tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-81884784154704630622012-01-19T19:40:01.455-06:00Yesterday's solutions to today's problems, tomorrow!D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.comBlogger3001100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-5318566098584871002012-01-19T18:11:00.004-06:002012-01-19T19:40:01.464-06:00

You would think that having a tailor replace some blazer buttons and hem a pair of trousers wouldn't require arguing with the tailor, but you'd be wrong.As part of a recent and long overdue clothes buying spree, I bough a new blue blazer and a pair of gray flannel trousers. I have a set of blazer buttons I wanted taken off my old blazer and put on the new one. But the new blazer has three buttons

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-31508545260803550532012-01-16T19:32:00.005-06:002012-01-16T19:49:11.367-06:00

I won't go so far as to say I've abandoned this blog entirely, but a cursory perusal of post dates should suffice to demonstrate that it's no longer the passion it once was. Having participated as a blog commenter, as a member of several group blogs, most of which ultimately ended because of technical catastrophes (but one of which, still flourishing, I was summarily fired from before I so much

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-12037150126794584772011-12-18T22:58:00.004-06:002011-12-18T23:10:03.681-06:00

And just in time for Christmas, too! Dictator Kim Jong "I'm So Ronery" Il is, if there's a just God, already roasting in Hell, dead at 69 and not one moment too soon.The Associated Press reports:Kim Jong Il inherited power after his father, revered North Korean founder Kim Il Sung, died in 1994. He had been groomed for 20 years to lead the communist nation founded by his guerrilla

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-50710059990672349292011-12-02T17:07:00.001-06:002011-12-02T17:09:50.789-06:00

My daily driver is a 2005 Honda Accord. The driver's side low beam headlight was out. I checked the fuse, no such luck. Went to the auto parts store and bought a new bulb. Came home, pulled out the owner's manual and found the section about changing said bulb. Turns out you must turn the front wheels as far left as possible so that you can (1) remove two plastic rivets that hold the fender's

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-49640932241793090842011-05-11T08:30:00.009-05:002011-05-11T13:52:25.970-05:00

John D. Hannah, known in various online libertarian circles as JsubD, died several days ago. He was fifty-five years old. A retired Navy Master Chief Petty Officer and a widower who years later still mourned the death of his wife, John lived in the Detroit area and was reportedly homeless and living in shelters the last few months of his life. He would, according to one shelter operator, walk

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-46260145520863491082009-12-31T20:00:00.010-06:002009-12-31T23:52:17.031-06:00

2000 (UN International Year for Declaring Peace Is Better Than War) – Stunned by the near collapse of civilization caused by the Y2K disaster, the dot.com bubble bursts, as millions of investors lose billions of dollars in what turn out to be essentially worthless assets. Fortunately, however, this sobering experience teaches both personal investors and the financial community a lasting lesson

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-62359011502131372742008-09-18T11:29:00.001-05:002008-09-18T11:31:11.391-05:00

My statement back during the time of Katrina, which was a rather risky political statement: why do the people of Arizona have to pay for me to take my risk... less people will be exposed to danger if you don't subsidize risky behavior... I think it's a very serious mistake to think that central economic planning and forcibly transferring wealth from people who don't take risks to people who take

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-88494756572430498572008-09-13T16:30:00.001-05:002008-09-13T16:30:56.212-05:00

The whole point of certified public accountancy is the notion that a business cannot be expected or trusted to perform an objective accounting of its performance, at least not sufficiently free of the risk of conflict of interests to satisfy current or potential investors or creditors. The hallmark of a just judiciary is disinterested objectivity. People trust the compliance certification

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-55465605777214971592008-09-11T12:46:00.002-05:002008-09-11T12:48:11.059-05:00

I have told this story before, but I was in the Pentagon at the time of the attack. As it happens, I was far enough away from the site of the crash that I couldn't say for sure that I actually heard or felt anything at the moment of impact. A few minutes earlier, although there wasn't a television set or radio handy, rumors of the attack at the World Trade Center were already circulating

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-276757150185710382008-09-10T09:35:00.003-05:002008-09-10T09:48:58.273-05:00

Your children are not your property. They’re not mine, either, thank Gawd, and just as important, they’re not the state’s property, either. One of the problems of framing political theory in terms of fundamental or natural property rights (the naturalist fallacy aside) is that once we begin thinking of a person as having property rights in himself, it’s a small leap to thinking that one person

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-32713375564394746162008-09-05T12:44:00.001-05:002008-09-05T13:00:12.990-05:00

I’m very pleased to report here that Suzanne Scholte, a friend, fellow William & Mary graduate and the wife of my college roommate, has been chosen as the ninth winner of the biennial Seoul Peace Prize. As the linked article notes, several former winners have subsequently been selected to receive the Nobel Peace Prize as well. My heartfelt congratulations to Suzanne and to her family.

