nation on Earth. The drop in food output could begin quite soon, perhaps only 10 years from now. The regions destined to feel its impact are the great wheat-producing lands of Canada and the U.S.S.R. in the North, along with a number of marginally self-sufficient...
OK, this ad campaign manages to combine breathtaking moral ignorance with appalling poor taste. To even remotely link a murderous thug like Che Guevara with the Prince of Peace strikes me as the height of blithering idiocy. I don't have any issues with someone promoting the notion that Jesus was a revolutionary in some sense, but the poster at the above site either reflects a profound lack of insight on the part of its creators, or an attempt at being "edgy" or "hip" that is grossly inappropriate...
Really important article for anyone considering supporting calls for "anti-gouging" legislation or policies: http://www.cei.org/gencon/019,04816.cfm This is a really good explanation of the role that prices play in times of scarcity, and why rising prices actually help, not harm, consumers. One really critical bit: When the product becomes scarce, however, additional information is added in the form of increased price that represents notice from the producer to the consumer that he may not be able...
According to this article , it would appear that the negative effects of our profligate consumption of fossil fuels has extended even to another planet. OK, so perhaps the article doesn't quite come out and say that, but it does note that "for three Mars summers in a row, deposits of frozen carbon dioxide near Mars' south pole have shrunk from the previous year's size, suggesting a climate change in progress". And since we all know that climate change is caused exclusively by man's burning of fossil...
It's not clear how yet, but it must be President Bush's fault that a Democrat Congressman from Louisiana used National Guard resources , including troops, trucks, and a helicopter, "to check on his property and rescue his personal belongings" at the height of the crisis caused by Hurricane Katrina. I mean, everything else about Katrina (including it's purported origins in "global warming") is Bush's fault, so why not the appalling behavior of a congressman from the opposition party? Kudos to ABC...
I want the government (the feds in particular, but in this, probably the states as well) to get out of the business of subsidizing risky behavior. I'm not going to hold my breath, however, given the way that the U.S. Congress is collectively falling all over itself to send as many taxpayer dollars to the gulf region for "rebuilding" (never mind how much of what's committed will actually be used for that purpose). So here's my prediction, though it pains me to say it: We're going to see more Katrinas...
Although these words probably won't be read by anyone currently dealing with the aftermath of hurricane Katrina, it needs to be said that our prayers are with all of the victims, as well as with those currently attempting to rescue those still in danger. What a horrific disaster. We also pray that those who have been taking advantage of the chaos to loot will come to their senses and show their better natures. Contribute via Catholic Charities ...make sure to check if your employer will match your...
...well, not so much. I don't normally read the NY Times, in part because of their ingrained leftward tilt, and in part because they're one of the many newspaper sites that require registration to read most of their stories, but this story (via Instapundit ) on the looting in the aftermath of Katrina had a quote from a NO public official that caught my eye: East Baton Rouge Parish officials agreed to send 20 buses with special weapons and tactics officers to help evacuate New Orleanians, but only...
Well, it's back. No, not the actual SARS virus. I'm talking about the latest hyped threat to mankind, the Avian Flu, aka Bird Flu. Not since SARS have we gotten so worked up about a disease with such a relatively small impact on humans. One need only do a quick internet search to recall the breathless predictions of impending doom that accompanied the SARS virus as it attacked around the world. Only trouble was...it turned out to be a dud, relatively speaking. Without diminishing the sad loss of...
So after a long hiatus, and a switch to a newer version of the blogging software I use, Duthie on... is back. Still have a little tweaking to do, but I'll be posting more frequently again soon.
UPDATE: Tweaking's pretty much done. Looks like I've managed to get the URL back to what it was before the downtime (though I'll have to check the search engines and see if any of the links work from there), and make the blog viewable from outside. Now it's time for some more content.
UN Peacekeepers sexually abusing young girls in the Congo, some as young as 13.
Between this and the oil-for-food scandal, I'm wondering why no one other than Norm Coleman is calling for Kofi Annan to resign. He's been singularly ineffective in preventing suffering around the world, and has clearly presided over myriad abuses by UN functionaries and peacekeepers. Time to go, Kofi...