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-415176960547782852008-09-05T10:22:00.003-05:002008-09-05T11:45:26.016-05:00

Based on what little of the Republican National Infomercial I managed to catch (read: failed to avoid), their message is strong and clear: America needs a president whom only the Republicans can provide – a man who can make America once again safe, secure, prosperous and free after eight years of a disastrous and failed, um, Republican presidency. While not quite rising to the remorseful,

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-82509263552755670862008-09-02T11:12:00.006-05:002008-09-02T11:23:44.205-05:00

Todd “First Dude” Palin: Gov, Honey, I think it's best to just tell 'em. Sarah “The Gov” Palin: I'm Pregnant. Bristol Palin: Oh, God. Sarah Palin: But, uh ah, I'm not going to give it up for adoption and I'm certainly not going to get an abortion. After all, I'm only in my mid-forties and the First Dude and I are the perfect couple. Just look at how well you two turned out. Besides, if I play

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-80078965826796293242008-08-30T16:57:00.001-05:002008-08-30T17:01:28.802-05:00

Traitor is a slightly better than average suspense thriller with a significantly better than average performance by Don Cheadle in the lead role. Sadly, however, the same cannot be said of his co-star, Guy Pierce, whose American accent isn’t too awful until it is revealed through dialog along the way that he’s supposed to be a Southerner, too. Pierce is a good actor, but we might consider going

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-31527128468773200912008-08-30T11:15:00.002-05:002008-08-30T12:48:37.145-05:00

In Mr. Babka’s “Why I Don’t Want United Government,” reader Jeff Hebert makes some very interesting comments, including the following excerpt:I find it very surprising that anyone seriously concerned with libertarian issues would support a Republican President this time around. The Bush Administration has had a sustained, hard push over the last eight years to make the “Unitary Executive”

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-16759874973153314142008-08-30T09:14:00.003-05:002008-08-30T09:58:02.432-05:00

Old joke: Two Roman Catholic theologians, one a Jesuit and the other one a Dominican, are arguing about prayer and smoking. (Hey, I said it was an old joke. This was before smoking became a secular sin only slightly less heinous than child abuse.) So, anyway, the Jesuit says there’s nothing wrong with praying and smoking at the same time, while the Dominican is equally adamant that it’s

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-34940517758245126992008-08-29T10:10:00.000-05:002008-08-29T10:11:03.287-05:00

Okay, so it isn’t quite official yet, but major news outlets are reporting that McCain has picked Alaska Governor Sarah Palin to be his vice presidential running mate. I admit, between having an African American presidential candidate and a female vice-presidential candidate who isn’t the laughably inept Geraldine Ferarro, this race suddenly looks more interesting than the average

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-87909792115481080672008-08-25T11:46:00.000-05:002008-08-25T11:47:16.070-05:00

Mind you, I don't pay any credence to the rumors over presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, presumptive president, presumptive messiah and just plain presumptive Barack Obama's citizenship qualifications, but if by any stretch of the imagination it turned out after he won that he wasn't constitutionally a natural born citizen, shouldn't that mean the Republicans can run this guy in 2012?

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-77998214787894664702008-08-25T09:37:00.003-05:002008-08-25T15:19:44.690-05:00

Wait a minute! You mean I missed the Olympics? (Who won the prenatal gymnastics medal?) Dayum! And here I was so much looking forward to watching people of every gender, race, creed, color, sexual orientation and nationality vie against one another in a bogus spirit of brotherhood and good will! Oh, that’s right. I can get the same thing watching the Democratic National Convention, another

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-76051668721124187242008-08-24T11:17:00.005-05:002008-08-24T11:40:49.848-05:00

It is a cliché among many psychologists and economists that human beings behave self-interestedly. Moreover, since Adam Smith’s somewhat theological, somewhat anthropomorphic “invisible hand” metaphor, it has been almost an article of faith within the latter discipline that the collective, societal result of individual self-interested behavior is ironically salubrious. It is a faith to which I

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-40740388664828617682008-08-23T09:42:00.001-05:002008-08-23T09:44:16.566-05:00

Two or three semi-random thoughts on Obama’s selection of Joe Biden. First, my son’s intelligence (read: information, not I.Q.) from working this summer on a “Blue Dog” Democrat’s re-election campaign turned out to be entirely accurate. (Note to Self: Remember to listen to son occasionally in the future.) Second, given Biden’s solidly liberal record, Obama has determined that he does not need

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-84442970908674037892008-08-22T21:20:00.000-05:002008-08-22T21:25:38.152-05:00

Constant Viewer had never seen or at least never noticed Anna Faris before today, and a quick review of her career to date makes it pretty clear why not. CV isn’t exactly part of the target audience for the Scary Movie franchise, after all, and he simply didn’t notice or remember her from Lost In Translation. Apparently, however, she has a loyal and growing fan base, so CV was a bit

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-10559487402415318732008-08-22T09:30:00.005-05:002008-08-22T09:49:30.120-05:00

There shouldn’t be a minimum legal drinking age, although I probably wouldn’t mind too much if it were set at, oh, say, six. If Mothers Against Drunk Driving and the rest of the Uber-Nannies out there want to keep pre-schoolers from bellying up to the bar, well, okay. After all, it’s for the children.Syndicated columnist and (inexplicably) frequent reason contributor, Steve Chapman offers

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-17275385045769817592008-08-20T13:56:00.000-05:002008-08-20T13:58:09.578-05:00

Leda Smith heard someone breaking into her home, so she found the revolver kept by her bed, confronted the burglar and forced him at gunpoint to call 911. Then she and the seventeen year old intruder waited until the state police arrived to take him away.Leda Smith is eighty-five years old.

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-21572363210298774682008-08-07T18:51:00.001-05:002008-08-07T19:27:51.235-05:00

Back in January, I urged readers to check out the blog of Canadian journalist Ezra Levant. Levant was subjected to a year-long investigation by the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission following a complaint by the Edmonton Council of Muslim Communities over his publication in the Western Standard of the Danish Muhammad cartoons that had so many other publishers cringing in fear. I'm

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-38802101634536436622008-08-07T11:10:00.000-05:002008-08-07T11:11:20.683-05:00

Soon, you'll be just a mouse click away from the answer!I have very conflicted feelings about this sort of thing. Feelings, I might point out, that are not widely shared by my fellow libertarians, the majority of whom I believe fail to appreciate the value in principle of a rigorous and easily accessible civil litigation system.Still, there is no denying that the system as it is currently

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-12131267931966500502008-08-05T06:56:00.001-05:002008-08-05T06:57:53.579-05:00

One of the things that distinguishes intellectual property from the more intuitively obvious tangible variety is that the very notion of intellectual property requires a justification in the sense that tangible property almost never does. Utopians of one variety or another have tried, almost always with disastrous consequences, to abolish the institution of private property, but as far as I

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-20391676699424589212008-08-03T20:54:00.001-05:002008-08-03T20:56:13.122-05:00

Not so very long ago a movie had to gross $100 million to be considered a bona fide summer blockbuster. Today, however, $200 million is the new $100 million and a movie that grosses a mere tenth of a billion doesn’t even hit the top 400 all-time domestic grossing movies. That’s not adjusting for inflation, by the way. Gone With The Wind grossed a mere $198 million dollars, but, hey, they were

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-43639396038833344912008-08-02T09:28:00.002-05:002008-08-02T09:48:57.546-05:00

The Mummy: Curse of the Dragon Emperor is not, rest assured, a French movie. In fact, it is in many respects an anti-French movie. It’s dumb and it knows it’s dumb. It may even be a little proud of how dumb it is as it revels in over-the-top action scenes and dazzling special effects. None of its characters have anything like an introspective or existential identity crisis or, for that matter,

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-1516427837425023052008-08-01T10:32:00.005-05:002008-08-01T14:16:51.357-05:00

So there Constant Viewer was, standing in front of one of those – gulp! – Art Houses looking for an excuse to eat popcorn. But first, a brief digression.Lewis Black does a comedy routine about candy corn. You know, the little yellow cones with the orange tips (or is it orange with yellow?) that you still see once in a while in candy dishes among the sort of people who have candy dishes in the

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-37145783140713579642008-07-28T18:28:00.002-05:002008-07-29T09:37:01.305-05:00

I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’m already in August Mode, a frame of mind common among Washingtonians, New Yorkers and other pretentious pseudo-intellectuals of my ilk during which time unless, let's say, Obama is caught in fishnet stockings chasing a sumo wrestler or McCain is discovered to actually have spent the Viet Nam war in Canada making macramé bongs while his twin brother

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-60025259116839048472008-07-20T12:23:00.006-05:002008-07-20T13:15:14.039-05:00

Constant Viewer is sometimes asked why, since he isn’t paid to do so, he occasionally goes to movies knowing well in advance that they are going to defy the laws of physics and simultaneously suck and blow. Collaterally, CV is asked if there are any such movies so far beneath his contempt that even he won’t stoop to go seeing them. Good questions. Glad you asked.In the first place, CV has not

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-1676949225172199862008-07-18T03:39:00.003-05:002008-07-18T12:23:20.702-05:00

Constant Viewer caught the 12:01 showing of The Dark Knight in a theater nearly filled with some five or six hundred fellow dark knight owls, CV’s 13 year old son included. The theater almost certainly would have been filled but for a second showing some 20 minutes later. CV isn’t venturing any guesses about opening records, especially if you adjust for inflation, but The Dark Knight is a lock

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-15828449624909711012008-07-11T15:32:00.000-05:002008-07-11T15:33:29.685-05:00

Constant Viewer would think lines like “I’m not a baby, I’m a tumor” would be a whole lot funnier if it weren’t for the fact that countless young women have been taught to treat their unborn children exactly in that manner. Still, in the context of the Troll Market in Hellboy II: The Golden Army it’s a pretty clever line. It’s a pretty clever movie, for that matter, even if director Guillermo

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-2145499242273773172008-07-10T12:00:00.000-05:002008-07-10T12:01:09.853-05:00

With a tip of the virtual mortarboard to reason’s Nick Gillespie, we find an interesting report from Andy Guess in Inside Higher Ed of a study by J. Scott Armstrong and Malcolm Wright with the remarkable conclusion that all scholarly papers and what they laughingly call 'studies' and 'research' in all academic disciplines are entirely made up – plucked from out of the old nether orifices, as it

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-15689652253778726112008-07-09T11:29:00.003-05:002008-07-09T12:37:54.900-05:00

When pondering whether politicians are being disingenuous or really are as stupid as they appear, remember that these two are not mutually exclusive. So when Dallas County commissioners squabble over whether the phrase “black hole” includes racist overtones and requires an apology, the mind reels at trying to discern whether this is a case of race bating on the part of the white commissioner,

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-87058146599217306642008-07-08T11:41:00.001-05:002008-07-08T11:44:01.034-05:00

Mongol probably isn’t coming to a theater near you or, if it is or already has, it probably isn’t the sort of movie you’re likely to go see unless you’re already the sort of art house film buff who eschews Hollywood flicks and regularly uses words like "eschew."But Constant Viewer saw it yesterday and, as Mongolian language movies go, CV would give it a thumbs up (if CV had opposable thumbs like

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-73081440978279109992008-07-05T11:02:00.003-05:002008-07-05T11:05:14.250-05:00