An excellent, if harsh (but justifiably so) rejoinder to some inappropriate humor.
[via InstaPundit]
Merry Christmas, and a healthy and happy New Year to all 3 of my readers. :-)
May all your holiday wishes come true.
And a special wish for all the members of the armed services who must be away from their friends and families: May you receive special blessings this Christmas season, and return home safely, and soon.
As I've written about before , I have been more and more aware of just how much of our consumer goods are manufactured in China, which is problematic for a number of reasons, not the least of which being the fact that the Chinese government uses political prisoners for forced labor, and then ships the resulting products to the United States. One area in particular that I've been quite insistent about avoiding Chinese goods is in Christmas decorations. Given the persecution suffered by Christians...
Those of you who know me, know I'm a big fan of video games. I have mixed feelings about certain genres, such as first-person shooters, and there are some games that I think are simply beyond the pale. A good example of this kind of game is the Grand Theft Auto series, in which your goal in the game is to carjack, rob, rape, and murder. Another is a game series in which you play a professional assassin. Ick. In a furtherance of the trend towards pushing the envelope ever further, a Scottish game...
The Instapundit (Glenn Reynolds) has the some comments about a post by NRO's Jonah Goldberg on the topic of TV and abortion, in which Jonah makes the observation that Hollywood seems to portray the decision to keep or abort a baby as having the power to make the difference between whether the child is, in fact, a child, worthy of caring for and reading to in utero, etc., or merely a clump of cells to be discarded. In response to Jonah's points, Instupundit makes the following analogy: I realize I...
4,435 Americans died in the Revolutionary War [1] . 116,516 Americans died in WW I. 405,399 Americans died in WW II. 36,576 Americans died in the Korean War. 58,200 Americans died in the Vietnam War. 382 Americans died in the Persian Gulf War. 500 + Americans have died in Operation Iraqi Freedom. The total number of casualties for these and other major US conflicts is approximately 639,997 . May they rest in peace. But now, given the unhappy anniversary we mark today, consider another statistic:...
For anyone who cares, my apologies for the recent downtime. The connection servicing my servers has been experiencing some intermittent problems, and naturally to fix them, the local phone company has needed to take the line completely out of service for hours at a time. I’m hoping that the problem is fixed (or will be soon), but if you can’t reach the site, that’s probably why. Sorry for any inconvenience....
Yes, it’s the very latest in global warming hysteria… According to this article from the BBC web site, a “scientific study” published in the journal Nature predicts that “a quarter of animals and plants living on the land could be forced into oblivion,” among other dire predictions. The culprit? Why mankind’s thoughtless use of fossil fuels that produce greenhouse gases, of course. Before you park your SUV for good, however, you might want to note the following...
Thank goodness they didn’t have those toy crane machines when I was a kid, or this could’ve been me (hey, I never said I wasn't stupid).
[link via The Corner]
Decided to volunteer to be a Guinea Pig for Scott's newest version of .Text. The upgrade went relatively smoothly, with the exception of a couple of hitches with the database scripts. I've added my comments on the upgrade to Scott's .Text Wiki, so hopefully once he releases the upgrade the experience will be smoother.
For those who care about techie stuff (or just those looking for more good conservative discussions/info), there's another blog site running on the .Text engine that runs my blog, called weblogs.therightsociety.com . They've also got forums on the site as well, for more interactive discussions. Take a look....
May you all have a Merry Christmas, and a healthy, happy New Year!
Please keep our soldiers who are in harm's way and separated from their families especially in your thoughts and prayers during the holidays. They are doing a great service for our country, and they are deserving of our thanks and gratitude.
Thoughts brought on by a combination of the recent ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit against the RIAA , and by a Land Rover Commercial... One of the things that you'll commonly hear in any discussion of the issue of the illegal downloading of music from the Internet is the excuse that it's OK because the record companies are "ripping us off". Well, I'll start out by saying that I don't buy this argument for a second. I think it's a cop-out rationalization for stealing, nothing...