Diamonds are scarce like every other economic good. Their scarcity, however, is vastly exaggerated by those in the business of marketing them as a luxury. If the cure for cancer were discovered tomorrow, however, and if it somehow required natural, i.e., not man-made diamonds, the demand for diamonds would skyrocket and they would legitimately command an even higher price.Food, by contrast, is

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-71200761570066277892008-07-04T13:18:00.008-05:002008-07-04T14:23:02.408-05:00

No 'tis not so deep as a well, nor so wide as a church door. But 'tis enough. 'Twill serve. -- Mercutio, Romeo and Juliet, Act III, Scene 1.Today, as my little way of celebrating Independence Day and my impending 57th birthday two days from now, I marched bravely (well, semi-bravely) into a Claire’s at the local mall and paid a young woman $20 to pierce my left ear. This admittedly trivial bit

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-71400402833857291142008-07-03T23:35:00.002-05:002008-07-03T23:45:19.485-05:00

The first thing that must be said about Hancock is that, its misleading trailer aside, this is not a comedy but a serious summer superhero action movie. Okay, so the phrase “summer superhero action movie” probably shouldn’t ever be qualified by “serious.” Still, Constant Viewer thought he’d be seeing something of a send-up of the genre; the superhero equivalent of Last Action Hero (a much

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-87186578162082742822008-07-02T11:06:00.002-05:002008-07-02T19:40:25.402-05:00

I strongly encourage you to read Christopher Hitchens' first-hand account of the experience of waterboarding in Vanity Fair.When news first broke that U.S. personnel were using this "enhanced interrogation technique," the ensuing discussions broke into two separate questions: (1) are such techniques torture and (2) regardless, are such techniques ever morally justified.Much to the dismay of my

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-92078395435602799402008-06-28T12:22:00.001-05:002008-06-28T12:28:49.343-05:00

Wanted relies on so many dubious premises to advance its plot that it’s a good think it moves so quickly you never have time to think about it. Between Angelina Jolie showcasing her ink covered flesh in various stages of dishabille and bullets whizzing in various stages of stop action camera work through human skulls, it's possible, if unlikely, that the average viewer might not think to himself

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-62715648100516974672008-06-27T14:12:00.003-05:002008-06-28T13:41:37.871-05:00

Constant Viewer wishes he could share in the general enthusiasm over WALL-E. Sure, the animation is of the highest quality, the characters are sympathetic, the story is interesting and the film overall is beautifully executed, and yet... yet ...Herewith the basic story: We trashed Earth so badly 700 years ago that we simply built a humongous spaceship to take at least some folks off on what was

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-71385422394112212252008-06-26T12:53:00.003-05:002008-06-26T13:06:44.130-05:00

If you are an able bodied male resident of the U.S. between the ages of 17 and 45, are either a citizen or have declared an intention to become a citizen and are not already a member of the Armed Services (including the Reserves and the National Guard), Title 10 U.S.C. § 311 says you are, whether you know it or not, a member of the “unorganized militia.” The unorganized militia doesn’t include

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-72460653993659527112008-06-24T11:29:00.004-05:002008-06-24T12:17:22.876-05:00

The Atlantic recently posted a fascinating article by John Staddon entitled “Distracting Miss Daisy.” Staddon, who grew up in Great Britain, argues that the seemingly ubiquitous presence of stop signs and speed limits on U.S. roads actually distracts drivers’ attention, conditions them into relying more on compliance than concentrating on actual road conditions and leads, as a result, to more

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-15946511167832527592008-06-23T09:22:00.000-05:002008-06-23T09:23:45.349-05:00

It is said of a man that you cannot know how far he has come unless you know where he began. Perhaps on the occasion of George Carlin’s death this might be said as well about American comedy in the last half century and so also of America, itself.Carlin’s 1972 Class Clown was the first comedy album I ever bought. It was dedicated “to Leonard Schneider for taking all the risks." But like

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-25907550772384850182008-06-21T11:14:00.003-05:002008-06-21T11:45:18.276-05:00

Say what you will about the Cold War, it was fertile soil for entertainment ranging from the literary spy novels of John le Carré to the merely literate but vastly more popular spy novels of Ian Fleming. Back when Sean Connery wasn’t just the best James Bond but the only James Bond and Constant Viewer was trying to trick out a cheap attaché case with concealed “throwing knife” letter openers,

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-44620639628328972482008-06-16T13:48:00.002-05:002008-06-16T21:08:37.393-05:00

Question: Can Constant Viewer resist writing “It isn’t easy being green” in a review of The Incredible Hulk? Answer: No, but at least we got it out of the way early.The Incredible Hulk is a vastly better movie than the incredibly bad Hulk , Hollywood’s attempt a mere five years ago to bring Marvel’s not so Jolly Green Giant (There! Got rid of another one!) to the big screen. Put it this way: no

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-35012080584683350632008-06-15T11:56:00.000-05:002008-06-15T11:57:18.020-05:00

Today's (UK) TimesOnline reports "Scientists find bugs that eat waste and excrete petrol." The scientists in question are the Silicon Valley variety and the bugs in question are the genetically engineered variety. The report goes on:Unbelievably, this is not science fiction. Mr Pal holds up a small beaker of bug excretion that could, theoretically, be poured into the tank of the giant Lexus

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-55607436914263647242008-06-15T10:06:00.004-05:002008-06-15T13:11:55.537-05:00

Some of the more vociferous recent discussion over at Positive Liberty – by which I mean at the blog, not in my threads where I largely concern myself with talking pandas and such – surrounds what counts as marriage and what, therefore, counts as an argument for or against marriages of any sort and marriages of every sort. As always, I take a vaguely Wittgensteinian approach to these sorts of

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-38411961087992869912008-06-14T12:34:00.002-05:002008-06-14T12:35:18.806-05:00

If you’ve got kids, you’ve probably already seen Kung Fu Panda, but if you haven’t – seen it, that is; Constant Viewer doesn’t care if you have kids -- you could do a lot worse at the bijou this weekend. Its got a star studded voice cast (CV has a hard time thinking of Jack Black as a star, but there it is), humor and pathos (Black strikes CV as a much more sympathetic character as a panda),

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-92111370197282955872008-06-13T17:09:00.008-05:002008-06-13T19:02:10.254-05:00

Let this much be said at the outset. In the heretofore consistently downhill career of M. Night Shyamalan, it has finally proven beyond even his uncanny knack for making a worse movie every time out when the last movie in question happens to be Lady in the Water.Of course, you might be saying to yourself right now that Constant Viewer isn’t being fair here. Lady in the Water barely even qualifies

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-44041766032575958692008-06-11T11:21:00.015-05:002008-06-11T17:20:47.034-05:00

At the risk (more like the certainty, actually) of embarrassing him, I write today on the occasion of my older son’s twenty-first birthday. On June 11, 1987 his mother and I lived in Leesburg, Virginia but, for what now seem obscure reasons, the obstetrics practice my wife was using was at Alexandria Hospital, nearly 50 miles away. My wife, an impatient woman who in her ninth month had taken to

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-68577080102220355092008-06-08T12:17:00.015-05:002008-06-08T17:59:14.413-05:00

Today’s (UK) Independent Online runs a story entitled "Threat of world Aids pandemic among heterosexuals is over, report admits." While noting that the now over 25 year old disease continues to kill “more than all wars and conflicts,” the far more newsworthy (in the sense of new and unusual) part of the story is as follows:In the first official admission that the universal prevention strategy

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-22815105854850874812008-06-07T13:00:00.002-05:002008-06-07T13:09:00.285-05:00

So, anyway, reads the headline in today's Washington Post coverage.Move a comma and replace one word, however, and they could just as informatively written:"Clinton to Privately Withdraw Support, Obama"

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-70776422334968726952008-06-04T10:04:00.000-05:002008-06-04T10:06:48.423-05:00

Even ignoring the fact that John McCain is barking dog mad, I probably owe my support to Barack Obama. Obama did, after all, manage to wrest the Democratic nomination from its presumptive heiress, a woman who has been working tirelessly to return to the White House even while her husband was facing an eviction notice. I am on record (somewhere) that I’d sooner vote for Osama Bin Laden for

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-88377956464725672222008-06-01T22:53:00.000-05:002008-06-01T22:55:10.968-05:00

NEWSWEEK's Daniel Stone recently interviewed Ron Paul, who has dropped off the event horizon lately. Well, it's understandable, what with all the worldwide hoopla over the Libertarian Party's nomination of Bob Barr and, let's face it, the far more entertaining mini-series of the Democratic Party's determination to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory. (Speaking of which, let me take this

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-43565352630498336362008-06-01T22:46:00.001-05:002008-06-01T22:51:45.134-05:00

I don’t know about the ‘Arab Street,’ but according to Azadeh Moaveni, the ‘Iranian Bus’ thinks a U.S. Invasion might not be such a bad thing. Of course, the woman on the bus doesn't really mean it, but what U.S. citizen these days hasn’t wistfully imagined some Deus Ex Machina could magically cure us of our incompetent leadership? (As opposed, let’s be clear, to merely replacing it with new

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-13129400114780110152008-05-29T15:34:00.001-05:002008-05-29T15:34:59.522-05:00

You think you have a hard time getting a plumber when you need one? Pity the poor astronauts awaiting a spare part to fix the toilet on the international space station. "Okay, that'll be $37.50 for the pump, $150 labor and $2,000,000 for the service call." (I admit it. I don't know how much each flight of the the space shuttle Discovery actually costs and just pulled a figure from my... well,

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-66882489057981609672008-05-29T15:31:00.001-05:002008-05-29T15:32:54.886-05:00

From the home office at the Crawfish Ranch, the Top Ten surprises in Scott McClellan's new White House exposé, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, are:10. Cabinet meetings scheduled in president’s calendar as “keggers” 9. George Stephanopoulos’s secret stash of hair grooming products left behind podium includes "industrial strength mousse" 8.

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-15541614343162658452008-05-23T14:44:00.003-05:002008-05-23T18:01:37.647-05:00

My preferred on-the-spot reporter would have been Triumph the Insult Comic or, failing that, Yakov Smirnoff (“In former Soviet Union, people actually give rat’s ass about Libertarian Party!”) Still, Reason’s David Weigel is doing a workmanlike job covering the 2008 Libertarian Convention, and you might want to check out Reason’s coverage if you, unlike me, care. Picking the next Libertarian

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-27463580501072483742008-05-22T17:18:00.001-05:002008-05-22T17:21:12.142-05:00

Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull is the first movie of 2008 Constant Viewer intends to go back and see again. We are, just in case you haven’t noticed, in a period in the movies where the woolly mammoths of yesteryear are making one last charge before, well, you know about woolly mammoths, don’t you?. We saw it with Bruce Willis and (twice, no less) with Sylvester Stallone and

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-48137451304116552552008-05-19T11:16:00.004-05:002008-05-19T11:45:01.664-05:00

The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian continues C.S. Lewis’s well known series of Christian apologetics thinly veiled as children’s literature and it does so neither better nor worse than The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, which Constant Viewer also didn't like. Constant Viewer finds it difficult to be objective about the merits of these films because he frankly loathed the books when he (

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-65827810408867852162008-05-19T08:04:00.004-05:002008-05-19T09:26:15.474-05:00

What I am about to tell you is controlled unclassified information enhanced with specified dissemination:1. George W. Bush is an idiot.2. As controlled unclassified information goes, #1 isn't much of a secret. Still, try not to let it slip out beyond, oh, say, our solar system lest galactic embarrassment ensue.3. "Controlled unclassified information enhanced with specified dissemination"

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-48786682093644399222008-05-17T19:14:00.006-05:002008-05-17T19:46:57.179-05:00

And speaking of promising political careers, I give you 13 year old Ralph Hardy who ordered a duplicate credit card on his father's account and used it for a $30,000 spree with friends that ended in a Texas hotel room with $1,000 hookers playing Halo on XBox.What separates Ralph and his friends from your run-of-the-mill juvenile thieves, you ask? When the prostitutes balked because he and his

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-90233027237012358132008-05-17T19:08:00.000-05:002008-05-17T19:10:04.238-05:00

Bravo to Chardon Township, Ohio for turning down $10,000 in disaster aid from FEMA following a March snowstorm. Township Trustee Chuck Strazinsky explained it was a typical snowstorm unworthy of federal aid and that the money should be reserved for true emergencies, whereas Township Trustee Steve Borowski disagreed, saying help from the federal government shouldn't be turned down. Alas, Mr.

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-14458857049203637002008-05-15T11:36:00.006-05:002008-05-15T13:35:51.528-05:00

No, not really. For now, just file under Stories That Wouldn't Surprise Us:WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Today in a surprise announcement just hours before the Democratic National Convention is scheduled to begin, former President William Jefferson Clinton declared his total and enthusiastic support for Barack Obama to become the Democratic Party nominee for president, effectively becoming the last

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-43373593908779613792008-05-13T13:39:00.004-05:002008-05-14T18:05:07.579-05:00

I'm still waiting to hear a valid negative (against) a kid accepting a scholarship, free education, at an early point in his life. – Howard Avery, whose 8th grade son Michael committed to the University of Kentucky’s basketball program this month.The obvious “valid negative” here, Mr. Avery, is that neither you nor your son knows what the fair market price of his talents really are. You might,

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-53540892237435714192008-02-12T14:39:00.001-06:002008-02-14T08:56:35.812-06:00

I’ve said before that the values of the College are not for sale. Neither are ours. – College of William & Mary former president Gene R. NicholI rarely post specific biographical information on the internet, but I will make an exception today and note that I am one of the less distinguished graduates of the College of William & Mary in Virginia. I was therefore a recipient this morning of a

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-22713798339740036822007-11-16T11:24:00.000-06:002007-11-16T11:36:47.593-06:00

Sigh....In yet another example of ego triumphing over prudence, I have accepted a kind invitation from Jason Kuznicki to join him and his colleagues over at Positive Liberty. Accordingly, I expect to post one or two pieces a week there until either (1) I find even that schedule too demanding or (2) more likely, my newfound colleagues decide to un-invite me.In any case, gluttons for punishment my

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-56425644777245117282007-10-11T09:38:00.000-05:002007-10-11T09:42:30.039-05:00

“That’s not writing, that’s just typing.” Truman Capote (on Jack Kerouac) Thanks to readers who took notice of my continued absence and inquired as to my health. All is well, as far as that goes. The simple fact is, however, that the blog was eating up an enormous amount of my time, a fact I didn’t fully appreciate until I took a break this August. Since going cold turkey from the blogosphere,

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-45999561059349292342007-07-26T07:21:00.001-05:002007-07-26T08:01:06.336-05:00

Throughout most of August, I shall either be on the road or on the beach, though in neither case at all like Jack Kerouac's nor, I pray, Nevil Shute's characters. Neither beach vacations nor road trips lend themselves to blogging, but little goes on in August, anyway, as politicians and journalists alike pay homage to one of the three great French contributions to Western civilization; namely,

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-71626886949716542352007-07-23T09:28:00.000-05:002007-07-23T10:30:15.845-05:00

Planning a family road trip from Delaware to Texas this August, my wife and I were researching various cities and other attractions along the way we might want to check out with the kids. We've never been to Little Rock, Arkansas, for example, but then we read on one web sit that among the Top Ten things to see there was Murry's Dinner Theater (located at the corner of Asher and University in

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-46116483626894476092007-07-21T08:47:00.000-05:002007-07-21T10:18:41.097-05:00

J.K Rowling has again cast her Novelus Blockbusterus spell on most of the English speaking, or at least the English reading world with the release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. There probably follows a two to three day plummet in the demand for electricity, as televisions and game systems are temporarily abandoned for the unpracticed pleasures of reading. Woe be it, also, to the

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-54948329504603933442007-07-20T11:26:00.000-05:002007-07-20T12:40:43.790-05:00

Let's take a break from consideration of Emperor George's sweeping new antepenultimate claim of Executive Privilege. (The penultimate claim will be that even if Bush were impeached and convicted, actual ouster from the White House would require executive branch personnel whom, as a matter of Executive Privilege, the President can order to disregard the impeachment. The ultimate claim will be

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-44640769038999340382007-07-20T10:44:00.000-05:002007-07-20T11:06:19.069-05:00

Hat tip to Arts & Letters Daily, Slate's Bonnie Goldstein publishes an 11 page Richard Nixon memorandum (pdf) to H.R. Haldeman (remember him?) addressing the need to get the public to know and appreciate the kinder, gentler Nixon. You know, the guy who made telephone calls "to people when they are sick, even though they no longer mean anything to anybody," and the guy who treated subordinates "

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-33296631917451686492007-07-17T08:27:00.001-05:002007-07-17T09:59:47.742-05:00

Today's online FOX Wall Street OpinionJournal includes a column by Georgetown Law professor Randy E. Barnett entitled Libertarians and the War. He is especially keen to make the point that Ron Paul's opposition to the Iraq War is not the 'official' libertarian position and that one can be, as many libertarians were and some still are, supportive of the war without grave violation to what they

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-9063050870350164062007-07-16T08:29:00.000-05:002007-07-16T09:40:34.379-05:00

Via memeorandum, I happened upon a Boston Herold column by Margery Eagan that articulates something telling about Hillary Clinton. When her husband first ran for president and suggested the nation would get, in effect, a "two-fer" if he was elected, reaction was swiftly and strongly negative. While Hillary does not, of course, use the phrase now, there is no doubt that but for her husband she

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-50244284228374694192007-07-15T09:41:00.001-05:002007-07-15T11:13:10.087-05:00

NeoCon extraordinaire and Editor-über-alles of the Weekly Standard, William Kristol whirls like a dervish in today's Washington Post to gin up support for his claim that "George W. Bush's presidency will probably be a successful one." Those who neither debated in high school or college nor suffered the subsequent tortures of a legal education may be left agog at the brazen audacity of Kristol's

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-32134288897059944082007-07-14T06:43:00.000-05:002007-07-14T10:41:50.133-05:00

"Islamic Republic's intelligence agents allege rodents were carrying advanced Western spy gear."The picture isn't part of the story, but this is (so far) being reported as true. I can't make this stuff up, folks; but, yeah, I have a sneaking suspicion in this case that someone did.

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-80512324659242997752007-07-13T08:47:00.000-05:002007-07-13T09:49:37.438-05:00

Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix is not a good movie to take the kiddies to see. Whether it is a good movie, on the other hand, depends on one's criteria.Constant Viewer can't imagine many first-time viewers for this film -- that is, folks who somehow managed to avoid all four of the previous movie versions of J.K Rowling's fabulously successful books -- so CV won't bother setting the

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-1298084993455260952007-07-12T14:01:00.000-05:002007-07-12T14:15:19.141-05:00

... or at least to more widespread literacy. (Not to mention -- hold your britches! -- a 13th century case of recycling that made sense.)

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-80225537551159212932007-07-12T09:21:00.000-05:002007-07-12T13:53:04.912-05:00

Where's Jack Kevorkian when the nation really needs him? I sometimes think I'd rather see the 1st Amendment put out of its misery quickly than witness its lingering, painful death at the hands of contemporary politicians, regardless of their motives. In the case of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (McCain–Feingold), of course, the motive is entirely self-serving. "Bipartisan" is the

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-11905530079927063432007-07-11T22:27:00.000-05:002007-07-11T22:39:57.205-05:00

That's the mantra of every real estate agent I've ever encountered, their way of saying, in effect, that the price of real estate is a function of, well duh!, supply and demand. Pack millions of people into an island roughly 23 square miles in size like, oh, say, Manhattan and it's little wonder that supply and demand makes for a healthy seller's market. So it is that the New York Times reports

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-7857581759258481832007-07-11T09:38:00.000-05:002007-07-11T10:12:04.888-05:00

Today's New York Times is running a fairly scathing report of Administration attempts "to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations" during Dr. Richard H. Carmona's four year tenure as Surgeon General.According to the Times, those reports included such topics as embryonic stem cell research and "a landmark report on secondhand smoke [that] concluded

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-170638001230309612007-07-10T09:51:00.000-05:002007-07-10T10:34:28.265-05:00

The Hill reports today that the Pentagon is seeking "repeal of the department’s [seven year old] restriction on granting security clearances to ex-convicts, drug addicts and the mentally incompetent."Good.Lest the casual reader think the Pentagon has lost its wits entirely and seeks to share nuclear technology secrets with drug addled criminal psychopaths, the reality here is that lower level

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-76854574347074240182007-07-09T09:46:00.000-05:002007-07-09T10:40:01.050-05:00

Ho-hum.The predictable disease of stardom, whether of the Hollywood variety or among musicians, is egotism ranging from fragile narcissism to full blown monomania. Little wonder, then, that the Gore-Fest better known as Saturday's Live Earth concert was so much sound and fury punctuated by hot air. Or, as the (U.K.) Daily Mail reports, a foul-mouthed flop.Gore now qualifies, of course, as one of

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-53245032124738173462007-07-08T11:43:00.000-05:002007-07-08T18:37:01.874-05:00

Forty years ago, back when Americans enjoyed due process of law even if they were Muslim Americans, in fact, even if they were Black Muslim Americans, Muhammad Ali was convicted on June 20, 1967 in federal court for refusing induction into the United States armed forces. America was, after all, at war, defending itself from encroaching world-wide communist domination and, we were told, if the

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-37449629335233623682007-07-06T10:52:00.000-05:002007-07-06T12:56:22.792-05:00

Ellen Goodman, Pulitzer Prize winner and current resident of Brookline, Massachusetts (Estimated 2005 median house / condo value: $1,115,200. Estimated black population: 2.7%), has a race problem. Try as she might to understand Clarence Thomas as a man (and, truth be told, she doesn't try very hard), all she can see is a black man. Goodman opens her column gladdened "that [the Supreme Court]

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-40787875299142851272007-07-06T05:57:00.000-05:002007-07-06T09:19:43.066-05:00

F. Scott Fitzgerald famously claimed there are no second acts in American lives and spent the rest of his life proving it. Politicians, on the other hand, are occasionally capable of reanimation, horror movie style, after a dormant period long enough for the American memory, not our strongest faculty, to fade. Thus, once upon a time, we saw the “new Nixon” arise from the politically dead and

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-79697966657712613932007-07-05T11:20:00.000-05:002007-07-06T06:26:33.220-05:00

The price for American flags will rise in Minnesota when, as the (U.K.) TimesOnline reports, a new law goes into effect requiring "all US flags sold in the state to be of American manufacture. Violations of the law, which comes into force at the end of the year, will be punished by a $1,000 fine or 90 days in jail."The man behind the law, Democratic state congressman Tom Rukavina, reasons as

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-4378793521091445092007-07-04T10:10:00.000-05:002007-07-04T15:17:59.775-05:00

Some twenty-five years ago my wife and I and a couple dozen friends, mostly from college, met every 4th of July down at the National Mall to make a day of the festivities. In those days glass bottles were prohibited but cans were permitted and one could still take coolers filled with beer (oh, and food) and stake out some territory by the Washington Monument for a perfect overhead view of the

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-49784960327877024952007-07-02T17:14:00.000-05:002007-07-03T22:05:20.449-05:00

The Washington Post reports that President Bush has commuted Lewis Libby's prison sentence. Here are the concluding paragraphs of the President's statement announcing the decision:I respect the jury's verdict. But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby's sentence that required him to spend thirty months in

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-53217110915574109102007-07-01T10:16:00.000-05:002007-07-01T10:52:01.209-05:00

Freeman Dyson is the sort of intellectual one must take seriously even when writing what may amount to little more than a review of his own book and, along the way, a tribute to microbiologist Carl Woese. Those of us who have not read The Sun, the Genome, and the Internet (and that would include me) might well find their appetite whetted by this New York Review of Books article from one of the

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-27045495703158873032007-06-30T23:46:00.000-05:002007-06-30T23:57:06.217-05:00

As the summer season begins, site hits have begun to slack off, indicating either that readers have better things to do during the summer than read blogs or that readers are wising up to me and finding better things to do than read this blog regardless of the season. I'm going with "either" for the time being and will do a bit of sluffing off, myself, in July and August, what with family

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-90163264862558731072007-06-30T19:09:00.000-05:002007-06-30T23:44:54.434-05:00

Nothing Constant Viewer says about Ratatouille will make any difference to you, Dear Reader, especially if you have children young enough that you look forward to any G Rated movie you think you might actually be able to suffer through, yourself. Rest assured, however, you won't suffer at all through Ratatouille -- you'll enjoy it as much as your kids will. If you don't have kids, go see it

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-65448461130984892062007-06-30T10:35:00.000-05:002007-06-30T18:58:44.518-05:00

Farfour is dead. In the final Hamas-affiliated Al Aqsa TV episode, the Mickey Mouse knockoff who preached Islamic domination was, wait for it... beaten to death by an Israeli Jew.This whole "beaten to death by Jews" idea for TV series finales could save Hollywood a whole lot of needless time and trouble. Just think, for example, how much easier it would have been to write the final episode of

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-21890274798747726422007-06-30T09:13:00.000-05:002007-06-30T09:52:44.496-05:00

With a hat tip to Lance over at A Second Hand Conjecture, it turns out that my little blog thingie here is "Rated R" according to a clever marketing ploy by an online dating site. The site explains, in my case:This rating was determined based on the presence of the following words: * hell (6x) * crack (4x) * cocaine (3x) * suicide (2x) * shoot (1x)So, what they're doing is crawling

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-29688085898094913482007-06-29T11:20:00.000-05:002007-06-29T11:30:52.683-05:00

Strange and perhaps even unprecedented doings at the Supreme Court, vacating an earlier order denying review and requesting new briefs from the parties in two Guantanamo Bay detainee cases. SCOTUSblog provides good commentary, but the fact is that there isn't enough public information to get a good sense of what the Court is up to. After his thoroughgoing defeat over immigration reform, there

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8188478415470463062.post-59496280227645817082007-06-29T08:30:00.000-05:002007-11-14T14:42:58.298-06:00

No, not really. Humans, after all, aren't entirely domesticated yet and cats, as it turns out, domesticated themselves. That's the thinking, anyway, as reported today in the Washington Post. The short version here, according to researchers from the National Cancer Institute and the University of Oxford, is that a particular species of wildcats (Felis sylvestris) started populating the outskirts

D.A. Ridgelyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12651553275002278237noreply@blogger.com4